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On a good day I tune ET. If I mess up? Hey, its ... UT! Yay!

I have pitch memory (prefer not to call it "absolute", because I can be 1 or 2 Hz off at A440) - certainly recognize keys immediately if the instrument is between about -50 cents and +20 cents. But I certainly prefer ET. To me, C major is C major, with no need for an overly sweet M3. And F# major is F# major, with no need for an overly sour M3.
I might be an exception to your rule/suspicion, but there you have it.



I submit that you can't have both "every bit as good" and "different other than just pitch". I see one of two cases:

1) F# sounds every bit as good as C, in which case
... a) you have ET or
... b) you have UT but don't care about the widths of M3s or can't distinguish them,

or

2) it sounds different, in which case you have UT and can actually distinguish between close and remote keys. But amongst musicians who can distinguish M3s of different widths, I've never found one person who likes a 17 cent M3 just as much as a 14 cent or 10 cent M3. They all prefer the closer keys.

So, if you tune/use UT and can distinguish between M3s of different widths, then F# does not sound "every bit as good" as C. (That's the whole idea, I've been told.)

Here's a question for the ET folks out there...

You say that C is the same (every bit as good) as F#, or any other triad (in a real ET) - how is that REALLY possible with the thirds all beating at different speeds from each other? Or do you mean something else?

[/quote] Playing a F# chord should every bit as good as a C chord, but it should sound different other than just a difference in pitch.

I submit that you can't have both "every bit as good" and "different other than just pitch". I see one of two cases:
1) F# sounds every bit as good as C, in which case
... a) you have ET or
... b) you have UT but don't care about the widths of M3s or can't distinguish them,

or

2) it sounds different, in which case you have UT and can actually distinguish between close and remote keys. But amongst musicians who can distinguish M3s of different widths, I've never found one person who likes a 17 cent M3 just as much as a 14 cent or 10 cent M3. They all prefer the closer keys.<<

So, if you tune/use UT and can distinguish between M3s of different widths, then F# does not sound "every bit as good" as C. (That's the whole idea, I've been told.)[/quote]

Greetings,
So, it appears that the value judgement has been placed="good" equal consonance? Thus, dissonance is "bad"? If so, why would anyone want to accept all the thirds being so dissonant? 14 cents is pretty far away from consonant. I think it is more a question of contrasts.

I have found that the ET advocates consider sameness to be good, even if it is dissonant, and inequality is bad, even if it reduces the overall dissonance in piano music. ( The only way that a UT creates dissonance on a par with ET is if the use of all 12 keys is totally democratic, and this is not the case in piano music.)

The greater decision is whether a listener is more emotionally moved by one or the other, and science has proven that emotional response varies with the level of dissonance. This alteration of response occurs involuntarily, and is virtually universal. So, while the resolutions in classical music are obviously intended to relax, having them accompanied by a reduction in tempering increases the effect, and we find that classical composers don't resolve to a key with a higher level of tempering, they always resolve to a calmer place. In the absence of contrast, emotional responses are forced to rely on intellectual response, which many of us have found to be a weaker, watered-down, effect.

I love the effect of F# in a strong UT when it indicates a very deep emotional turmoil. I love the pure calmness of the closer keys. What I find most disturbing about ET is the boring sameness when there is no difference other than pitch, and the busy-ness of tempering in passages that would be so much more beautiful if they were closer to pure. I like my classical music as complex as it can be, and ET, with its reduction of harmonic effect to a mathematically determined value, is the antithesis of this. Once understood, the UT casts a new light on phrasing......

And to the statement " I've never found one person who likes a 17 cent M3 just as much as a 14 cent or 10 cent M3. They all prefer the closer keys." I can only say that I must have run into all of them that do, because I have a majority of customers that will never go back to ET. If so many people like the 'closer keys', there must be something repulsive about dissonance, and the only way to accept ET, with its ever-present beating, is to stop listening to the tempering completely, (which is what happens).
Regards,

Hi Ron,
I think the explanation is that we hear the beating in logarithmic terms and pitch determines the effect, i.e. the C-E in the 4th octave, though beating twice as fast as the C-E an octave lower, is registered by the ear as the same tempering because the pitch is twice as high.
Regards,

This is turning into a really good discussion. Good question, Ron. And Ed, excellent post.

That is because you think/hear as a tuner and not as a musician. It is exactly the difference in intervals, such as thirds, which create the tonal colors of each individual key. I prefer to hear a distinction between C-minor and C#-minor. If memory serves, composers seem to choose from all keys. Why not just compose everything in C-Major or minor if ET is the best solution?

As an aside, I performed the Beethoven Concerto No. 4 in Prague on a Petrof P-282. The piano immediately brought forth incredible vibrancy. Unlike the USA, rehearsals are accorded much more time and the tuner is included in discussions with the pianist and conductor. I had time to pick the brain of the tuner to find out what was going on.

