Microstock 3

I know it's a bit early, but I want to mention that MICROSTOCK 3 is
set for October 25, 1997, at Swallow Hill Music Hall, 1905 South Pearl,
Denver, Colorado, at 8:00 PM. The concert will be all acoustic, and will
feature John Schneider playing his interchangeable fretboard just guitars,
and the Haverstick band, playing in 19 and 34 tone eq temps. If anyone
on the list is interested in coming, we will try and see if we can find a
place to put you up. I'll post this again later...Hstick (303-477-3268)

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If we restrict ourselves to Mozart, he probably used a lot of meantone
during his career - the church organs in Salzburg were apparently in still
meantone (whether 1/5 or 1/4 comma, I cannot be sure), and he did not
compose for fretted instruments - the only instruments of the era most
definitely in equal temperament (whereas Haydn left behin a huge repertoire
of music for Baryton). In all probability, composers of the era were
confronted with wildly varied tunings, and restriction to the ''good''
meantone keys was a safe decision.

Instruments of fixed pitch continued to be made in meantone well into thenineteenth century. English harmoniums were usually in meantone, the
concertina described in Berlioz's _Instrumentation_ (1844) is in meantone.
Ellis indicates a gradual introduction of 12tet over the nineteenth
century, replacing a meantone, where the g# was adjusted somewhat. Ellis
also makes it clear that the piano was in 12tet first (Ellis disputes
Broadwood'c claim for 1811 and argues for a date around 1844), followed by
the organ (first in 1854, but in large numbers not until the 1880s), and
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>If we restrict ourselves to Mozart, he probably used a lot of meantone
>during his career - the church organs in Salzburg were apparently in still
>meantone (whether 1/5 or 1/4 comma, I cannot be sure),

Well... Mozart didn't exactly write all that much organ music, but I
suppose that affects what other instruments available at the time were
tuned to.

But Mozart wrote lots of piano music, and even by that early a time
pianos were mostly 12TET, right?

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Gary Morrison wrote:


'' Well... Mozart didn't exactly write all that much organ music, but I
suppose that affects what other instruments available at the time were
tuned to. ''

His position under the Archbishop of Salzburg included organ playing and
his sacred music is far from insignificant.

And:

'' But Mozart wrote lots of piano music, and even by that early a time
pianos were mostly 12TET, right?''

Broadwood claimed - and this must be taken as hyperbole - that 12TET was
standard practice only in 1811. At that time Mozart had been dead almost
twenty years. The most generally accepted date for 12tet as common practice
for piano tuning is about 1844.

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Gary Morrison wrote:
>'' But Mozart wrote lots of piano music, and even by that early a time
>pianos were mostly 12TET, right?''

Daniel Wolf responded:
>Broadwood claimed - and this must be taken as hyperbole - that 12TET was
>standard practice only in 1811. At that time Mozart had been dead almost
>twenty years. The most generally accepted date for 12tet as common practi>ce
>for piano tuning is about 1844.

But Gary's point is well taken, even if Mozart wasn't using equal
temperament. It's one thing to point out the lack of chromaticism Mozart's
music with winds and perhaps organ, and quite another to extrapolate that
conservatism into a tuning preference on the piano. The use of unvalved
brass in the lower harmonics will naturally restrict key choices, for
example, your interesting data on occassional stopped horn pitches
notwithstanding.

If this supposed prevalance of meantone tuning is to be applied to the
piano, then how are we to account for Mozart's occassional, but no less
significant, excursions into chromaticism in solo piano works, such as the
famous C minor fantasy? There are other possibilities besides equal
temperament, including the various well temperaments and circulating
temperaments, but I can't see how such a piece could work in meantone, if
that's what you're proposing.

Now, I think it's possible that meantone continued to be used by some
tuners all the way into the 20th century. It's easy to tune, and most music
played by amateurs and provincial churches did not demand the use of many
keys and chromaticism. But I think it's equally likely that professionals
used a variety of circulating and well temperaments as well as equal
temperament at the same time.

It would be interesting to know when piano tuning became a profession
separate from that of the instrument builder and musician like it is today.
It's easy to imagine that the institutionalization of the occupation could
help lead to a standardization of equal temperament. Brian McLaren and Lou
Harrison have blamed this standardization on the industrialization of piano
manufacturing, but, while it's possible that would explain the factory
tuning, I don't see why it would explain why it was tuned that way
thereafter.

Bill

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^ Bill Alves email: alves@hmc.edu ^
^ Harvey Mudd College URL: http://www2.hmc.edu/~alves/ ^
^ 301 E. Twelfth St. (909)607-4170 (office) ^
^ Claremont CA 91711 USA (909)607-7600 (fax) ^
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

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On Fri, 11 Jul 1997, Gary Morrison wrote:
> But Mozart wrote lots of piano music, and even by that early a time
> pianos were mostly 12TET, right?

Absolutely NOT! I know of no evidence that EQ was any more than a theory
occasionally espoused at that time. It is just TOO HARD to tune equal
temperament without either a LOT of training, or an electronic device.

in Mozart's time various well-tempered systems were still in use. (For
references, somebody help me - the BIG red historic tuning book by the guy
from Michigan - can't recall name and title right now.) Anyhow, he gives
some tuning 'recipes' from the 18th century; they are NOT equal.


