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I read a post by Bill Bremmer recently, on one of the threads, I think it was on the Aural Temperament on Youtube thread, where he was claiming to be the one that established/found the temperament that uses the two octave set up, incorporating the F3 to F4 octave to establish whether your temperament sequence is correct and that the CM3rds are correct too.

Atleast something along that line. I am open to correction with the actual wording and terminology he used.

Can anyone assist me in finding that post.

I do know it was recent, but I have searched and it seems to have gone missing.

Anyone?

I would like to find out if the claim he made is true or not?

Hi Mark,

I read that post too. I don't know if he was the first to use this technique but I know he's not the only one. I have been teaching contiguous M3's for years now using colour instead of beat speeds. (I'm a musician, not a mathematician ;-) The F3F4 and A3A4 octaves need to be the same size, NOT the correct size, for the M3's to work. It's simple geometry. I will eventually write an article on my blog, http://howtotunepianos.com, that describes this geometric phenomenon, where distances between points represent beat speeds (colour). Please subscribe to get updates.

Here's my post to his. His should be a little before mine as I was answering a question about it.

You may have to copy and paste the link. It was not clickable in the preview.

https://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/2168732/Re:%20Should%20There%20Be%20A%20Standard.html#Post2168732

Hello Mark

Nice to hear from you!

Thank you very much for finding this. Fortunately you quoted Bill on your post.

Ok, so here is Bill's quoted statement folks,




I see Bill has worded his statement very carefully. There is plenty of wiggle room.

My thoughts are, that this two pair octave, to prove the initial set of CM3rds was commonly spoken of, practiced and written about among the PTGers, atleast from Baldassins time and probably before.

Those in the know, are you willing to chime in?

Bill's comment on people coming up with the same idea, being not uncommon, I cannot find too?

Anyone?

The following is an example of what I am speaking about, and I see that this document is dated 1982.

http://api.ning.com/files/wbidlZJqOD6VtPjchrlbEw7YKLow4vqjewIETp2wKUDsUYKSQP8ttvqSvQfUjnygeqT0xT-l**QFTblXjsG-gBUZ7*BbULzV/Temperament_OctChart.pdf

I stand to correction, but is this not using the two pairs of octaves, F3-F4 and A3-A4 to prove that the initial set of Contiguous M3's?

Hi Mark,
Hopefully reading ALL the posts in this old thread will answer all of your questions:
http://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/622990/1.html

There are several methods out there that use the "2 F's / 2 A's" scaffolding, as I like to call it. Baldassin's, Bremmer's, and Stebbins' methods all come to mind. However, they all differ in the methodology to attain the final CM3's. I cannot speak for Baldassin's method because I have not tried it directly from your link. But Stebbins uses C#3 (forming a lower additional CM3rd) as well in his initial scaffolding. Bill's method does not. Also Stebbins' older article advocated different widths of the A's vs the F's . A's should be 4:2 and F's and C#'s should be 6:3. Bill says the F's and the A's MUST be the same width, or the MC3's will be difficult to impossible to reconcile later in the temperament. Please correct me Bill if I've misrepresented what you've said.

I don't want to speak for Bill, but two different parties 'discovering' something independently happens all the time and not just with piano tuning. The biggest example is in scientific research.
Unlike that example though, where being the "first" to discover something can mean a lifetime of grants, prizes, university tenure, and your name in the history books, it's a big leap to take that into the small piano tuning community. Bill does not teach tuning on a regular basis, nor does he have a tuning school which he constantly promotes, nor does he charge for instructional materials on his website. Also, he was the one who gave credit and scanned in his old copy of the Stebbins method to begin with:

https://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/1716013/Searchpage/1/Main/121426/Words/stebbins/Search/true/Re:%20Question%20on%20counting%20beats.html#Post1716013

And once I tried that, thanks to his post, I use Stebbins' method rather than Bremmer's to get the CM3's! But then I DO use Bremmer's Marpurg ET from there on out. :-)

It's hard to find a motive here for false claims of discovery, either for financial gain or fame. I don't believe Bill is claiming discovery or patenting any method. He even named the sequence 'via Marpurg' which gives credit where credit is due. What he CAN claim however, is his new take on older ideas and how he presents those instructions to the beginning student - which IMO are an unbeatable combination. And I have looked far and wide for temperament tuning instructions both on the net and piano tuning manuals/books.

