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Joined: May 2010
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I find it interesting to play pieces transposed to various keys in well-temperament to see if I can really notice a difference. For this purpose I find this site http://en.scorser.com/S/Sheet+music/Piano/-1/1.html a great resource. For many pieces you can download an editable file (if you have some note editor software) and transpose pieces to any key and print them out and try for yourself how they sound in different keys. Kees
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Haha! Good one.
Seriously though, I can't understand why anyone would say UT wouldn't work. Well, think of all the composers for whom it didn't work - all of the renaissance composers, all of the baroque composers, all of the rococo composers... Clearly they couldn't write music because the keyboards were all tuned in GTs. Prout - I think that you have misread what Mark has written. The eras you mentioned is when UT was employed and enjoyed as the norm. Mark has agreed that a UT would work. I was joking. Remember, I am a "pro ut" person.
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I find it interesting to play pieces transposed to various keys in well-temperament to see if I can really notice a difference. For this purpose I find this site http://en.scorser.com/S/Sheet+music/Piano/-1/1.html a great resource. For many pieces you can download an editable file (if you have some note editor software) and transpose pieces to any key and print them out and try for yourself how they sound in different keys. Kees Thanks for the source. That will be very useful. I have a number of vocal works that are in several transposed keys. In Young, they sound VERY different, as they tend to be transposed up or down a major third. This makes them lose the original character, and in some cases, makes them unusable.
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I was joking. Remember, I am a "pro ut" person.
LOL...LOL...lol...
"Respond intelligently, even to unintelligent treatment." -Lao Tzu
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Oh, I get it. That was funny. Now we're having fun. (I need a life.)
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Yee-Haa - Mark is becoming another Pro-UT !!!
Marty in Minnesota
It's much easier to bash a Steinway than it is to play one.
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Old European pianos had a fixed resonance or 'EQ' which gave them a 'vocal' quality and sometimes you see that certain notes 'drop' in tension where the board resonates.. this is a sort of compensating by listening that some more obsessive manufacturers used to do. Acortot, your post is very interesting but would you please explain the sentence I have quoted in more detail? In the early 1800's there were dozens of piano builders, who worked independently, in small workshops like guitar-builders do today.... Thank you, acortot, for your most interesting and comprehensive answer. Looking at your blog, it becomes clear that changes in temperament went hand in hand with the developments of the instrument in ways many of us will find hard to appreciate today.
Ian Russell Schiedmayer & Soehne, 1925 Model 14, 140cm Ibach, 1905 F-IV, 235cm
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Mr. Fujita, thanks for your comprehensive and logical approach.
It saddens me to see this vitriol and complete misunderstanding concerning temperament. The more misinformed opinions spout, the more confused young ones in the world, trying to learn, will become.
Temperament is not a difficult issue to understand, aside from the dire lack of scholarly input. This wash of incorrect explanation does make it nearly impossible to penetrate.
Fixed tone solutions which rely on one rate of curvature for tuning (all keyboard instruments) will never have all intervals in tune. But this is simply a resolution problem! Equal temperaments such as 53-TET allow almost all common intervals to be pure. Infinite resolution or fluid pitch can achieve purity everywhere!
Mathematicians understand this. Physicists know that exact whole number ratios have little to do with pure intervals because of a concept called bandwidth on real instruments.
Unequal temperament is beautiful testament to variable tone solutions on a fixed tone instrument. Equal temperament on our modern instruments became a beautiful solution only because of increased bandwidth, increased inharmonicity and the scientific understanding needed to apply it.
Over matters of art and taste, what is the point of argument?
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Whenever I feel confused by the different commas and the way they relate to temperaments, I just look at this diagram and everything becomes clear. Just intonation is the point in the middle and each green line represents a family of temperaments where a certain comma is tempered out. At points where two lines intersect, both commas are tempered out and the result is an equal temperament. The syntonic comma is tempered out on the meantone line and the pythagorean comma is tempered out on the aristoxenean line. 12-TET is the point where these lines intersect. The problem with most explanations of temperaments, is that they explain the pythagorean comma and describe it as the reason for tempering intervals, but this isn't really true. In fact, the only comma that has to be tempered out, is the syntonic comma. The reason for this is that our musical notation is based on the pythagorean tuning, where a major third (81:64) is tuned as a chain of four fifths. When using 5:4 thirds, the difference between a third and four fifths is a syntonic comma (81:80) but when composers started using these consonant thirds, they kept using the pythagorean notation and simply pretended that the comma didn't exist. That's why we have to use a tempered tuning, but this fact seems to be poorly understood. There is, however, no musical reason for tempering out the pythagorean comma, since composers (usually) make a distinction between notes such as A flat and G sharp. Using subsemitones is a better alternative, from a musical point of view. Fixed tone solutions which rely on one rate of curvature for tuning (all keyboard instruments) will never have all intervals in tune. But this is simply a resolution problem! Equal temperaments such as 53-TET allow almost all common intervals to be pure. Infinite resolution or fluid pitch can achieve purity everywhere!
