Occasionally, I have to tune for hard-core jazz pianists. I have had good luck with several temperaments besides ET...

Moscow EBPT of 1895
EBVT3

I'm thinking that a Neidhardt would also make a good choice as well.

Does anyone have suggestions as to any other good choices for both solo piano and piano as part of an ensemble?

Thanks,
-Joe

For the few jazz pianists that I have worked for they are the most critical.
The way they use the fast beating intervals, if they did not progress smoothly they would be sure to notice.
I had not considered an unequal temperament.

not suiteable for modern jazz harmony in my opinion.

Too much "suggested harmonies" the skeleton have to be really clean

Hi Gene and Isaac,

It seems unanimous. ET only.

Thanks for the advice

-Joe

Not so fast! I have a number of non-classical musicians that have lost all interest in ET. Jazzers are among them.
Songwriters have also been drawn to the variety found in the WT's I sell. I use a Coleman temperament, which progresses evenly from a 10 cent third at C-E to a 17 cent third at F#-A#. Nothing very far off the norm, but there is a distinctly different feel to the piano, and many players respond to it in a very positive way.

For any pianist that rarely ventures beyond 4 sharps or flats, the WT's generate less dissonance throughout the music, so there is no reason to avoid them if you have a tech that knows what they are doing.
Regards,

Hello Ed,

Are you using the Coleman 10?

According to the Rollingball site: "...Coleman decided to make the Coleman 10 have 1/2 the deviation values of the Coleman 11 just in case someone wants an even milder temperament."

I checked the offsets at TuneLabWorld.com. They don't have them for the 10, but they do have them for the 11. So, I would just divide the offsets for the 11 by 2?

Also according to the Rollingball.com site, the 11 offsets A by 1.0 cents. Would this be unnecessary with the 10?

Thank you for the advice.

Thanks,
-Joe

I think the jazz folks are all about color, surprise, inspiration. The unequal temperaments I have heard are delightful. I'm very interested in them.

Forrest

Greetings,
I use the Coleman 11 more than almost anything, but you can use half values to get an even milder form. The 1 cent correction isn't really necessary, as most pianos move this much in the time it takes to get them tuned.
Regards,

Thank you !

Far too many things in jazz piano for a listener to be immersed in for a mild deviation in temperament to be noticed IMHO. All the serious jazz pianists I know like a nice crisp ET with some extra stretch and sparkle in the treble and the linear smooth shifts that ET produces...they are not puffing out out Clair de lune.

Greetings,
We have very different experiences. All of my customers have, by now, played on and listened to a variety of WT's. (I have them spread all over town, in and out of professional venues). Half the jazzers I deal with really like the feel of a mild WT, a fourth hate it, and a fourth really can't tell much difference. These are people that listen pretty closely.
ET has its own sound, but one cannot completely discern (grok) it until there is something different heard to compare. I had tuned strict ET professionally for years when I listened to my first WT. ET never sounded the same, after that. It's good, it's usable, but it is only one sound, and pianos, I have learned, can create totally different sounds and moods when the harmony is not homogenized.

If I want the ET sound in a WT, I can play in A or Eb, they both feel about the same as ET. The V is a little more restless than the I or IV in the former, whereas it is more relaxed in the latter. Not that anybody I have ever encountered could tell if a piano was tuned in WT rather than ET when listening to something played in either of these two keys. Compare this to say, the key of B, in which the IV is the screamer, to use one jazzer's word. Or a key like F#, which never lets up, but produces a very murky tension, etc. This is what the songwriters and jazz players talk like when they talk about the tuning difference.

Those without the comparison in their ears don't talk about it at all.
Regards

Ed, I can certainly understand that some jazz artists are more experimental as far as temperaments go. It certainly would be a benefit for a tech to have UT's available in their skill set to address this for these artists. Unfortunately an ugly head always appears with UT's as soon as one begins to restrict what keys to play in. Not all artists are comfortable shifting their repertoir from key to key with this in mind, especially when accompanied by other musicians. Vocalist accompanyment is especially sensative to key signature as are some fixed pitch instruments. This is the single greatest benefit of ET in that a specific sound or feel (in regards to the temperament)to the music gets transmitted universally in a similar fashion in every key. Does an artist need the hassle of transcribing the music to get what they want? No. Can they learn/practice and perfom in a key that the peice was originally intended to be played. Yes. UT's throw a proverbial wrench into this freedom. Some artists can work around it, some can even claim to benefit from it....but don't kid yourself in the notion that ET has been universally adopted and accepted for the last near century because it has shortcomings that outweigh its benefits. Musicians are not in the dark on this.

It might help to differentiate between strengths of temperaments - the Rollingball site is valuable for this! The major thirds in ET are almost 14 cents from pure...

A "full strength" circulating temperament will limit the widest thirds to around 21 cents from pure. While each key is still usable, the contrast might be a bit much for modern ears to accept, even though there are players that want that type of contrast.

The temperaments that Ed were referring to limit the widest thirds to about 17 cents from pure, just 3 more cents than ET. This level seems to be the threshold for 'modern ears' to realize that something might be different, without really being able to articulate the difference without training.

The 'stealth' temperaments work in the range of the widest third being around 15-16 cents wide of pure.

Hey Joe,

I think you will find the ET only advice to be unanimous among many. It is what they believe. There is only one way to tune a piano! I did not vote, however.

Unfortunately, that single minded goal and belief has lead to quite the opposite result in all too many cases. I won't say now what that result is because it always provokes too much anger and resentment. I just know it to be so very true in so many instances.

I have tuned pianos for Jazz artists the past 24 years in anything but ET and never had a complaint, much less a comment such as, "Hey these thirds are all uneven!, what's going on here?"

Even the esteemed Steinway technician for Vladimir Horowitz was known to say, "No artist ever asked me or complained about uneven thirds". Yet, that technician only ever claimed to tune ET.

My history of tuning non-equal temperaments for Jazz artists alone, aside from any other kind of music or musicians goes back quite far. Dave Brubeck, Fats Domino, Ray Charles, Mose Allison, Lyle Mays and many others associated with famous named Jazz artists or groups could go on indefinitely.

Roscoe Mitchell, a Madison, WI based Avant-Guard composer and Jazz artist has been my customer since 1978. I tuned two pianos for his group for a 2007 CD recording in the EBVT III. Joan Wildman, a UW-Madison retired Professor of Jazz Piano Performance has been a client of mine for over 20 years. I have never tuned her piano in ET! I tuned it yesterday for a recording session in my usual EBVT III. She is still a leading voice in our community regarding the progressive movement in music. Nothing in her work requires ET.

Patrick Wingren who is a Professor of Jazz performance at Jacobstad, Finland and and RPT and now PTG Certified Tuning Examiner (an occasional contributor here) also uses non-equal temperaments.

A local colleague of mine has used non-equal temperaments for some 30 years in salon concerts at his dealership. These concerts include both classical music and Jazz.

The "What do ya know?" show which usually emanates from Madison and features local Jazz artist, John Thulin, has never been tuned in ET!

If it were true that Jazz somehow required ET, all of these examples would tend to prove that notion to be completely false, which it is.

To answer your original question, I suggest you try the 1/9 Comma Meantone Temperament. You will find all 4ths & 5ths to sound virtually the same as they do in ET but you will also find the key color you are looking for.

I think the question is like asking what is the best digital piano for Monteverdi.

Very interesting response.

Thank you Bill.


This quote fro you is particularly interesting:
Even the esteemed Steinway technician for Vladimir Horowitz was known to say, "No artist ever asked me or complained about uneven thirds". Yet, that technician only ever claimed to tune ET.

If it's who I think it is, I have his book

It's interesting that you suggest the 1/9th CM over the 1/10th CM?

I may get a chance to try 1/9CM out later this week. I have a client that plays everything from Bach to jazz to modern experimental music. We spent considerable time on the phone this evening discussing UTs. I even referred him to the rollingball.com site.

For Bill and/or anyone else, would it be appropriate for Bach to be played in 1/9CM or 1/10CM? If ET is OK for Bach, it would seem to me that a 1/9CM or 1/10CM would be at least as appropriate. Or, would tuning this way ruin the effect of J.S.Bach's music?

Bill, I appreciate you taking the time to weigh in on this. I know you are one of the great authorities on UTs.

Thanks,
-Joe

Actually, never mind the question re Modified Meantone and Bach.

There are recordings available on YouTube of Serkin playing Bach. Since he uses a modified meantone...

Well, if using a modified meantone for Bach is good enough for him, then...

Thanks,
-Joe

Equal temperament is a modified meantone, and meantone is a modified equal temperament!

Joe,

I think you'll like what you hear in the 1/9 Comma Meantone. I use it for cocktail lounge pianos. There is one church sanctuary piano I use it for where the music director likes key color and contrast but has a lower threshold for harshness than most people.

Back when we were discussing these ultra mild meantones in September, I asked Jason Kanter to graph them. He promised to do so and also send me some other enlightening information but he said he was quite busy at the moment. Unfortunately, he has not come through on that yet.

I have never tried the 1/10 Comma Meantone because my ETD, the SAT IV will only accept tenths deviations rather than hundredths. I can't imagine it sounding much different from ET. Did you find any particular value in it?

Even the version of 1/9 Comma Meantone that I use is a rounded off type. It is a -2.4 cent 5ths whereas a true 1/9th has some smaller numbers.