Besides, one could argue that there is no such thing as a 'discovery'. It is all re-mixing and re-arranging of pre-existing materials and ideas:

http://everythingisaremix.info/watch-the-series/

Not so romantic I know.. but an interesting thought. :-)

Thanks Eric,

I never read any of Baldassin's work, so if he used the two pairs of octaves the way I do, then good because that was not the way I remember him describing what to do with contiguous 3rds many years ago in a lecture. If he later put specifically into writing how the two pairs of octaves MUST be very similar in size (within 0.5 cents of each other or test out aurally as the same TYPE octave) and that if you change F3, you must also change F4 and reprove the octave type/size, then he did and said the RIGHT thing!

If anyone else ever said that too, then they also did and said the right thing. Can anyone find any other material at all which identifies those two important factors: Similarity of size/type of the two pairs of octaves AND moving BOTH F3 and F4 as an inseparable pair?
If not, then I was the first describe it in that way. If someone else said exactly the same thing, then I would love to see proof of it.

I am quite certain that nobody else discovered the ET via Marpurg idea. Owen Jorgensen told me that he had never seen anything quite like it. He above anyone else would have recognized the idea if anyone else had thought of it before. So, combined with the tone cluster technique, it is quite a unique idea and above all else, it works! Superbly well and with superior results every time!

I also designed the original EBVT by myself just by listening and comparing. Others only criticized how it was spelled out but offered no help, mostly just mockery. Everyone except Owen Jorgensen. When I finally hit upon just the right solutions to each problem (much like a mathematician would on a complex formula) by myself but with help and guidance by Owen Jorgensen, he wrote back that it was now a fine, well balanced Victorian Style Well Temperament.

He also added that it closely resembled a theoretical idea that Johann Georg Neidhardt had in 1720. Neidhardt however had never actually tuned it and never wrote instructions on how to tune it.

It is also true that in neither case, did I ever put my name on either temperament idea. I also wrote an 18th Century style Well temperament hat uses the same bearing plan as the EBVT. It is on this list somewhere.

Som ark, if you are on a witch hunt just to try to find something you can expose me about having copied material from other people and claimed it to be my own idea, you are wasting a lot of time and energy for which you will come up with nothing. You might do a lot better if you actually read and practiced the material I wrote rather than merely saying you are not impressed with it.

My goal certainly has not been to impress you or anyone else. If you are more impressed with other people's material, then by all means, use that material and write about your success with that. Slow pull and back up to your heart's content. Tell everybody how wonderful the results are. I won't be doing what you are trying to do here if you do. I have better things to do.

Hi Bill,

I've been teaching F and A octaves confirming M3's, and vice versa, for about three years now. I advocate the use of colour blending (fitting evenly changing colour into F3F4 and evenly increasing colour into A3A4) instead of 4:5 ratio because it is so hard to hear. I used to use the 4:5 ratio all the time until I started teaching tuning. Then it became too hard to get good results from students, so I developed the colour approach. I could probably find an early edition of my manual to give you the exact date, but it was probably after you discovered it.

If you want to try it with your students, I find it very efficient.

Thanks for responding folks.

I will not pursue the matter an further for the sake of peace.

Thank you,

Mark C.

That looks good. It does not really matter whether you came up with the ideas that you did either before or after I did. Neither of us knew about or saw what the other was doing.

I like the way you described the 4:5 ratio as "color". I always have to say that we are not "counting" beats. I only say that the difference from one pair of CM3's to the next is a "small difference". Not the smallest difference possible as in the difference between either two chromatic Major or minor thirds but a small difference.

Our friend, Patrick Wingren who used my methods to pass the tuning exam and go on to become an examiner actually says however that all major thirds in ET have the same color! They all are theoretically 14 cents wide, so that much is true. It is a matter of perception. Different beats speeds but the same "color".