With an orchestra, he centers the temperament octave on A, rather than C. He used EBVT-III as the foundation temperament and then "listens to what the piano wants." What this created was an identification that G-Major was not a clone of C-Major in ET, merely at a higher pitch. He indicated that for a Wind Ensemble, he sets his temperament octave from Bb.

Keep in mind, I'm not a tuner. But, I am a pianist with an interest in non-ET tunings. If I have messed up the terminology, I apologize in advance.

You would seem to need a lesson in distinguishing between an inferances/observation and also the meanings of statements within greater context. When quoting a snippet of someones posting and leaving out its context, it is also appropriate to precede and follow the quote with 3 dots.

My statement stands, and relates to the versatilitya musician has to explore every key signature they come across without wondering if the piece will be more, or less musical for lack of unequalness.

As an analogy, I have 4 or 5 different eye glasses I wear that have various coatings, filters, prescriptions and tints on them. I do both day and night driving, competitive shooting in both bright sunlight and overcast conditions and numerous other tasks with varying conditions that would benefit from wearing one over the other. If I wore a bright amber high contrast lens on a bright day I would lose much of what I want to see in the same way as if I wore dark grey sunglasses at night. An UT basically does the same thing musically with pieces/key signatures that do not favour what it was intended to help. I would never dream of permanently having implant lenses in my eyes that addressed one condition, nor would I tune my home piano to address specific period pieces and have it muck up and cloud over the musical qualities of all the otherrs.

Emmery - Are you saying that ET is not a compromise?

--- I am quite familiar with the use of ellipses. Your sentence was quoted in its entirety and did not require an ellipsis or ellipses. It was not taken out of context, it was a complete statement and the source and additional text is available for all to read.

You should search for glasses which are tempered to adapt to all conditions. One doesn't need to change pianos when the instrument is tuned in a non-ET, and the point is, that on the same piano, key color is evident.

[quote=Emmery
As an analogy, I have 4 or 5 different eye glasses I wear that have various coatings, filters, prescriptions and tints on them. I do both day and night driving, competitive shooting in both bright sunlight and overcast conditions and numerous other tasks with varying conditions that would benefit from wearing one over the other. If I wore a bright amber high contrast lens on a bright day I would lose much of what I want to see in the same way as if I wore dark grey sunglasses at night. An UT basically does the same thing musically with pieces/key signatures that do not favour what it was intended to help. I would never dream of permanently having implant lenses in my eyes that addressed one condition, nor would I tune my home piano to address specific period pieces and have it muck up and cloud over the musical qualities of all the otherrs.
[/quote]

Greetings,
I think you have rebutted your own argument. On the one hand, you state that there is no universal pair of glasses that will do it all, yet attempt to say that ET will cover all the bases. One pair of glasses will not satisfy all your visual needs, why would one size third be optimum for all your musical needs?

Composers used different keys for different effects. You will never hear a funeral dirge composed in the key of C, nor a calm idyll composed in F#. Just like your lenses, the various keys are best suited for different musical expression, (see WTC). The UT is a harmonic tool box, offering various resources to the sensitive composer that knows how to best present a musical experience. It is far easier to compose with ET, since modulations don't make any difference other than pitch. Easier because of simplicity.

Using ET for everything is the equivalent of using a Crescent wrench instead of the individual sizes of tools. It works for everything but is optimum for nothing. Its use is for convenience, and that is all. It comes down to the difference between how music sounds and how music feels. Those of us that rely on the intellect pay more attention to the former, those that seek the emotional perspective will pay more attention to the latter.
Regards,

Greetings,
I think you have rebutted your own argument. On the one hand, you state that there is no universal pair of glasses that will do it all, yet attempt to say that ET will cover all the bases. One pair of glasses will not satisfy all your visual needs, why would one size third be optimum for all your musical needs?

Composers used different keys for different effects. You will never hear a funeral dirge composed in the key of C, nor a calm idyll composed in F#. Just like your lenses, the various keys are best suited for different musical expression, (see WTC). The UT is a harmonic tool box, offering various resources to the sensitive composer that knows how to best present a musical experience. It is far easier to compose with ET, since modulations don't make any difference other than pitch. Easier because of simplicity.

Using ET for everything is the equivalent of using a Crescent wrench instead of the individual sizes of tools. It works for everything but is optimum for nothing. Its use is for convenience, and that is all. It comes down to the difference between how music sounds and how music feels. Those of us that rely on the intellect pay more attention to the former, those that seek the emotional perspective will pay more attention to the latter.
Regards, [/quote]

Greetings Ed,
I would agree with your comparison of an adjustable wrench to a specific box end wrench, but you skirt around a very important point....a 3/8" box end wrench will not work at all on any other nut than the 3/8" one it was made for. Every piece written in a different key signature is a different sized nut, so to speak. An UT is not a complete set of box end wrenches, it is the same having a full set of wrenches, and most of them missing.