When I tune the 1/7 Comma Meantone, I simply program -3.0 5ths which is quite easy to do. At one time, I asked Jason Kanter to graph both the -3.0 5ths and a true 1/7 CMT and the results were essentially identical. I figured that the same would be true for -2.4 cent 5ths vs. true 1/9 CMT.

The 1/9 CMT is very much along the lines of the other very mild WT's that Ron and Ed have mentioned. The largest deviation from ET is +2.4 cents. The widest M3 is +17.2 cents. The narrowest is +12 cents. The "wolf" 5th is the same amount wide as all other 5ths are narrow.

1/9 Comma Meantone Temperament

C:+1.2
C#:-1.6
D:+0.4
D#:+2.4
E:-0.4
F:+1.6
F#:-1.2
G:+0.8
G#:-2.0
A: 0.0
A#:+2.0
B:-0.8

Quote:
I have never tried the 1/10 Comma Meantone because my ETD, the SAT IV will only accept tenths deviations rather than hundredths. I can't imagine it sounding much different from ET. Did you find any particular value in it?

It's funny you should ask that today

I just returned from doing a free tuning for the dealership I tune for. The sold a Story & Clark console piano... the very same one I discussed in a thread a while back where I tuned one piano in EBVT3, one in Moscow's EBPT, and one in 1/10 CM. If you remember, the jazz player loved the other 2, but disliked the 1/10 CM.

Well, the new owners said they purchased the S&C because of its rich, warm sound. It stood out. I explained the difference between ET and a very mild MT, and they decided they wanted to tune it today continuing with the 1/10 CM.

The piano does have a rich, warm sound. I have tuned quite a few S&C consoles, and I do not believe I have ever heard one sound nicer. Even the bass was warm, but it still had guts when you needed it.

I believe that the 1/10 CM absolutely did affect the resonance of the instrument.

I don't know if this will make any sense. The way I see it, if ET is refined white sugar, the 1/10CM is light brown sugar. It brings some new flavor, but not too much. Thank you so very much for telling me about the 1/10 CM

Tomorrow, I will suggest the 1/9 CM as an alternative to the customer we discussed before. I will also mention the 1/7 CM that Serkin likes. (You discussed it here with offsets http://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/1443771/)

Thanks again for you time and expertise
-Joe

Joe, I had a similar experience. Tuned a beautiful Yamaha at a dealers showroom in Toronto a few weeks back in ET and the customer who played it after bought it on the spot. Must have thought my temperament was organic Stevia....or maybe the full moon that night..

Hi Emmery!

I'm sure your tuning helped seal the deal. I just thought it was interesting that this client appreciated the same things about this temperament that I did. It's very close to ET, but it does alter the resonance.

I don't want to presume, but maybe you might try tuning a piano you are familiar with in one-tenth CM just for laughs. I think you'll notice a difference in the character of the instrument... not just the slight changes in harmony.

The offsets I have, courtesy of Bill Bremmer, are:

A 0.00
A# 0.35
B -0.20
C 0.25
C# -0.30
D 0.15
D# 0.40
E -0.15
F 0.30
F# -0.25
G 0.20
G# -0.35

Edit: Notice the very slight differences from ET. No changes of even as much as one-half cent.

The VT's temperament octave is from A3 to A4.
M3s 13.3 to 14.3

In ET, M3s 13.7 - 13.7

Joe I have tuned some UT's in the past upon request....very rarely and not enough to devote precious time into verifying the original acoustic intent with all the meaningful tuning/musical intervals we use with ET. ET has a very linear arangement with beat rates which only require good anchor points to be established and then everything else fit in its place relative to it. Haphazard chart offsets referenced off of ET zeroed fundamentals produce haphazard this way and that way beat rates with everything else. If the piano has exactly the same characteristics of inharmonicity as the sample piano which had its offsets recorded (presuming that piano was tuned aurally), then the proper relationships of the temperaments intent can be replicated. Without this relationship (which does not exist in the real world) aural verification depends on following predicted beat rate references for ALL useable intervals. It also requires some explanation as to where priorities should be/adjustments made, if things do not perfectly work out. This happens with ET so I won't pretend it doesn't with UT's.

This aural verification is glaringly missing from UT's or too unstructured for someone to reasonably carry around in their head.

Unfortunately the spicier intervals of UT's also fall outside of the 10-12 bps range where we percieve souring....souring cannot be verified accurately by ear either.

I suppose with wolf notes an arguement can be made that there is no clean end on a dogs turd to pick it up by so I won't elaborate on that issue. A nicely tuned ET on a piano which is heavily played will turn into UT on its own with a little time, so why charge someone money to give them something other people pay money to get cleaned up? N'est–ce pas?

Emmery,

With advanced, multi-partial devices like the Verituner, the tempering is done in ET. Then, the offsets are applied.

If you re-examine the offsets, you will notice that there is an order to them when using the modified meantone temperaments. (Note the width of the 5ths using offsets in both the 1/9 CM and 1/10 CM) The custom calculation in ET for each individual piano, and then the same percentage of offset, or cents, should give repeatable results.

My observation of the 1/10 CM is that on the pianos I've used it on, the pianos sound warm and rich, but without sounding fat. Though I haven't' used it on that many pianos (yet), the results seem to be repeatable.

Again, my particular interest in UTs is to affect the character of the piano by using UTs that vary only minutely from ET, rather than dealing with correct harmony for specific pieces, composers, and eras.

Edit: Though I do want avoid selecting temperaments that are simply wrong for the type of music being played.

Edit: Though it does appear the by suggesting these various modified meantone temperaments, Bill has hit the nail squarely on the head. These various meantone temperaments seem to be quite flexible as to the types of music they are appropriate for. These, combined with others like the EBVT3, Neidhardt, Moscow EBPT, and several others are welcome additions to ET. I am glad to be able to offer them to my customers.

-Joe

Greetings,
I know of one store owner in a distant city, that has found the WT consoles or spinets will usually be the first one to sell from the long line on the floor. If he has a slow mover, he has it tuned in a WT and it is usually gone within a week or so. I had thought about writing it off to the universally sensed superiority of WT, but I think it is just a fluke, every time it happens.
However, ET's don't turn into the kind of WT that a tuner will create, they just continue getting farther from in tune from the moment the tuner leaves. Random frequencies do not a well-temperament make.

Joe,

There may well be a reason why the 1/10 CMT sounds "better" to you and is not your imagination. A few years ago, Jason Kanter discovered an element which he called "Beat Synchrony". It is the ratio of beating between the M3 and m3 of any Major triad.

In strict ET (regardless of stretch), that ratio is an odd amount, 1:7 for all Major triads. It is as if every chord played were fighting itself. In contrast, the 1/7 CMT has a perfect 2:1 ratio for each. A look at any of the Well Temperaments reveals more favorable and even ratios.

Although most of the Quasi-Equal Temperaments (QET) were a result of flawed logic when attempting true ET, many of them just sound better. This is the case with my own ET via Marpurg where all of the M3's sound identical to ET but the 4ths & 5ths are equal beating. It ends up being a cleaner, more harmonious sounding arrangement than true ET.

I'll be hosting a Master Class in tuning that temperament by ear at the upcoming PTG convention. The participants will actually tune the piano, not me. I'll also be giving a preview of it where I tune the piano and talk about how to do it electronically.

I had asked Jason Kanter for the Beat Synchrony data for the 1/9 and 1/10 CMT's specifically to see how it is affected. Hopefully we'll find out about that sometime soon.

Have a listen:

https://www.box.com/s/af88f16f9cea23c42e9c

major thirds range from 9.5 to 16.8 cents from a pure third. Remember that an ET third is 13.7 cents wide...

enjoy!

Ron Koval

Just a correction, "Beat Synchrony" was the term Robert Wendell came up with during email discussions with me and also Paul Bailey as we were using spreadsheets to create and analyze temperaments. I believe I was the first to point out and guess about the phenomenon of beat interactions between the M3/m3 in a triad... It's there in the pianotech archives somewhere! Jason got into it a bit later, if my memory is correct.

You are correct in a direct comparative analysis..but from the ears of an average joe client, my experiences have shown the opposite to be true. I had in fact been called to follow up on several UT tunings in which the customer was duped into thinking was ET...it was done by intentional substitution/promotion of the UT by a tech and intentional ommision of informing the client. In both cases the customers first question to me sitting down at the piano was...."does this sound out of tune or properly tuned to you"? I had talked with the tech in question and he told me that he attended a lecture where it was suggested to the students to simply substitute the UT for ET to help promote it. I told this tech that what he is doing is simply a gamble as far as the public is concerned and a direct shot in his own foot as far as other techs are concerned. If I am asked to assess a tuning in UT and I am not aware of it being UT...it will get the TWO BIG THUMBS DOWN and every colleague I know around these parts will likely do the same.

(Added) When marketing a new product/service on anything other than open disclosure of its merits (ie, blind substitution) and at the same charging money for something that it is entirely reasonable to assume is different from the norm....it is borderline unethical. it is a big red flag waving that this cannot sell itself on its own merits. Couple this with the fact that there are several notable high end techs who can be quoted off the internet to a customer as mentioning "ET is the hardest temperament to tune". Hard to argue that the tech didn't take a short cut with his services of a UT in this light.