It remains true in any case that if any one of the M3's in the chain of CM3's is either too fast or too slow, the one next to it will also be obviously incorrect. This leads one to an inevitable point where each note of that chain will be as correct and reliable as is humanly possible with aural tuning. That is why I insist upon the CM3's as the foundation for ET and have taught that now for 10 years (dating back to my first article on the subject in November, 2003.

Ironically, it was Jerry Viviano (an Associate) who was trying to learn to tune the two central octaves by ear well enough to pass the tuning exam who pointed out to me that what I was doing was moving F3 and F4 as a pair. He actually saw that before I did. Jerry is an excellent editor. He said that if there was anything that he did not understand, then it was likely that any of my readers would not get it either.

I was writing up the contiguous 3rds idea as a part of the article I was writing for the PTG Journal. It ended up being a three part article that was published a few years ago. Jerry also designed the visual chart that accompanied the article. Jim Coleman Sr. and Jerry Viviano were given credit for their contributions. At no time when I wrote the article did I ever read anything that Rick Baldassin had written and I still never have.

Jerry Viviano's unique chart can be seen here:

https://app.box.com/shared/k7l7g54dsj

Hi Bill,
Thanks for the visual chart! I see something like this in my mind when I'm tuning, but it's a great leap to be able to put the visualization down on paper as Jerry has so aptly done. That being said, I must point out one small error in Jerry's diagram:
On the last image of the keyboard (bottom right), look at the A#3. There should be 2 lines going to this note, but there is only one - to D#4. The missing line should be drawn from A#3 to F3, a P4 below as the other test note.

By the time you get this far in the sequence however, it shouldn't be a big deal, and a student should be able to connect the dots (literally!). But for completeness sake, maybe you should let Jerry know so he can update the image.

While we have you here, rather than opening a new thread, can I just ask you about the F's width vs. the A's width? Was I right in paraphrasing you as saying something like, "I don't advocate different widths for the F and A octaves like Stebbins does. Otherwise true ET might be difficult to impossible. The F's and A's must be the same octave width."

I use the Stebbins method which includes the lower C#3 as well, but I disregard his call for 6:3 octaves for C#'s and F's vs. 4:2 octave for the A's. Could you explain why you keep the octaves the same vs. Stebbins old way of making them different in the beginning of the temperament sequence? Or, could I get away with doing a 6:3 on the C#s (because this is getting into the bass range of the piano) and compromise between 6:3 and 4:2 for both the F's and the A's ? Are we splitting hairs at this point? Will it really matter, or is there something I am missing?

Thanks again for the info and the great visual chart!
-Erich

I just realised, that though I did not want to pursue the matter any further, that it seems to have been taken forward by Bill, who has made further spurious statements.

So I have collected some of his recent statements and bring some information for your perusal.









Please consider the following,

The following info of Jim Coleman's A to A temperament was written in 1988, however, I have a hunch that he may have been writing about it and teaching it, at even an earlier stage.

Bill has worked closely with Jim Coleman, as much as I recall from what Bill has said himself, and I have a vague thought that Jim was one of Bill's mentors.

Bill is asking for proof, so here it goes,

The Coleman A to A temperament,

Step 2. Tune A3 to A4 such that F3/A3 M3 is 0.5bps slower than F3/A4 M10

Step 3. Tune F3 to A3 approximately 7 bps wide.

Step 4. Tune F4 to F3 such that C#3/F4 M10 is 0.5 bps fatser than C#3/F3 M3. F4/A4 should be approximately 14 bps wide.

Step 5. Tune C#4/F4 M3 to balance with A3/C#4 M3; the ratio of each of the four M3's should be 4:5. If F3/A3 is to slow and A3/C#4 is to fast, the F3 must be lowered along with the F4 and the C# must be raised but not so much that C#4/F4 is to close to the beat rate of F4/A4. Time spent at this point pays rich dividends later.


Something else to consider,



Is what Bill has said above true or false?

What saith Jason Kanters website about EBVT?

I don't know, Mark, does it really matter? Bill likes to make grandiose claims, but is it really worth picking this kind of statement apart?

We're here to discuss piano tuning. Not who said what first about whom.