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Larry, now you know how to tune equal temperament here's a bit of history from Pythagoras to the accordion.
That video is on the level of TV programs on UFO abductions in the Bermuda Triangle.
Kees
I agree! Add it to the pseudo science programs about Bigfoot, UFO's, Aliens from other planets, Global Warming, etc.
Start out with some real facts to get 'em hooked, just like Stuart Isacoff did in his recent fiction novel called, "Temperament". Then, put in there what everybody already believes and wants to hear, that good old, J.S. Bach invented ET, (OK, so maybe the Chinese knew something about it too but didn't like it but are now coming around to it too), wrote the Equal Tempered Clavinova Music to show how great it was and all the rest was history!
It was very interesting to me that more than once in this Dog-you-men-tary, that actual Nazi propaganda film footage was used!
It is also interesting to me that after reading what I have written on this subject, people have concluded that I was a "conspiracy theorist" even though I have never once made any such suggestion. A conspiracy has to happen between people in a certain place at a certain time who would all have some kind of agenda and something to profit from.
If there is a conspiracy with regards to Equal Temperament, it has crossed decades, even centuries with people who simply want to re-write history and leave a large section of it out that is a little too inconvenient to try to understand and make use of and just skip, quantum leap, from one kind of tuning system that had been in use for hundreds of years, to this new and glorious Final Solution (as Stuart Isacoff actually called it in his book) with the writing of two books of music by J.S. Bach, the de facto inventor of ET!
What Bach invented was responsible for all music that ever was composed since then! It was responsible for the way all musical instruments were made, including the accordions which apparently had every central reed tuned to a perfect ET but the right and left reed de-tuned to give it some sense of color!
Every orchestra from then on played it ET! One very frequent contributor on here once claimed that he sang in ET! How he would ever get his vocal chords to sing every 5th 2 cents narrow and every 3rd 14 cents wide, I will never understand!
So, to the original poster, I sympathize with you. I am glad that one contributor on here came up with what should become a classic phrase, "You don't know what you don't know!"
One of my customers, who sings in the local opera company as I had for many years, once asked me, "Isn't a note a note? Isn't it just, D0-RE-MI-FA-SO-LA-TI-DO and with the half steps right in between? Huh? Isn't it!!!???
The same person who came up with the phrase, "You don't know what you don't know" also said that the Lawrence Welk Orchestra always had the piano tuned "straight to the strobe", meaning that every pitch of the piano was always tuned to theoretical ET.
So, if that is the standard you want to go by, throw away all the modern Electronic Tuning Devices (ETD) and go and buy a Strobe Tuner and tune every piano until the wheel stops on every note. You will have achieved what the world wants you to believe is the Final Solution!
It is the ultimate goal and the way to make all music sound "in tune" and for every musician to agree with each other! If you believe that, you will have got your head around temperament but you will still be very far from knowing what you don't know about it!
Just because Howard Goodall wrote it doesn't mean that the scholarship is valid. That book is a popular introduction, in lay terms, that falls into the 'easy read' category, or possibly 'historical fiction.' The book was taken from the BBC series, not the basis for it.
There is no way that it would be accepted as thesis material.
Marty in Minnesota
It's much easier to bash a Steinway than it is to play one.
Marty, I thought you were "ill tempered" towards "bickering"? Here you seem to invite it.
I was thinking exactly the same thing.
Originally Posted by Minnesota Marty
I'm not inviting it, I'm acknowledging that it is rife in this forum whenever the topic comes up.
No, you do way more than "acknowledge" it. At almost every possible opportunity, you call out the techs for bickering (with one notable exception, weirdly enough, as his occasional absurd hyperbole is actually the worst bickering of all). Across in the piano forum, you even bad-mouth the tech-forum as a whole, for being so unpleasant because of the bickering. Your utterances in the most recent WNG thread may serve to illustrate my point.
As learning tech, I find this forum a wonderful place to observe, learn and sift through diverse viewpoints. If this is such a bad place for you, why don't you stay out?
Autodidact interested in piano technology. 1970 44" Ibach, daily music maker. 1977 "Ortega" 8' + 8' harpsichord (Rainer Schütze, Heidelberg)
I had the opportunity last weekend to tune for a guest artist doing a recital and master class at a University I tune for. The host artist has become a huge fan of UTs. When I first met her, I could not make her like a certain piano until I tuned it in EBVT III, and in her words "transformed" the sound of the instrument and inspired her playing.
A few months ago, for fun, I tuned her piano with the Lehman-Bach temperament, just to see what she thought, and she immediately fell in love with it. Tension and release became automatic and the harmonics made the piano sound like an orchestra. (her words, not mine)
In her communication with the guest artist, I had asked her to find out what temperament he would like, and she talked him into the Lehman-Bach.
He immediately became enthusiastic with the sound, he said that the new sound inspired both his recital and master class. He was excited and thanked me over and over, and gathered information from me to bring back to his tuner at his University.
I know most techs here think that UTs are terrible, but as a very accomplished musician of 50 years, I want you to know that I both love them, and everyone I introduce them to, become rabidly enthusiastic.
The two people I wrote about have DMA's from Eastman, have won international competitions, regularly play Carnegie Hall, and tour Europe and S America and are at a level that separate themselves from me and 99% of the rest of pianists in the world.
If I and a few others on this forum, are considered ignorant, then at least we are in some mighty fine company.
Thanks Chuck for your thoughts. There is something about a Good Temperament, particularly a gentle one like Bill's that can be very inspiring for a musician.
Thanks Chuck for your thoughts. There is something about a Good Temperament, particularly a gentle one like Bill's that can be very inspiring for a musician.
What a wonderful term: Good Temperament
I will now think of ET or GT.
Marty in Minnesota
It's much easier to bash a Steinway than it is to play one.
To temper is to depart from "in tune", unless one considers wide thirds to be "in tune". If so, I don't know how they would describe pure intervals while at the same time describing 13.7 cent wide thirds are "in tune". If 13 cent thirds are "in tune", then what are 10 cent thirds, or 17 cent thirds?
What makes for "in tune" then? Less consonance and more discord or less discord and more consonance, or a little bit of both?
Kees, the first sentence in that section of the Wikpedia article is, "Although the Well-Tempered Clavier was the first collection of fully worked keyboard pieces in all 24 keys, similar ideas had occurred earlier." No doubt Mr Goodall was well aware of all that. His main point was that the Well Tempered Clavier became well known.
The question in his Preface is whether Bach's 48 Preludes and Fugues and the invention of Equal Temperament was the most important event in the history of Western music. as suggested by Johnny Dankworth and his two fellow panelists suggested that in a musical quiz show in 1995.
One might substitute "subsequent adoption of Equal Temperament" for "invention of Equal Temperament" before debating the point.
Ian Russell Schiedmayer & Soehne, 1925 Model 14, 140cm Ibach, 1905 F-IV, 235cm