Emmery you have repeatedly attacked the working practices of some people who tune UTs when discussing the UTs themselves. And although there can be no disputing what you claim, and I don't support the practice you are describing, it does not belong in this kind of thread, which is for discussing the temperaments.

The thread title is not "Which UT shall I tune for a jazz musician without telling him?"

Ed,
This is interesting. I have informed the piano store I have as a client your info re mild well tunings and slow movers. Thank you

Bill,
I hadn't though of beat synchrony. I simply assumed it was a combination of the way the various partials lined up and maybe subtle changes in the way the bridges/soundboard system is loaded.I'm sure that Jason Kanter's analysis will be revealing. Thanks again

Emmery,
Just curious... If a client requested you to tune in a UT, say EBVT3 or 1/10 CM, would you refuse? Even if it meant losing that client?

I am very glad to know about this, Ron! As far as I knew, "Beat Synchrony" was something Jason Kanter had come up with. You have to give Mr. Kanter credit, however on his amazing graphs, how he can put SO much information into one graph! The Beat synchrony idea, however, he had to put as an addendum.

As soon as I saw it, I thought that is well and good. That tells one little piece of the story. However, we all know that there is much more to music than Major triads, especially when Jazz is concerned!

That is one place where ET only enthusiasts will first assert their claims, as I have seen it often. Modern music, Jazz in particular, goes far beyond simply Major triads!

Therefore, in theory, all of that complexity seems to require ET, does it not? Who could argue with that except those among us who have many years of experience practicing something else?

I can't really explain how 1/9 Comma Meantone or the EBVT III actually works for Jazz much less how 1/7 Comma Meantone or virtually any other Well Temperament has. I just know it has and the artists liked it. I've even heard Blues and Avant-Garde artists "groove" on 1/4 Comma Meantone!

You have come up with some pretty neat looking graphs of your own in the past. Perhaps you might want to take a look at Beat Synchrony in more than just simple Major triads but minor triads and the kind of extensions actually found in Jazz among some of the very mild, nearly equal (but not quite) temperaments being discussed here.

When I finalized the EBVT with the EBVT III version, I figured I has "watered down" that idea to the ultimate dilution. Yet, I came up with an "Ultra Mild" WT later on, upon which you made a comment that you did not restrict yourself to half cent deviations.

All well and good. Anybody can keep dividing anything in half to infinity. I never really pursued things the way you, Paul Bailey or Jim Coleman did except with the Meantone idea. You can create virtually any gradation of Meantone temperament possible! (I know that Paul has his own favorite Meantone idea).

Joe seems to have liked the 1/10th Comma Meantone idea. It is really only a theoretical idea, one that Jean-Baptist Romieu proposed along with the 1/7, 1/8 and 1/9 ideas. I can't even do it on my ETD because it means that each 5th is narrowed by exactly 2.15 cents which means deviations from ET of multiples of exactly 0.15 cents. I can do 0.1 or 0.2 but not 0.15! Perhaps either one of those might have their own appealing properties?

It would be really interesting to find out what -2.15 cent 5ths does to both Major and minor triads and other possibilities. It could really turn out to be the coolest QET yet! Who knows?

In discussions I had with Owen Jorgensen, he agreed very much with the idea that we simply had to try these various ideas to find out which had merit and what those merits are.

Thanks for posting that, Ron. I just now saw it and am listening to it. It sounds like music to me.

Quote:
Joe seems to have liked the 1/10th Comma Meantone idea. It is really only a theoretical idea, one that Jean-Baptist Romieu proposed along with the 1/7, 1/8 and 1/9 ideas. I can't even do it on my ETD because it means that each 5th is narrowed by exactly 2.15 cents which means deviations from ET of multiples of exactly 0.15 cents. I can do 0.1 or 0.2 but not 0.15! Perhaps either one of those might have their own appealing properties?

Bill, Ive been thinking abut this. There has to be some sort of hack or some other way around this. If I remember correctly, you are an Accutuner user.

The increments seem to be 0.05, like you said. I wonder if you set an offset for 0.1 when it should be 0.15, if you could maybe tune the note so the lights spin very slightly in one direct. Then, maybe set an offset for 2.0 and try to get the lights spinning in the other direction at an equivalent rate. If you experiment a few times, you should be able to find the point where the lights spin at the same rate in different directions at 0.1 and 0.2.

Since you are a very experienced piano tuner, once this speed is found and you get the sense of it (which won't take long), you should easily be able to know and remember what that speed is.

After, you work with rhythm when setting beats anyhow. You know what 3 bps is and what 7 bps is. This is just visual rather that aural.

Edit: I don't know if what I wrote above made sense. I meant to keep moving a note around until you find the point where the lights spin in opposite directions at the same rate. Then memorize that rate.

-Joe

Just an update...

I used the 1/9 CM today. They loved it!
"It never sounded this good before!"
In fact, they even commented on how "warm and rich" the piano sounds now. (Petrof 5'3" 1994 baby grand piano)

I don't think they will ever go back to ET. They are interested in exploring other UTs as well. New converts!

Thanks Bill!
-Joe

Interesting topic.....peaked my interest. I am in the process of tuning my other piano with the 1/9....so far, it sounds great. Will post a few recordings when I am finished tuning it.

Is this 1/9 a slightly different form of ET, or is it a mild WT-UT?

Neither. It's actually a modified meantone temperament.

Edit: As was pointed out earlier in this thread, ET could be considered a form of meantone... 1/11 comma meantone.

Edit: There is a nice little article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meantone_temperament

Joe,

It is NOT a Modified Meantone Temperament. That is another class of temperaments entirely where the "wolf" 5th is divided among two or more 5ths rather than leaving just one untuned interval. It is all an attempt to mitigate some of the harsh side of the cycle of 5ths to make it more usable. This was done mostly with 1/4 and 1/5 Comma Meantone Temperaments.

Indeed, I used to tune the Rameau-Rousseau-Hall 18th Century Modified Meantone Temperament regularly back in 1991-1992. When I had the need for a Victorian style temperament in late 1992, there were not really any good aural instructions for one available, so I adapted the RRH MM temperament into what eventually became the EBVT III.

I have also seen the temperament that Peter Serkin likes called a "modified meantone" but it is not. It is the 1/7 comma meantone with one modification: there is a pure 5th between E & B. Therefore it is the 1/7 Comma Meantone, modified (or, the 1/7 CMT with one pure 5th, as I prefer to call it). In Jorgensen's first publication, there is a 1/9 Comma Meantone Temperament with two pure 5ths inserted.

For anyone who has not yet understood it, a "Meantone" Temperament is one where all 5ths are tempered alike and by the same amount. The fraction from which the temperament gets its name is whatever fraction of the Syntonic Comma (which has a value of 21.5) is chosen. All 5ths are narrowed by that amount. Therefore, the classic 1/4 Comma Meantone Temperament has 5ths that are each narrowed by 5.37 cents.

Narrowing 5ths by that much means that Major thirds (M3) become pure. Naturally, only 8 of them can be that way and it leaves the remainder painfully wide and unusable. It also leaves one 5th which cannot be reconciled extremely wide and dissonant.

If, on the other hand, you divide 21.5 by 11, you end up with virtually 2 cent narrow 5ths and that is the same as ET. The 1/7 CMT lies about mid way between 1/4 and 1/11.

The 1/9 CMT is a very mild one that has M3's that sound more or less like those of very mild WT's but it is not a WT. There are different rules for constructing a WT and no Meantone temperament, including 1/11th satisfies all of them.

Using the Meantone idea is simply another way to divide the scale based upon an entirely different concept from WT. It is possible (and very easy to program an ETD to do so), tune virtually any gradation of meantone conceivable. One does not have to limit oneself to fractions such as 1/3, 1/4, 1/5, 1/6, 1/7, 1/8, 1/9, 1/10 and 1/11.

The 1/9 Comma Meantone figures I published are really rounded off figures for 1/9 of 21.5. (21.5 divided by 9 is 2.38). It is really a 2.4 cent narrow 5ths Meantone, if you will. It may be easier to understand now that since ET has 2.0 cent narrow 5ths, 2.4 cent narrow 5ths are only slightly narrower, well within the margin of error that an aural tuner may create when tuning ET until other intervals are used as checks to correct such a small error.

If, for instance, someone tuned a reasonably perfect ET but accidentally made one random 5th 2.4 cents narrow, probably no one would really notice. However, as I have often pointed out what happens when there is an error that repeats itself over and over, there is a cumulative effect. Therefore, when ALL 5ths are narrowed by that extra seemingly small and insignificant amount, there is definitely an effect created. It is a very appealing one to many people. It puts just enough key color in the temperament to satisfy that desire but avoids the threshold of harshness that many people have.

It is virtually impossible to tune it accurately by ear. If one accepts that the calculated program of an ETD for ET is correct, then simply apply the 1/9 CMT figures to that and you have it.

Therefore, Grandpianoman, you can use the Verituner calculated program for either of your instruments and apply those figures OR, you can use Ari Isaacs' ET program for your M&H RBB and apply it to those figures. When I come again to your house in May, I plan to do an ET tuning of both of your instruments to which you can apply any temperament figures you desire.

Andy, the figures for the 1/9 CMT are on the Temperament Page 9 of your ETD. You may call me and ask me how to apply that to an FAC program if you need to.

I see. Thank you Bill for the clarification (and education).


