Re: [MMM] 1/2 comma??

On 21 Jun 2002, at 13:01, X. J. Scott wrote:

> J.P. Kirnberger published rules for this in 1771. Jorgensen
> lays it all out in his own way in chapter 76 of 'Tuning'

Yes, I have checked this out. I find Jorgenson to be a very interesting book,
myself, but I would never ever ever recommend him to a beginner or even a
gullible but semi-knowledgeable amateur. There are people in Early Music
who get very hot under the collar at the mere mention of his name.

There are two half-comma fifths in this temperament. I'd want there to be a
lot more than that to call it a half-comma temperament. But they are indeed
important fifths, it's a-e and d-a -- and to have those two fifths beating 6 or 7
times a second in the middle of the keyboard would indeed add color. In
music from Kirnberger's period I don't think it would be likely to sound very
elegant.

> Even so, that Kirnberger well temperament does give a period
> flavor and is so outlandishly easy to tune that even I have
> attempted it.

Well, this brings up the question of what's 'easy'? Letters and fictional
works of the period where people talk about their keyboard instruments
daon't talk about 'I tuned my Clavier in Kirnberger 2 equal-beating
temperament today', they just say 'I tuned the clavier'. Organ tuners talked
about the details (and mostly they used quarter-comma meantone, in some
places well into the 19th century), because they had to tune a lot of ranks
into unison, often tuned at different times, and they also had collections of
lots of other instruments that had to play with them etc. but when people
talked about their little living room clavichord they just said 'I tuned the
clavichord'. They didn't feel the need to hit some perfectly accurate exact
template. They tuned for themselves, the tuning hammer was in a little
drawer inteh instrument, if somethign bothered them while they were
playing they fixed it.

What I do for tuning an all-purpose well-temperament on my harpsichord is I
tune the first 4 intorvals to make the third c-e, to make it have just a few
beats in it usually, but if I am working on a mix of music that includes lots
of earlier stuff I make it pure, I adjust the fifths and fourth for g, d, and a to
be fairly even.Then I tune fifths and fourths from e to b, f# and c# and from c
to f and b flat to be just slightly tempered, or maybe even pure, and then I
connect the c# to the b flat by means of some sort of e flat /d# and a flat /
g# that aren't too wolfy and make the keys I happen to be playing in at the
moment work. And as I practice I maybe find I want the e flats a little lower
so I move them. By the time I give the concert I have developed it into a
tempe4rament that makes all of the funny mix of music from 2 or 3
centuries sound acceptable. And it doesn't have a name on it unless I want
to give it one.

It's really not that hard, the important thing is to listen.

Judy