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May I recommend listening to the BBC radio 4 broadcast of Saturday 4th January 2014.

It is available on BBC iplayer, and features Newark College piano tuning course and Cavendish pianos (UK).

"Jazz pianist Jamie Cullum explores the piano's place in modern life. With recent stories about the decline of the piano, Jamie delves behind the myths to find out about the history of the instrument he is most passionate about and looks at how the piano industry is still thriving in the UK.

In the first episode, Jamie begins by focusing on the piano itself and traces the story of an old abandoned piano that he rescued from a street corner. His journey leads him to the London Borough of Camden where piano historian Dr. Alastair Laurence takes him on a tour around the area that, only a century ago, was the world centre of the piano making industry.

After exploring some of the remaining piano retailers in the neighbourhood and playing London's most out of tune piano, Jamie travels to the Yorkshire Dales to visit one of the few places left in the country where pianos are still being made from scratch.

At Newark College, Jamie talks to the course leader and students at the last piano tuning course in the country and learns some surprising facts about the physics of piano tuning.

Finally, Jamie visits the Brontë's old family home to play on the sisters' own piano that has been carefully restored."

This is the direct link to the programme:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/player/b03nrlyg

Dr Alastair Laurence is the chairman of John Broadwood and Sons.

Another surprising revelation from Newark College in the broadcast, as I recall it, was that Bach invented equal temperament and that has been the basis for all Western music ever since!

True, Ian!

I just heard that they have discovered Bach's original piano and it is tuned to absolute ET. They even found his hammer file and temperament strip! Amazingly enough, it is a screw stringer.

A bit disappointed that you can't be more positive about our trade.

We should all be celebrating a radio feature made about us.

Ben

David gives a good summary of an excellent programme. I was going to mention Alastair Laurence, plus Betsy Squire and Heckscher, but he beat me to it.

Do you know if iPlayer Radio is now available in countries beyond Europe?

Sorry Ben. It was an attempt at a humorous response to Ian's notice of Bach and ET. I can assure you, I have utmost respect for your profession.

Now, I shall get back to my practice of die gleichtemperierte Klavier.

Ooops, seems I finally found something here that I already knew (-:

Well tempered clavier - wasn't that what he wrote to show case ET ?

Not ET the extra terr...<nevermind>

Well tempered clavier, equal tempered clavier.... Tomato/tahmahto... Let's call the whole thing off.

Maybe one of our American friends can tell us whether they can play the programme on the link I gave above?

Yes, I could hear it here and I also heard the same misinformation about Bach and Equal Temperament that has been broadcast for the last 100 years. It is the repeated telling of that lie that actually prevents Equal Temperament from actually happening in so many cases. Surely, the man who said what he did must know better but I guess I should not be surprised if he didn't.

Not to say that it is a poor or uninteresting program, it is quite a good one and very interesting. It is just that when it got to the piano tuning part, some very basic information was not the truth at all.

I am fascinated and intrigued by your reply.

Please spell out specifically your thoughts on Bach, equal temperament and its relevance to the radio broadcast, bearing in mind it was aimed at a main stream audience.

I would love to know what the great lie is after 36 years in the piano trade.

I understand that ignorance is no defence.

Ben Nolan

Ben, do you think that Bach invented Equal Temperament? Do you think that there was even a concept of ET in that era? The big misconception that Well-Temperament is identical to Equal Temperament. It is not.

Equal Temperament, in the strictest sense, is a mathematical division of all 12 steps between an octave into equal parts. Great in theory, however it is impossible in practice. You cannot have 1/2 of a vibration or a cycle per second occurring on any given note and be absolute. The discrepancy must be assigned to one of two adjacent notes.

Well Temperament, or any temperament variation, is harmonic, rather that mathematical. It is how the intervals relate to each other to create the whole. A temperament, other that Equal, gives rise to what we hear and identify as "key color."

I hope this helps.

There is little doubt that equal temperament was known about long before Bach's time.



There is nothing sacred about seconds or vibrations that keeps them from being divided by arbitrary amounts.

The only difference between equal temperament and other temperaments is that equal temperament is defined with arbitrarily fine exactness, while most other temperaments are only vaguely defined. They cannot be tuned any more exactly than equal temperament can.



Equal temperament derives from an approximation of "harmonic" intervals, just as other temperaments do. The only difference is the method of approximating those intervals.

OK BDB -

Did Bach invent ET?

Please cite your documentation of ET in the early German Baroque?

Please be aware that my PhD is specifically about the composers of Lüneburg and their influence on the young J. S. Bach. My thesis includes extensive research into the various temperaments employed in the church organs where Bach studied and where he served as Kappelmeister. Equal Temperament is not in the picture.