If I could please impose to ask a question:
I've been thinking about trying a temperament between the 1/9th and the 1/10 CM. If I did a 1/9.5 CM, would the correct terminology be 2/19 CM?

Thanks,
-Joe

Thanks for the info Bill and Joe. That would be great Bill....Ari's was the first time I tried to 'save' a live tuning on the Verituner...I don't think I did it correctly...as I went to tune it, it was not sounding right.

I just finished earlier this evening, the 1/9 Comma Meantone using your 12 offsets from this posting, into the Verituner, using the "clean" setting for smaller grands.

Nice sounding temperament. What you are hearing is a 1930 Weber "FR" 6ft Duo-Art Grand Piano. The Duo-Art has been totally rebuilt. The piano has Ari's Bass Strings, (about 7 years old now), a new set of his Candenza "S" hammers inc. new shanks, (not voiced yet), and a complete new Tokiwa action. The solid strings are at least 40 years old.

It also has the "Touchrail" from www.pitchlock.com This Weber really does a superb job with the accents, expression. The Touchrail has improved all of that, including the repetition. The Duo-Art cannot distinguish the downweight etc, so to have every key at exactly 52 grams, thanks in part to the Touchrail, is a major benefit.

One thing I should mention, even though the piano is 6ft long, the Duo-Art takes up about 7-8 inches, so the actual length of the piano is about 48 inches...a short piano!

These are about the closest 1920 'jazz' Fox-Trot rolls I could find on short notice....most of the rolls are still in boxes downstairs. I am sure I have more.

"Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea" played by Paulene Alpert, 1931 https://www.box.com/s/1izm2uslrpar85gzb8ma

"Steppin' In Society" Played by Edythe Baker, 1925 https://www.box.com/s/q6l1fzqgk9rivw7bu26t

Yes, Joe,

In fact, I think I have heard of that.

Here are two possibilities between 1/9 and 1/10 that you can try if you want. I never have. Since the SAT can only store 1/10th and not 1/100ths, a 0.1 increment is the smallest I can make.

I read your comment about programming and watching which way the lights would "spin". They would not "spin" at all! To get less than 0.1 cents difference would be next to impossible to read. If anything, the pattern would tend to "lean" slightly in one direction or the other.

-2.3 cent 5ths Meantone

C:+0.9
C#:-1.2
D:+0.3
D#:+1.8
E:-0.3
F:+1.2
F#:-0.9
G:+0.6
G#-1.5
A: 0.0
A#:+1.5
B:-0.6

Here is the closest I could get to the 1/10th Comma Meantone.
Each 5th is narrowed 0.05 more than the -0.15 of an exact 1/10th Comma. The largest deviation from ET is 1.0 cents.

-2.2 Cent 5ths Meantone

C:+0.6
C#:-0.8
D:+0.2
D#:+1.2
E:-0.2
F:+0.8
F#:-0.6
G:+0.4
G#-1.0
A: 0.0
A#:+1.0
B:-0.4

Grandpianoman,

These sounded really great! (except for some underlying "hum" on the recording). Hearing past that, however, what I heard was a very smooth sounding piano.

What I have found to be interesting and ironic in recent years is that the "smoothest" perceived temperament (also called "even") was not ET but some kind of mild WT or as in this case, mild Meantone.

I believe it has to do with the fact that virtually all music we enjoy is tonal. It has some kind of relationship to the Cycle of 5ths. Therefore, when the temperament is a Cycle of 5ths based temperament, real music played on the piano as opposed to playing chromatic M3's sounds smoother, more like it should than it does in ET. ET is the temperament which alters and distorts music from what it should be, not the opposite which most people seem to believe.

The same goes for octave stretching. There is an optimum amount, neither too much nor too little that makes octaves be perceived the purest. That, of course is due to inharmonicity. When the exact and optimum compromise for inharmonicity is found, the octaves sound "pure" or "perfect" even though they are not and cannot be tuned perfectly pure in every sense.

Owen Jorgensen told me that the only way to find a temperament that really seems to work for whatever the goal may be is to try it and either accept or reject it. If you ask me, the 1/9th Comma Meantone fits the bill as a temperament useful for all music that may be played on the modern piano. It does no harm to early music as ET does and it restores a slight amount of key color to modern music that is lost when using ET.

I have used it for a long time, actually. I figured this out years ago and have written about it on here before, so it is interesting to me that only now has anyone seemed to take notice.

Bill,

When you referenced "early music," I read that to mean pre-Baroque. Is that correct?

Hi Bill,

Thanks....it's a nice sounding temperament. When was this temperament invented?

The hum you mentioned, is a result of the motor on the Duo-Art. The hum might be accentuated by the pianos position in the room....it's right in the corner of this small room. I do think though, it is louder than the Ampico.

Here is another file I recorded yesterday.

"You Will Won't You".....(I think I will...lol) https://www.box.com/s/ywuqy2iorj674c977eoq

Grandpianoman,

I love those audio files you posted. Thanks

Bill,

Sorry the idea for the SAT didn't work out. I never used an SAT (except once many years ago), so I was just guessing.

Thanks again for the additional meantone temperaments. It really hit me just how simple it is to create one. Starting at C, just work around the circle of 5ths narrowing each 5th by the same amount. A meantone temperament could even be created by merely narrowing each 5th by 0.001 cents. It wouldn't be very noticeable. But it would technically be a meantone, if I understand correctly.

Thanks again for all your generous help and knowledge

-Joe

I've tuned UT's for 40 years and though I can tune the standard recipes, when they are not explicitly requested I proceed by shrinking 5ths as I see fit for the music to be performed.

With a printout of the circle of fifths diagram you can quickly see the consequences of shrinking the P5's on the M3's in theory, and while tuning you can listen to them and adjust the temperament as you like.

A possible analogy is between going to McDonalds for a burger, where you are guaranteed to get the same thing every time, or going to a burger place that allows you to design your own burger.

Kees

Interesting!

I wonder if...

1) There would ever be a time when you would expand the 5ths slightly, rather than narrow them.

2) Would this be called a Reverse Meantone, or an Inverted Meantone, or something else?

Sure, it can happen that you shrink the fifths more than a comma (when added up). In that case some 5ths will have to be wide to make the circle close.
There is no specific name for such temperaments.
An extreme example is regular 1/4' meantone which has one wide fifth, the wolf. BUt there are plenty of tunings with only slightly wide 5ths that are perfectly usable. Rameau published a lot of these temperaments.

Kees
Regular 1/4' MT has a wide 5th.

Thank you, Kees.

-Joe

Not really, Marty, sorry if I used the wrong term. To me, "early" music means Baroque such as Bach and Handel and Classical, such as Mozart and Haydn. I am sure that would raise he eyebrows of true early music enthusiasts but to me, it is all relative.

For the pre-Baroque music you refer to, it would seem to me that it would be best performed on a harpsichord or organ tuned in one of those very early historical temperaments.

What I really had in mind was the common practice of performing Bach and Mozart, for example on a 9 foot Steinway in ET. That is really altering the music from the way it sounded to those composers yet it is perfectly acceptable to do it today. What I am saying, for example is that a recital of music that spanned from Bach and Mozart, then Beethoven, Ravel and Rachmaninoff and then capping it off with some Messiaen and a piece by George Winston as an encore would all do quite nicely in 1/9 Comma Meantone.

The same would be true of the EBVT III or any of the other mild WT's that people have mentioned. It is all a matter of preference. A local colleague hosts recitals like that on a regular basis using exclusively the 1/7 Comma Meantone with one pure 5th.

In fact, here is the program to be performed March 23:

Debussy: Pagodes, La soirée dans Grenade, Jardin sous la pluie
Liszt: Liebestraum No.3, Spanish Rhapsody
Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition

While this particular program doesn't have any Baroque or Classical era music, they often do. All music from any era of any style, including the Jazz concerts is performed on a concert grand tuned in 1/7 Comma Meantone with 1 pure 5th.

Thanks Bill - I guess I misread your intention. What confused me was the application of a temperament to accomodate all keys rather than tuning to a single key as in pre-Baroque.

I have often wondered if J.S. Bach, when studying at Luneburg, would have encountered instruments in a well temperament or if they would have been in just intonation.

Enjoy the performance of Martin Kasik!

Yes, Joe.

Historically, all temperaments were started from the note, C but today, I give the A the 0.0 value.

Here is what you do, using the 1/9 Comma Meantone as an example. First, divide 21.5 by 9 to get the amount by which each 5th will be tempered. The result is 2.388 which I rounded off to 2.4 (but you can round it off to 2.39 if you want but I don't believe it will change the outcome significantly).

Since any ETD already has -2.0 5ths to start with, subtract 2.0 from the result, leaving the remainder of 0.4. This is the figure which will be compounded around the cycle of 5ths.

First, draw a diagram of the cycle of 5ths. Then, starting on A, put 0.0 by it. Then progressing clockwise, put -0.4 by the E, -0.8 by the B, -1.2 by the F#, -1.6 by the C# and -2.0 by the G#. Stop at G# because you don't tune the interval G#-D#. I have always called this the "Wolf Roadblock" (Caution, wolf habitat, do not enter!)

[The untuned ("wolf") interval can actually be left anywhere but most often, it is left between G# and D# and that is always where I leave it. Some early practitioners left it between C# and G#.]