As I explained above, adding more keys is an alternative to tempering out the pythagorean comma, but this doesn't solve the problem with the syntonic comma. This is not only a problem for fixed pitch instruments; singers, trombone players and violinists all have to deal with the syntonic comma, in one way or another. It is true that 53-TET makes all consonances nearly pure, but as you can see in the diagram, it doesn't temper out the syntonic comma, so it cannot work with standard musical notation.
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(excerpt)
Over matters of art and taste, what is the point of argument? +1 (excerpt)
If I say ET is beautiful to me, who has the right to tell me it is not? +1
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I know that piano tuning should be done with the special skill and knowledge. It is not the matter of the temperament issue alone. For one tone there are two or three rigid strings each of which should be tuned slightly different. And there are many other delicate aspects which are important. With a few exceptions, many pianists use the equally tempered pianos for their recordings and recitals of Bach's works. It is a fact. In Japan there was a man who claimed "The equal temperament will destroy the Earth." But this equal temperament makes us free to use notes as words like a,b,c,,.There are 12 notes in an octave. We can talk music as a language. It is great. Iori Fujita
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We can talk music as a language. It is great.
After all, without music life would Bb.
Michael
"Genius is nothing more than an extraordinary capacity for patience." Leonardo da Vinci
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(excerpt)
Over matters of art and taste, what is the point of argument? +1 (excerpt)
If I say ET is beautiful to me, who has the right to tell me it is not? +1 I agree as well - but... There are conflicting aims for a tuner (I think, not being a pro myself), to satisfy the desires of a single customer, or a concert pianist, or the management of a concert hall or institution with multiple pianos, and yet temper the way you find most beautiful. Would you tune a honky tonk temperament, or 1/4 comma meantone for all the pianos you tune because that is what you find most beautiful, or do you compromise and tune what the customer wants? As I mentioned in another thread - If that is not the case, why are instruments tuned at all, and why have musicians and composers agonized over tunings for hundreds of years? The music that composers write presupposes some form of organization of the relations between notes that they want to hear and expect the listener to hear. Is it not our job to try our best to provide that foundation on which to perform their music?
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Thank you, acortot, for your most interesting and comprehensive answer.
Looking at your blog, it becomes clear that changes in temperament went hand in hand with the developments of the instrument in ways many of us will find hard to appreciate today.
You're welcome, thank you for asking. Speaking of 'trying-out' different temperaments, to get a rough idea I use midi-files derived from piano-rolls of my favourite old pre-war pianists and listen to the result on a piano-simulating software that has the possibility of changing temperament when playing-back a performance. I find it useful to listen to a specific composition in a specific period temperament to hear if the temperament is flattering to the composition or is shedding some light on the key-changes within the composition.. obviously the tuning on a real piano is going to sound different but to 'get an idea' I personally find it to be quite useful.
Last edited by acortot; 04/30/14 09:59 AM.
Max di Mario
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... piano-simulating software that has the possibility of changing temperament when playing-back a performance. I've never tried that. Is there some open source software that's suitable?
Ian Russell Schiedmayer & Soehne, 1925 Model 14, 140cm Ibach, 1905 F-IV, 235cm
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Lucas Brookins, RPT
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Yee-Haa - Mark is becoming another Pro-UT !!! Marty, bite your tongue. "Turn away from the light. Don't follow the light."
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Yikes! 10000 Post Club Member
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Semipro Tech
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Yikes!...ouch, ugh ugh ugh................
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Piano
by Gino2 - 04/17/24 02:34 PM
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Piano
by Gino2 - 04/17/24 02:23 PM
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