Please note, I have made no reference to the precision or tuner skill needed to tune any temperament. It is totally irrelevant to a discussion of what a tempered scale is.

Though BEN120N has no identifying statement as a professional tuner, he did make this statement: "A bit disappointed that you can't be more positive about our trade." However, his further questions belied a distinct lack of knowledge. My explanation of ET vs. UT was nothing more than a very rudimentary introduction. In fact, it is rather embarrassing that it would even need to be addressed in this forum.

All in all, I was trying to be nice.

I answered that question before you asked. Go back and read what I said.

In my tomes of temperment, ET as we currently define it (approximate?) was not in practice at that time. There has been no surviving evidence even if it was that I'm aware of or discovered in my research. And at least one organ (a marvelous historic record of tuning methods and pitch levels) in existence would have such a flexible and revolutionary approach. There were a number of regional or locale flavors of WT, the more significant of which have been given names and tuning procedures, but most certainly not ET as we know it and the standard practices to achieve it as best as possible.

For someone with a PHD on the related subject I'm surprised you can't differentiate between ET and 12-TET. Equal temperament does not require a certain number of notes nor a defined octave to be constrained inside for its true definitive meaning.....a system of tuning, in which every pair of adjacent notes has an identical frequency ratio.

There were both mathamatecally and verbally defined concepts and a practices of ET well before Bach.... although the exactness of these (Asian and Greek origin) had come under criticism, Simon Stevin's chord length from Vande Spiegheling der singconst definately indicated a breakdown of 1.0594 (c. 1605) as the common frequency multiplier for 11 of the 12 notes (12-TET). Only one note was miscalculated as 1.0593 and many people disclude this as perfect ET because of this error....in reality, this 4th decimal is irrelevent for practical purposes since even modern tuners can and do deviate farther than this on parts of the keyboard and still call it a good sounding acceptable ET tuning.

I kind of cringe when people mention J.S. Bach in discussions on this. When so much fuss was made about some scribbled doodle marks at the top of his manuscript, if thats the best we got on exact citation, its really hard to guess what those instruments/tunings actually sounded like in real life. Might make for stale conversation in the powdered wig room but really it doesn't have much clout from a scientivic view or analysis IMHO.

This is what started the all of the stupid nit-picking!

Absurd.

It is also absurd that any temperament is the basis for all Western music!

I replied with another absurd statement which was taken as factual. If any pro-tuner didn't understand that it was in jest, you better look for a different line of work.

However, one person, claiming to be a pro replied, not knowing it was in jest. Then he asked Bill Bremmer to expand further.

All I did was try to give an explanation that ET is a mathematical division and that WT is harmonic. Sorry pro- (or semi-) tuners, that is the difference. No matter how many numbers, or theories, or techniques you throw at it, that is the difference. The sonic results are different, but that is not in question. The number of notes inserted between the octave is irevelant for the definition of tempering any given sequence.

Musicologists and Musical Historians consider the circular squiggles on the manuscripts to be doodling. It is also seen on other of Bach's manuscripts, too. It is the tuners who believe that it is some secret notation which explains WT. Then there is the question if it meant "Well Temperament" at all. The writing in English of Well-Temperament is an attempt at translation to imply something which may, or may not, be indicated. It is still debated if what is now called WT is accurate to what Bach understood.

Keep in mind that Bach was not an organ builder nor organ tuner. His tuning of his own claviers was based on the intonation and temperament of the organs with which he had contact. This is exactly why Luneburg is of such importance in his development musically and his sense of tonation/temperament. His trips to Hamburg exposed him to an additional schools of thought and experience.

Emmery, our 12 tone system is directly dependent on the octave as being the fundamental interval leading to the evolution of polyphony within the context of plainsong or chant. Please consider that any voicing other than a unison or octave was "sinful." The you must then interpose and imagine what was heard in the reverberation created by moving pitches in a fluid vocal line. The earliest of chant was the repetition of a single note or syllable with the culmination on a "pure" interval and thus not "sinful." Yep, the fourth and fifth. Everything else, in Western musical tradition, is a Johnny-come-lately.

What still remains is the fact that J. S. Bach did not invent Well Temperament.

Would you like to get into the argument as to whether Bach was composing for an instrument tuned in Well-Temperament or for a Nicely Tuned Harpsichord in another temperament for use in all 24 keys?

I agree completely, we have no idea of what Bach was hearing while he was composing a specific collection of preludes and fugues.

That debate still rages in some circles!

You should worry more about your own mistakes, rather than those of others.