Now, go back to the A and move counterclockwise and put +0.4 by the D, +0.8 by the G, +1.2 by the C, +1.6 by the F, +2.0 by the A# and finally, +2.4 by the D#.

Below the Cycle of 5ths diagram, list all of the notes chromatically, C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G#, A, A#, B

Now from the diagram, transcribe each of the figures to the chromatic list. You will now have a list from which to program the ETD.

Below is a scanned image of the sketch I did as described above:



You see that between D# (+2.4) and G# (-2.0), there is a total difference of 4.4 cents. Subtract the -2.0 that is already built in and it leaves the 5th at +2.4 cents wide, exactly the same amount wide as of the other 5ths are narrow.

Therefore, it does not "beat" like the "wolf" 5th does in any stronger meantone but it is not perfectly pure either. When played alone, it sounds about the same as all the other 5ths.

Both the F#-A# and G#-C M3's add 3.2 cents to the already 14 cent wide M3. That makes them 17.2 cents wide, well within the threshold of tolerance that most people have for a M3.

The C-E M3 on the other hand is 2 cents less wide at 12 cents than the ET 14 cent M3. G-B and F-A are 1.6 cents less wide than ET. These amounts a very much like those of many very mild WT's.

I wrote to Jason Kanter again and he promised to get back to me later this week. Here is a list of the temperaments I asked him to graph:



You will see in this list, the 1/9 Comma Meantone rounded to the nearest 1/100 cents which you could enter into your ETD if you want and hear for yourself whether it seems the same or not as the rounded off version.

I prefer to use the words, "designed", "conceived" or "discovered" rather than "invented" because the latter word belongs to a device of some kind. Benjamin Franklin discovered electricity but invented the lightning rod, for example.

Any conceivable temperament is already there, waiting to be discovered or designed or at least, imagined.

As Bill Garlick RPT, the one time instructor at the North Bennett Street School of Piano Technology and my instructor at the Steinway factory told me, "There is virtually nothing that anyone can do today with regards to temperament that has not already been done before."

Indeed, when I came up with my final draft of the EBVT, (the EBVT III), Owen Jorgensen wrote to me that Johann Georg Neidhardt had thought of virtually the same idea in 1724.

In 1992, Steve Fairchild RPT came up with an idea totally on his own and published it in the PTG Journal, only to have Owen Jorgensen point out that Antonio Francesco Vallotti had thought of the same exact idea in the 18th Century.

Jean-Baptiste Romieu wrote several theoretical ideas for temperaments starting about 1755. I don't know what possessed him to do it but really, if there were 1/3, 1/4, 1/5 and 1/6 Comma Meantone Temperaments, why not 1/7, 1/8, 1/9 and 1/10? (Duh!) All of those theoretical ideas are attributed to Romieu but any 8th grade kid with a calculator could do the same thing.

How anybody could have tuned them without an ETD is another matter!

Bill, to enter those offsets into an ETD and start tuning could be misleading. The offsets are of similar magnitude to inharmonicity in the centre of a piano and should be added to any natural piano inharmonicity.

For example, if the offsets are entered into the Accutuner in "tune mode" then the theoretical frequencies will be expected and the temperament octave could be too compressed. If the offsets are entered and incorporated overlaying an FAC calculation then the pitches will be theoretically correct for the piano.

Perhaps if I would have said "earlier" music rather than "early" it would have been better. A lot of people still have the mindset that a piano tuned in anything but ET would somehow limit the kind of music that could be played on it or the key tonalities that would be useful.

It would be a better idea to think in terms of what temperament and octave stretching techniques can do for the character that any particular piano may have.

I would not care to speculate on on anything Bach may have encountered. Nobody really knows that but people have been suggesting their own theories for decades, if not centuries already.

One thing is certain, he never played on a 9 foot Steinway tuned in ET!

Chris,

Thank you for that observation that what I wrote could be misleading as it was presented. One can never assume what may seem to be obvious.

Any of these temperament figures or any others written anywhere are meant to be entered on a "Temperament" page in a programmable Electronic Tuning Device (ETD) which is designed to tune the modern piano.

The devices, as I am aware at this time would be (in alphabetical order because for the purposes here, all can be assumed to perform identically well):

Reyburn Cyber Tuner
Sanderson Accu-Tuner III & IV
Tunelab
Verituner

Each of the above devices has the ability to calculate Equal Temperament (ET) for the modern piano while compensating for Inharmonicity, thereby mimicking the way an expert and professional piano technician would tune by ear.

Any of the non-equal temperament figures that may be found anywhere are theoretical figures based on zero inharmonicity. However, if these figures are applied to an electronically calculated ET by one of the above listed ETD's, the result will be a reasonably accurate interpretation of the desired temperament.

The owner's manual for each of the above devices must be consulted in order to learn how to apply these figures correctly. Technical support for each of them is generally available on just how to accomplish this.

No Strobe Tuner or Korg type device with a needle pointing to a zero mark or any other kind of display is suitable for piano tuning! While these types of devices may well be useful for tuning other types of instruments, they will fall far short of what is necessary to tune the modern piano of any type.

That being said, I believe it is possible to tune a harpsichord, fortepiano or organ using another kind of device or one of the above using no inharmonicity calculation. However, my expertise is limited to piano tuning and does not extend to any other kind of instrument.

This is a forum for professional piano technicians, not for amateurs or hobbyists, although their questions can often be accommodated. It is also not a forum for harpsichords, fortepianos or organs, although sometimes questions and issues do overlap and may, at times be addressed.

This entire discussion is intended for professional piano technicians who understand piano tuning in general and who already know how to operate their ETD's.

Questions and comments from people outside of those limitations are, of course, welcome.

I hope that covers it.

Bill,

Yes, I see the structure in 1/x CMs. It's so simple and so elegant! The constant can be derived from a fraction of the syntonic comma, or some other value.

Jason Kantor's graphs and analysis should be quite revealing. I wonder what patterns will reveal themselves in his graphs, especially when they are viewed as a progression of the various Meantone Temperaments. Perhaps a new variant will suggest itself.

Bill, you have made some absolutely awesome posts on this thread.

Thank you !
-Joe

Here is another example of this 1/9 Comma Meantone on my 1930 Weber Duo-Art....listen to the opening "bell" chords. The more I listen to this temperament, the more I like it.

Face the Music and Dance Medley from April, 1932 by Irving Berlin https://www.box.com/s/q6hcwvjwu8rfldkodqi9

I just love this! I hope you don't mind, but I have taken the liberty of forwarding your link to the same customers that I just tuned the 1/9 CM for. I know they will love it!

Thanks,
-Joe

Hi Joe,

Not at all, glad to help out.

Here are a few classical pieces...and what was called in the 1920's..."Dinner Music"....I wonder what kind of food they ate when listening to this. One of the songs is "When smoke gets in your eyes"...great tune. the roll is actually quite beautiful...the tuning went a bit south, but it still sounds good...I agree, this 1/9 comma meantone is very nice. The hum in the background is the Duo Art motor working away. Sometimes, people would house the motor in another room, and run the tubing to the piano.


--DINNER MUSIC NO. 3-- Played by Frank Milne-- October 1934- #74848.mp3 https://www.box.com/s/xrmxqktosm6gdhqvuju7

--WALDESRAUSCHEN-- by Franz Liszt- Played by Josef Hofmann - mp3
https://www.box.com/s/3lh5j0c3pzmzo5yn9h8b

--SPINNING SONG-- Op67, No.4 by Mendelssohn-Bartholdy- Played by IGNACE JAN PADEREWSKI--#6569-4.mp3
https://www.box.com/s/c8d6xzhbrkdw3na00gar

Slow food!

is it your own tuning job ? very nice, in that case... the Paderewsky is probably a mistake, there is no rubato (straight midi) and the speed is way too fast...feel strange and with no meaning to hear that piece that way...

How odd! A critique of a great pianist, performing via a piano roll, and trying to correct a dead pianist. Olek, have you ever seen a spinning wheel?

Grandpianoman, thank you for posting these delightful performances. The temperament suits the piano very well and creates a beautiful sparkle. In that era, there would be oysters, and Beef Wellington was all the rage. Yum!

Marty I know well that music and I heard Paderewsky rolls yet

I am not criticizing the way he played but the fact it was certainly not what we hear there .

the rubato miss totally, as if the roll have been quantized with a software.

You dont notice that ? if yes that tells me something about how you listen to music, but I suggest you did not listen yet to the last piece.

hear :

No linearity in any measure, at those times rubato was the sign of a good pianist I cant imagine one not using some


Nice girls in the audience, BTW ! too bad she is yet married ! no luck

However, the Liszt was not referenced by Grandpianoman, it was Mendelssohn. The concept of rubato in the "Spinning Song" is truly absurd.

xx sorry

And my father was Polish !!!

how do you call that ?



on the roll it sound as a chicken eating grain !

Hi Olek,

The speed of the Spinning Song can be adjusted to any tempo, I just happened to choose that one, perhaps a bit too fast. Will re-record it at a slower tempo. My Weber Duo-Art is actually a 4ft8 piano in a very small room, it's never going to sound like the one you posted in the video.

Yes, that is my tuning...thanks....I used the Ipad Verituner ETD set for a small grand, using the 1/9 comma meantione temperament.