I have a pair of clear prescription glasses that will work universally in all conditions, this is the equivelant of ET. The other glasses I have to address certain conditions can easily be switched out in seconds. A temperament and tuning on a piano cannot be switched so easily on a moments notice. An UT is a pair of handcuffs that ties a musician to appropriate pieces the UT favours. UT's are simply not practical for musicians who do not want doors shut in their face when fully exploring all the keys the piano has to offer.

To put it in a nutshell, no self respecting mechanic has an incomplete set of box end wrenches in their tool box....and to the same degree, no self respecting musician has a temperament on their piano that does not address all the keys available to him on the piano.

To Ed Foote:

If it comes down to that: yes, I find dissonance "bad". In fact, I don't find even the ET M3 particularly beautiful. I agree with you, it's actually quite dissonant. What I dislike, is having to listen to M3s that are even wider than ET. What I like, is a tuning where such dissonance has been minimized.



Assume all you want, but you haven't a clue how I think/hear. My dislike of overly wide M3s, as I described to Ed above, is much, much older than any tuning I've ever done. I've only tuned some 20-odd pianos since I started in 2010, and one harpsichord in earlier years. In contrast, I've been making music in various degrees of (mostly im-)perfection since 1974, been aware of my pitch memory since about 1978 (but probably had it more or less from birth), been acutely aware of interval tempering and whether I like it or not since about 1984.

My value judgement on dissonance does not stem from any form of "tuner's hearing". To the contrary, I've made my tuning decisions (of recent years) based on my musical hearing preferences (developed over 30 years or more). Yes, I've tried EBVT-3, amongst others, but when I heard Ab major, I didn't want to continue playing. (Not to mention my favorite Christmas Chorale by JS Bach, in b minor, with its prominent F# dominant. To me, it was spoiled.)

UTs on instruments with little or no iH work very well. Bach's WTC in a common UT of the time has wonderful variations in tension and relaxation according to the key. But, on the piano, keys far from the base key really start to scream when the iH is added.

Well, you may believe that, but the facts in front of me prove this statement totally wrong. I have numerous professional musicians in my clientele, (including 2 Steinway artists), that have been profoundly influenced by an introduction to WT. These musicians have little use for ET, other than 20th century music. These jazz, country, and classical pianists have found all sorts of improvement in the sound and response of their pianos when I have shifted them out of ET. If you want to argue for a toolbox of all the same size wrenches, go ahead, but it has little pertinence to the world I live in.

For many, there is a great difference between unequal and restrictive, but since it is an esthetic difference, some listeners will not realize it. The fact is that the size of an ET third was derived by dividing an octave into an easy to handle number of notes, (a number determined by the number of fingers we have), not by its musical quality.
Regards,

How many fingers do you have? I have 10. I admit my knowledge of musical history and anatomy is limited.

Ed, I'm thinking that yourself and these artists have mangaged to convince yourselves that there is some kind of parallel temperment dimension out there which does not follow the fixed rules of the science of sound. Those of us in the know on this understand that within the fixed confine points of an octave, you cannot venture away from ET tuning to better favour an interval, without the opposite effect on other interval(s) connected to that adjusted note. It is possible to split the bias of it amongst more intervals but then the UT becomes more and more restrictive in freedom to venture to other keys. Its a lose/lose situation for 99.9% of technicians and musicians out there, and that is the reality of UT's. The arguement stands that if the adjustment is not so much that it makes the one unacceptably/noticably worse, then the adjustment is not enough to make the other acceptably/noticably better.

Incidently, I was discussing with an otchestra conductor the other day the issue of the pianos tuning not precisely matching a fixed pitch instrument when one ventures away from A440. All I could say is be thankfull that ET minimizes this....imagine if its tuned in EBVT3 and you played C4, you would have the pianos unusual tuning working against you and then add almost 4 cents difference on top of that.

Emmery,

Please ask that conductor if he believes that his orchestra plays in ET. Have you ever heard one that does? Have you ever had the opportunity to hear a vocal ensemble singing in ET?

It just doesn't happen.

BTW - Orchestral instruments and the voice are not fixed pitch instruments.

Non keyboard Instrumentalists and singers pull their pitches into just intonation. In general, they hate, but accept, as a necessary evil of the job, playing closer to ET in order to match a piano.

I know that. You know that. I'm sure Emmery's conductor knows it too. Does Emmery?

Even though I am a huge advocate of UTs, I am not convinced about its utility on a piano, simply because I have not experienced it and my wife doesn't want me to change our piano into something like EBVT III because of all the transposed pieces of her students.