Joe Downing,
in Syracuse

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On Fri, 11 Jul 1997, Joseph Downing wrote:
> Absolutely NOT! I know of no evidence that EQ was any more than a theory
> occasionally espoused at that time. It is just TOO HARD to tune equal
> temperament without either a LOT of training, or an electronic device.
>
> in Mozart's time various well-tempered systems were still in use. (For
> references, somebody help me - the BIG red historic tuning book by the guy
> from Michigan - can't recall name and title right now.) Anyhow, he gives
> some tuning 'recipes' from the 18th century; they are NOT equal.

I don't dispute the basic point that Mozart didn't use 12TET, but a
couple of things:

1. The name you're trying for is Owen Jorgensen. It's a big area but
let's just say that many scholars consider his arguments for the
lateness of 12TET standardization weak.

2. If one cared to, one could find a lot of people on earlymus-l and
hpschd-l who can tune passable ET without electronics--it might not be
1 cent accurate, but key color variation will be subtle to
indetectable. One recommended technique bypasses the usual tuning by
fifths and tempers the cycles of major and minor thirds, using fifths
only as a final check.

--pH http://library.wustl.edu/~manynote <*>
O
/\ "Foul? What the hell for?"
-\-\-- o "Because you are chalking your cue with the 3-ball."

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If one looks at the record in the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe of Thomas Atwood's
composition lessons with Mozart, one sees that Mozart starts him writing
out diatonic and chromatic scales, noting that a wholetone must contain
both a greater and a lesser semitone and that sharps are lower than the
enharmonic flats. This without any reference to specific instruments.
To me this indicates Mozart tends to think in meantone.

(One also notes Mozart's tendency to call Atwood an ass when he makes
rather egregious part-writing errors. 8-)> )

--pH http://library.wustl.edu/~manynote <*>
O
/\ "Foul? What the hell for?"
-\-\-- o "Because you are chalking your cue with the 3-ball."

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On Fri, 11 Jul 1997, Paul Hahn wrote:

> On Fri, 11 Jul 1997, Joseph Downing wrote:
> > Absolutely NOT! I know of no evidence that EQ was any more than a theory
> > occasionally espoused at that time. It is just TOO HARD to tune equal
> > temperament without either a LOT of training, or an electronic device.
> >
> 2. If one cared to, one could find a lot of people on earlymus-l and
> hpschd-l who can tune passable ET without electronics--it might not be
> 1 cent accurate, but key color variation will be subtle to
> indetectable. One recommended technique bypasses the usual tuning by
> fifths and tempers the cycles of major and minor thirds, using fifths
> only as a final check.

It is true that there are a lot of people today who can tune a passable
12TET with no more reference than a starting pitch. But Jorgensen (thanks
for the name) and others point out that this technique was not known until
late in the nineteenth century. There are no early references to
counting beats per second, etc. One of the feature of Meantone tunings
(and well-tempered tunings are a sub-category of mean-tone) is that they
depend upon finding the 'mean' pitch. A common 18th century technique
would have you tune several intervals purely, then advise: Tune D to Bb
purely. Now sharpen the D until Bb/D beats at the same rate as D/F#.
Most anyone without too much experience can do this. It takes a LOT of
practice to hear 12TET thirds and fifths.


Joe Downing,
in Syracuse

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On Fri, 11 Jul 1997, Joseph Downing wrote:
> It is true that there are a lot of people today who can tune a passable
> 12TET with no more reference than a starting pitch. But Jorgensen (thanks
> for the name) and others point out that this technique was not known until
> late in the nineteenth century. There are no early references to
> counting beats per second, etc. One of the feature of Meantone tunings
> (and well-tempered tunings are a sub-category of mean-tone) is that they
> depend upon finding the 'mean' pitch. A common 18th century technique
> would have you tune several intervals purely, then advise: Tune D to Bb
> purely. Now sharpen the D until Bb/D beats at the same rate as D/F#.
> Most anyone without too much experience can do this. It takes a LOT of
> practice to hear 12TET thirds and fifths.

1. A fair number of writers were advocating 12TET by the mid-1700s.
Most of them had plenty of experience tuning (and in some cases
building) keyboard instruments. Why shouldn't some of them have had
sufficient practise to hear 12TET thirds and fifths? (Someone once
posted a quote from Werckmeister to this list in which he describes
distributing the comma equally among all 12 fifths, then says that a
circulating temperament sufficed for a local church, but only ET was
suitable for a court.) To be sure, having an exact scheme would make
things much easier, but I don't see why someone with a good ear couldn't
make a passable ET with enough fiddling.

2. A big problem with Jorgensen (many think) is that he makes too much
of equal beating. If you look at most surviving tuning instructions,
they're worded far too vaguely for one to confidently presume that they
actually refer to intervals beating _at the same rate_. It's quite
plausible that the language merely refers to the fact that tempered
intervals beat, and that two intervals are tempered about the same
distance from just. It doesn't take Helmholtz to figure out that
equally tempered intervals beat faster the higher they are in pitch.

--pH http://library.wustl.edu/~manynote <*>
O
/\ "Foul? What the hell for?"
-\-\-- o "Because you are chalking your cue with the 3-ball."

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This is an automatic reply. Feel free to send additional
mail, as only this one notice will be generated. The following
is a prerecorded message, sent for root


By teh time you read this note I will either be in Hawai'i (at a
conference, honest) or in transit. I am leaving Bath on Tuesday 15
July and expect to return on 28 July 1997. I may have access to
e-mail but I am not counting on it; do not expect mail from me until
early August.

The Group secretary can be reached on amc@maths.bath.ac.uk

ohn ff

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