All the reproducing pianos of that era could not capture 100% of what the pianist played. Never the less, what they did capture was quite amazing for the time period.

There is an excellent website in England that explains in great detail, how the reproducers worked etc. http://www.pianola.org/reproducing/reproducing.cfm

Hi Marty, Andy,

Thanks!,,,,Lol,,,,I think you are right about the food. These grand pianos were very expensive back then. If I remember correctly, this 1930 Weber for example, was about $3200...my 1927 M&H RBB was about $7,000....a LOT of money back then. The rich could afford them....only 74 M&H RBB's were made...they would def be dinning on beef wellington etc. Most of the reproducing pianos that were made were uprights, much more affordable to the masses.

I wonder what 'slow' food tastes like.

Yes, this temperament suits this small grand very well. It seems to work with the classical and the popular rolls. I will probably tune my M&H BB with it and see what happens.

Grandpianoman,

It may have been addressed elsewhere, but I'm curious if the RBB has the same "innards" as a BB? Just a difference in case structure, like the S&S "R" series, for the Duo-Art?

Thinking about the tempo of this Spinning Song Olek, I believe I was influenced by Rachmaninoff's interpretation. I have his original Ampico roll of this piece, which is played much faster than in your video.

Here is an example of a live recording of Rachmaninoff playing this piece. As you can hear, it's a matter of interpretation as to the speed and rubato etc that one uses.


Rachmaninoff live recording Spinning Song

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=d6o0oQaBQcc&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dd6o0oQaBQcc

Hi Marty,

Good question....the only changes that M&H made from the BB to the RBB, "R" stands for Reproducer, are on the underside of the piano and the piano legs. The RBB had to have several of the tension resonators removed, and I believe the beams were moved as well, in order to accommodate the Ampico mechanism. The length of the piano is the same. The legs on an RBB, any reproducer for that matter, were usually double legs...on the RBB,
they were shaped somewhat like a "V".

The Duo-Art system was different, in that in order to accommodate the design of the mechanism, they had to shorten the piano by about 5-7 inches. As a result, my Weber case measures 6ft, but the actual harp from front to back is 56 inches.

This Weber Grand is new to me. I received many boxes of rolls with it. I thought I saw the Hungarian Rhapsody by Paderewski the other day going through the boxes....and yes I did! Just recorded it ...please forgive the tuning, as some unisons are out, and it's drifted slightly after 4 days of concerts..:) This piano is actually staying in better tune than my M&H RBB.

I've tried to duplicate the tempo to the video you posted Olek. This is a 4ft 8 piano you are hearing, in a smallish room. Straight recording, no processing other than to normalize, (balance volume and peaks etc.) 1930 Weber Duo-Art 6ft Grand....Tuned with the 1/9 comma meantone temperament with the Ipad Verituner set for small grands etc.

"RHAPSODIE HONGROISE" No.2, by Liszt, in C Sharp Minor, This original roll recorded in October, 1923--Played by Ignace Jan Paderwski on the Weber FR Duo-Art, #6670-0.mp3

https://www.box.com/s/vjy6q0gcsitwaf2nbzo3

Sorry, GP--I couldn't find a link to the actual song , but Greg Brown wrote it, and I pulled the lyrics from lyricsmania.com. I heard him sing it on Prairie Home Companion some number of years ago, but I don't remember him singing "blahblahblah" in the last verse. Maybe someone else here remembers the song... A quick internet search shows it's on a 2004 CD, "In the Hills of California: Live from the Kate Wolf Music Festival 1997-2003."

SLOW FOOD by Greg Brown

People want that slow food
Two minutes and they grouch
But give me ham baked all day long
And help me to the couch
Help me to the sofa
Put the quiet music on
I will lie and think about that ham
Long after it is gone.

I want some slo-o-o-o-ow food.

I don't want no food with cute names
No neon on a sign
A man can't live on advertising slogans
And conceptual design
Let somebody else go surf and turf
Someone else go carry out
Me, I want my food to know itself
Before it knows my mouth.

I want some slo-o-o-o-ow food
With all the love cooked in.

Why don't we start it in the mornin'
Leave us plenty of time for lovin'
Weekend homemade hot fresh bread
Make the whole house smell like an oven
And let it all just simmer
Cook in the good juices and the greases
Then we'll sit down at the table, baby
And slowly tear it into pieces.

I want some slo-o-o-o-ow food

What's the big rush?..../Don't want no hard-hearted Hardee's, no
Muck-muck-muck-muck-donald's....I want a chef, not a clown, to make my
Food.../it can even be tofu with the right kinda sauce..../blahblahblah-

I want some slo-o-o-o-ow food
With all the love cooked in

What a hoot!! Thanks for posting that.


In the spirit of slow and good food...here is a toe-tapping Fox Trot...this will make you smile. No human could play this live with these accents etc....Duo-Art was known for this kind of interpretation of these Fox-Trots.

1/9 comma meantone temperament. --JUST A MEMORY-- 1927-- Played by Constance Mering on the Weber Duo-Art #713418.mp3

https://www.box.com/s/qpqb5qrapcacae2iv8an

Hi Grandpianoman,

That's a fun little Fox Trot. I don't hear anything unplayable in live performance, however. Tricky? - Yea. Impossible? - Nah.

Your little Weber is a sweet little piano. You seem to keep the Weber and the Mason maxed at all times. Congratulations!

I noticed that you were able to filter out the motor noise of the player unit. It makes a big difference.

Enjoying,

Yes, I also heard faster interpretations by Rubinstein, etc. What I noticed on the roll is that it have been "quantified", (I suppose someone "correct" the rolls, or it is done at the moment the original is reproduced by a software plus a robot, etc, the same "mistakes" have occur since ages with the scores , when the copyist (?) changed harmonies, notes or tempis to better suit the taste of the era or believing in mistakes from the composer )

All real interpretations have a nice rubato, the roll sound like the free midi files that can be find on the net . speed straight, all quater notes perfetly lining, it is probably not representative of the real pianist.

But that is just a roll, you have other that play better than that... sorry for the remarks ...

5is not it more probable that the roll was copied for pianos without the function for timning ? on such instruments, fox trots are more musical in the end, my friends with their midified Ricca (that read midi files) have the problem of too straight and "square" tempis, i suggested they that they could use a software to modify the "swing" directly in the midi files. (Cubase can do that and probably many other)

Your unisons are neat !

Camille Saint-Saens decided to revive works by M.A. Charpentier and publish them. He founds hundreds of "mistakes" (cross and false relations) and change them to make the harmony more " harmonious".

Thanks for the link, I did not noticed that, it is instructive and interesting.

Thanks!....yes that one gets my toes-a-tappin' and a smile. Here is another one that is similar. "You're the Cream in my Coffee" https://www.box.com/s/i1u6u2gjabnjgkfbcvko What funny titles they came up with in the 1920's.

Well thanks, I try to keep them in top shape...it's a fair amount of work. My only contribution to that endeavor,is the tuning. All the other work, regulation, voicing etc, I leave to the pros. I would like to learn how to regulate the action and the voicing. Voicing seems to be very important when a piano is played as much as mine is. I guess that's the case with any piano that has a lot of use, especially with concert pieces.

One thing that is different on this piano than a normal reproducer...and that is the "Touchrail" www.pitchlock.com I think this device has helped the Duo-Art to be better at what it does so well, accents and repitition. All the keys downweights are set evenly thanks to this device.

Ahh, that dreaded motor noise....it was by accident ,,,,the mic position is what helped that. Part of that hum is accentuated by the room placement, which is right in the corner. Low frequencies are louder.

Glad you are enjoying the music.

I agree with Marty, GP! After being fooled for the longest time by some of the recordings in the other thread that turned out to be four and six hand performances, and after you told me that eventually, one of the performers was able to punch out rolls and add embellishments at his kitchen table, I payed close attention to this one. It sounds very do-able by one person...

These are great fun! Please keep 'em coming!

--Andy

The rolls are not a 100% interpretation of the artist. It's what was available at the time. Another factor for my piano, is it still needs some further refining, particularly for the classical rolls.

On the contrary, I think the reproducing rolls were made with the timing etc that was available for the mechanisms at that time. Also, the editors of the rolls had a large influence along with the artist in the final master roll.

Thanks...most of the unisons were done by ear, except the last treble octave or so, and the lowest octave. I still cannot hear what I need to focus on with those octaves.

Jason Kanter finally came through with a graph of the 1/9 Comma Meantone Temperament. It is really a solid temperament idea which has been already confirmed by several posted recordings using it. The graph supports the findings as well. There is an abundance of 1.8 ratio beat synchrony which give all triads that have it a more harmonious sound than they would have in ET.



I had the fortunate opportunity to put the 1/9 CMT into serious practice yesterday as I prepared a Kawai RX-5 grand for a Jazz event which was held today. The pianist was Johannes Wallmann: http://www.music.wisc.edu/faculty/bio?faculty_id=94

The piano was in excellent shape with no voicing or regulation requirements and was on pitch. I still spent two full hours solidifying a broadcast quality tuning for the performance which was recorded and will be broadcast at some time in the future. The artist thanked me for a job very well done after the performance.

The event was part of a Jazz on Sundays series at an elegant venue called the Brink Lounge. http://www.thebrinklounge.com/ Here is the link to the specific event: http://www.thebrinklounge.com/ai1ec_even...nstance_id=1520

The eventual Podcast will be able to be heard but not downloaded. See this site for programming: http://archive.wort-fm.org/ The site will have to be watched to find out when the podcast will become available.

This was a Jazz event in the way that I remember them. It was night club setting: tables and chairs with tasty food and fine beverages available. The room was at capacity but not over crowded. Original compositions were presented. The instrumentation was unusual, however. The horns were trumpet/flugel horn, trombone and tuba (the latter used as a Jazz instrument, not as a bass). The usual drum set and string bass accompanied the piano.

The local radio station provided announcers as hosts who engaged the pianist and other musicians in short conversations between the pieces. There were two 90 minute sets. The event also welcomed musician members of the audience to participate in an improvisation session that followed the main event.

The Madison Music Collective is an organization that has long kept Jazz events such as these alive. http://www.madisonmusiccollective.org/

You guys may be right....it was always a concensus among the reproducing collectors that it would be difficult for a live
performer to sound like some of those rolls, especially those with added notes beyond what 10 fingers could do.

Will do Andy...by magic, here is another one "Steppin' In Society" https://www.box.com/s/259hb205s075d7jb4h0x

Bill, thanks for the info from Kantor...it is a very nice sounding temperament.

Look forward to hearing the podcast!

Absolutely! Thank you Bill

-Joe

I tuned a nice Yamaha C7 at a Gospel church today. They had a drumset, a Hammond B-3 organ and other kepyboards on the set. I've known the keyboardist for about 30 years. He is capable of many styles and often plays keyboards in the pit orchestra of the local high school for musicals. His daughter is the choir teacher there.

He is "Mr. Music" in that small town where the kids have all grown up used to hearing the pianos tuned in the EBVT. Considering the instrumentation and the type of music to be played, I opted this time for the 1/9 CMT. It produces such a smooth sound!

Bill, that's exactly the way I felt when I tuned the Weber. If I have time, will try this on the M&H, and use the 'extended' stretch to get as close as possible to the stretch you used for my EBVT III.

I just posted in the EBVT III thread Joe. Here are a few jazz pieces in EBVT III on my M&H RBB. Enjoy.


3. Jazz--Solfegetto in C minor--Jazz- Played by M.Garson on LX System -1927 M&H RBB.mp3 https://www.box.com/s/y6ebybz03zs9jd70ep4j

4. Jazz--Rythym Etude-- Played by M.Garson on the LX System- 1927 M&H RBB- EBVT III Temperament.mp3 https://www.box.com/s/dymrml5z9ns11psvxxby


Link to the EBVT III thread: http://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubbthrea...tml#Post2061593

grandpianoman...

WoW! I love these!

The piano sounds so alive!

And you are doing better work than some pros!

Did you use the Verituner, RCT, or Tunelab?

I'm going to have to go over your EBVT3 thread again. If I remember correctly, you have several pieces that were played in both ET and EBVT3. I want to hear if that resonance is the piano, or the tuning.

Thanks for posting
-Joe

Hi Joe,

Thanks! I used the Verituner Ipad with Bill's EBVT III tuning specifically for my BB.

I think what you are hearing has to do with several factors that all come together beautifully. The hammers and bass strings, Bill's special tuning, and of course the piano itself, with the Wapin bridge mod......it is one great sounding M&H BB.

Bill's tuning, more than any other one I have had on there, does something with the bass that just makes it sound so rich and full....Bill could explain it better how it reinforces the rest of the scale. It sounds like I have a larger piano than just 7ft...in person it is remarkable. Thanks for the kudo's...I just try and do the best my musical ears can do.

Yes, somewhere in that huge EBVT thread, you will find them...:)

Here are a few more Jazz pieces I recorded today....different mics, Rode NT5 Omins. Enjoy!


Rode NT5 Omini mics EBVT III

1. Jazz--Bach to Brooklyn Played by M. Garson EBVT III https://www.box.com/s/fy9h5yj8q3tkyxideyvq

2. Jazz--M.Garson 1 https://www.box.com/s/5lt9xskkgwvi3whxkysd

The opening post spoke of hardcore jazz. Thanks, grandpianoman for these two, particularly the one that goes into " I should care".. It contains some of the extended chords in extreme inversions. Jazz pianists I like to hear know how to graduate the tension in these kinds of chords. I don't hear the graduated tension but that may be the temperament or the pianist. These are rolls are they not? If they were made on an instrument in ET, that may be the reason. It would be nice to hear a comparison with the same roll played in ET. There seems to be some of the tension missing from the chords. Hard for me to tell why.

The opening post spoke of hardcore jazz. Thanks, grandpianoman for these two, particularly the one that goes into " I should care".. It contains some of the extended chords in extreme inversions. Jazz pianists I like to hear know how to graduate the tension in these kinds of chords. I don't hear the graduated tension but that may be the temperament or the pianist. These are rolls are they not? If they were made on an instrument in ET, that may be the reason. It would be nice to hear a comparison with the same roll played in ET. There seems to be some of the tension missing from the chords. Hard for me to tell why.

Hi rxd....you're welcome. Last night I recorded a few more from Garson. Will post those later today. These are not piano rolls. They are played on the LX system. I suspect they were made on a piano in ET.

You mentioned the pianists interpretation.....def different if he had recorded it live on my piano. Playing a recorded piece on a player piano or the LX/Disklavier, one hears what the pianist did on the recording piano, not my piano. Different accoustics, temperatment/tuning, piano action etc are not going to be exactly the same. If he had recorded it on my piano, he would probably play it slightly different. I remember Bill pointing this out eary in the EBVT III thread. It could also be the temperament.

Rxd, here is another Garson Jazz piece...the tuning went a bit sour, never the less, here it is. Also, I converted it to the .flac format instead of .mp3...it's a bigger file, but to my ear it sounds better. The box.net will play it, just give it time decode it. I also changed to the highest quality on my software when converting it from .wav to .flac.

ps...lol...about mid way through, my dog decides to do the dog shake...:)

M.Garson 3-Rode NT5 Ominis https://www.box.com/s/445ql3xqyl0r4r78t5dm

Sorry, grandpianoman, there something different enough with this link that it won't download on my iPhone. I'll have to wait til I'm at my big computer. Getting me to sit behind a desk these days may take a while.

There are different ways to raise the consonance, all with advantages and inconvenience.

Just to avoid confusion, my point is about the carefully graded progressive dissonances that are the province of the jazz pianist. (the pianist on BDB's recent 'sample' is an exellent case in point. ET works well for his type of playing.

Any attempt at more 'consonance', by an overly helpful tuner, however achieved, could destroy the carefully heard and constructed degrees of dissonance which is the intent of the finer jazz pianists. It isn't consonance they are striving for, it is carefully differentiated degrees of dissonance (tension). Show tunes in their original harmony don't begin to demonstrate this as a test of a suitable temperament for "hardcore" jazz as was stated in the presenting post. First class Jazz pianists these days are more and more particular about the pianos they play and their tuning.

I have thought of conducting an experiment involving the jazz profs and students at my conservatory but I think twice about disturbing the carefully built up stability of the pianos in their department and there isn't a piano I can set aside for a suitable length of time.

It is a little surprising to hear harmony progressions sounding a little "straight or "flat" in the sence less contrast , while more was expected.

But I believe that this part of the listening is due to a too big enlarging to get to pure intervals and consonance points . Global motion is fighted by the even beating process, but harmonically I would expect more congruence.

The tone, in itself, is clean and calm, nice to listen, but harmonic construction is a little disturbing "loss of meaning, that last being related to our listening habits as well" ,under some circumstances.

Rxd, I think Apple does not want to use .flac files, they want to lead us towards their own conversions. I could not get the .flac file to play on my Ipad/Iphone either. In any case, here it is as an .mp3

M.Garson 3 Rode NT5 Omni Mic Capsules.mp3 https://www.box.com/s/rzzbkvfxoz7kw4tl3vy6

Hi folks,

here comes a bold suggestion for laying down "the ultimate UT" for jazz Bill's very nice EBVT III (which I use and feature in our concert hall at the conservatory) could possibly be transposed so that the "sunfeather" of thirds have its smallest gaps (= least distance between lower and upper note) for the key B flat.

I have tried this only once, but inspired by this thread, I have to try it for the next jazz gig i tune for and/or play myself. The "ground base" of the circle of fifths in jazz would be B flat rather than C, due to the dominance of B flat instruments in the music.

As for Bill's EBVT III, the special character stems at least to 50% percent from the initial stretch outside the temperament (at least as I experience it). To me, it's more of a 2 1/2 octave (C2-F4) temperament. When you've gotten that area down, you can start stretching with balancing 12th/15ths, and get a really nice resonance out of the piano.

This is only my opinion, as always, but if you just get on my back a bit I will soon, at a convenient time, post an EBVT III tuning stemming from Bb, in a jazz context.
Would anybody be interesting in hearing something like that?

Patrick,

What were the results the last time you tried it? What was the reaction of the other musicians?

If relying on the Verituner for the initial temperament, would you simply shift all the offsets down one whole tone?

Edit: I wonder if this could have relevance to other well temperaments as well as EBVT3.

Thanks,
-Joe

Hi Joe,

I only tried it once, but I really liked it when I played the piano after the tuning. As for the musicians, they liked both the tuning and the sound of the piano. It was a club gig, though, so I guess the stress factor was kind of low.

This was a couple of years ago, but I've kept it in the back of my mind ever since to try it again sometime. The idea is a sound one to me, setting Bb as the calmest key, and E as the most "spicy" one.

I might consider tuning the jazz festival in my town (in September) using this temperament.

Hello!?!?!! I should think so !

Hey Patrick,

Your idea does make a lot of sense. I also, like Andy, would love to hear the result... if it's not too much work.

As for transposing the offsets, that might require a little more math than I first thought...

If the offset for B is transposed down to A, then A will be at -0.16 cents. So, 0.16 should probably be added to all the offsets so that A will equal 440 again. This should be a trivial amount of change in overall tension, so it would be safe with EBVT3.

Of course, if 0.16 is not added, there should still be a virtually beatless unison between A on the other instruments and A on the piano anyhow.

Or, would it make more sense, since we are moving the offset at C to B-flat, to subtract 3.31 cents from all the transposed offsets, if the other instruments are B-flat instruments?

Thanks,
-Joe

Joe, if you have temperament offsets which list A as anything but zero, all you have to do is reverse whatever the sign is and enter that offset in your ETD to move everything so that the A ends up at 440.

Thanks Patrick for your comments. You will recall how we discussed that Dvorak must have composed the "Going Home" melody on a well-tempered piano in the key of C. However, since the melody was to be played by winds which intone better in the flat keys, he simply transposed it all to the key of D-flat.

It is certainly possible to do this with the EBVT III for a piano that will play with a Jazz band or orchestra. The Vallotti Well temperament actually has its tonal center on F rather than C but it is often used by universities for Harpsichord and Fortepiano tuning.

I am not sure what to say about the pitch if you make B-flat the tonal center rather than C. If you do, the offset for A# (B-flat) would be +0.67. If anything, I would suggest tuning with the offset at -0.67 which would, in turn, reduce the +3.11 that A would have to +2.44. The thinking is that these instruments (except for the String Bass) may tune to a zero B-flat rather than a zero A. What say you, Pat?

I might also be inclined to split that +2.44 in half to +1.22 and tune the piano with a -1.22 offset. At that point, the amount "off" that the piano's A4 is would be insignificant. I personally believe that even at +3.11 it is still within the bounds of what musicians would perceive as A-440. That would leave the B-flat at: -0.55

Here are the offsets for the EBVT III with the tonal center shifted to B-flat:

C: +2.86
C#:-0.03
D: +3.80
D#:-1.29
E: +0.86
F: +1.59
F#:-0.41
G: +1.84
G#:-0.28
A: +3.11
A#:+0.67
B: 0.0

Don't forget that inharmonicity skews all these figures just a bit in the midrange. Also, consider that even in ET, the 4th partials of notes in the midrange tuned at A-440 are approximately at A-442! That also means that the fundamental pitches of notes in the 6th octave on a piano tuned in ET at A-440 are also approximately at A-442 pitch.

The conclusion may well be that you can't really tune a piano and that exact pitch doesn't matter that much even if you try!

Hi Bill and all others,

when i tuned the EBbVT III :), I started with a G fork instead of an A fork (Hey, I didn't even own an ETD at the time ) As the forks give the theoretical frequency based on the 12^2, I would assume that G would have an offset of 0.0 in this tuning. What is nice though, is that so would A.

I did this all by ear, starting with G4 and then going through the sequence just as I would normally. In the tuning, all the 6 BPS's fell naturally in place as 5 BPS's.

Based on this experience, I think i'd just transfer all the offsets down a whole step for the ETD tuning. If the original EBVT III is:

C + 3.8
C# - 1.3
D + 0.9
D# + 1.6
E - 0.4
F + 1.8
F# - 0.3
G + 3.1
G# + 0.7
A 0.0
A# + 2.9
B 0.0

...This "EBbVT" would have the following offsets:

A# + 3.8
B - 1.3
C + 0.9
C# + 1.6
D - 0.4
D# + 1.8
E - 0.3
F + 3.1
F# + 0.7
G 0.0
G# + 2.9
A 0.0


Anyways, the kind of adjustments Bill proposes would also work well. Just as he says, A=440 is only kind of a reference, a pitch that the piano centers itself around. Given inharmonicity, stretch and possible custom tweaks (speeding the thirds up just outside the temperament range, aso), the A=440 has to be taken with a grain of salt.

Thanks Bill and Patrick,

I understand.

But, if EBVT3 in its original form is centered around F, then maybe everything could be shifted down a 5th?

That would make B-flat at +1.49, and A would be -0.48. The offset for A would be trivial.

A real perfectionist could add 0.48 to all the offsets. Or, subtract 1.49 from all the offsets.

Thanks again!
-Joe

Hi Joe,

I like to look upon the C as the "home base" of EBVT III, since it has the calmest major triad. Then the rest of the triads stemming from the cycle of 5ths build that nice "sunfeather" shape I use to write about.

I don't know if you've seen the graph at rollingball.com, but here it is in any case:



It is this base that I shifted down in the Bb version I tried.

No Patrick, I did not look at the graph at rollingball.com... and I absolutely should have before posting. Sorry about that

I was just following what Bill Bremmer said in his post:
It is certainly possible to do this with the EBVT III for a piano that will play with a Jazz band or orchestra. The Vallotti Well temperament actually has its tonal center on F rather than C but it is often used by universities for Harpsichord and Fortepiano tuning.

The EBVT III is a true Well Temperament with the tonal center on C, not F. One could tune it from a C Fork by tuning the first interval as a C4-F3 pure 5th. The only technical "blemish" in the EBVT III is that there is what Owen Jorgensen describes as a "micro-imbalance": the A-C# M3 is a tiny bit less wide than the D-F# M3. Werkmeister's rules state that A-C# can be the same width or wider as D-F# but not less wide. However, since the infraction is so small, Jorgensen thought it to be insignificant.

I see my error...

The Valotti Well has its center on F, not EBVT.


Thanks,
-Joe

Actually, that is not true. It is just what I saw someone write one time and was dumb enough to believe it. The harmony is virtually the same for C, F and G Major. Most WT's have C Major as the calmest but Valotti's has them as the same. It is still within the bounds of Werkmeister's rules.

Anyway, here is the reason I logged in tonight. The pod cast of the tuning I did on March 9 for a Jazz concert the next day is, at last, available. Enjoy!

http://www.madtoastlive.com/latest/2013/3/10/episode-280-johannes-wallman.html

I would think that for Jazz one would want to focus on centering the pitch level at A# (Bb for you enharmonically conversant types) rather than A, at least so far as the relational tuning of brass and wind instruments are concerned.

A# and B flat are entirely different notes (just ask an oboist). You would need to set the temperament using B flat as the basis of the intervals.

I haven't had time to watch the whole thing. But what I heard, I liked

They don't show nearly enough close shots of the pianist. But in the ones they show, he seems completely engaged. The other musicians seem perfectly happy and not distracted.

And the crowd is loving it.

Obviously, a big thumbs up for EBVT3

Congratulations!

-Joe

Yup! Sounds good! Really good!

--Andy

Quite true, especially where alternate temperments are concerned! As one in the pipe organ field there are no such things as flats unless we are discussing instruments (often in mean-tone) with sub semi-tone keys.

I was pulling your chain a bit.

I have a friend who recently performed a Charpentier mass that moved from five flats through to four sharps. The research indicated that Charpentier likely used two manuals for the work, one for the flat keys and one for the sharp keys. In a modern context she had only one manual and they were forced to choose a meantone variant with the keyboard shifted to A - 392Hz, which meant she lost the bottom C.

Enjoyed the video. The piano sounds great harmonically, supports and fits in beautifully with the instruments.

Good tuning. I listened to far more than I intended to. In the first number, I wanted to hear more tension in the pianists chords (I wonder of he did, too) but in the second number I was quite happy. Most likely the difference of key.

I heard no intonation problems with the other instruments that don't occur anyway in ensembles of this nature, particularly as they hadn't, at that point, played together much. None of it traceable to the piano The area of the piano where UT's are most telling was clouded and rendered a bit nebulous somewhat by the bass.

The melodic intonation of the treble of a piano In any tuning will by destroyed by a sharp brass or sax section. I heard none of that in the parts I listened to. ( a sharp bass player doesn't have that effect, must be on a different tonal plane.

As for transposing the UT to accommodate brass Instruments, it might be a case where too much is overly helpful to the point of getting in the way. Speaking as a trumpet player, all brass and players worth their salt are dexterous in sharp keys whether from playing with guitarists or transposing cornet in A parts when playing for 100 year old light operas. Sharp keys tend to be quite sprightly on those instruments. Yes, a concert band intonation will go completely haywire in extreme sharps but that's more about low expectations. It doesn't need to but it does. Fewer instrumentalists who are fully conversant with extreme keys will have no more problems than they do with ET.

The main thing for me would be the pianists being happy that the intentions of their chords are being met.

Otherwise I see no problem.

was disturbed by the harmony at 45 " the beginning of the slow piece, find the basses meanless (the F chord) harmonically .

Sound strange (same effect when the ^pattern is played again later)

Like if the F (F1 F2) played have no relation with the right hand, while not being clearly false.

Otherwise, the mediums and treble are not sounding bad in the context.

The piano sounded very new. (?)

An effect of the 12-15th balance (and of non tempered 5ths)