Pianos, weather,temper

Mark writes:

> There's a lot of out-of-tune pianos out there, but as long as the keys
> have drifted equally (usually in the "flat" direction), it doesn't seem
> to affect the emotion of the piece. (Of course if the keys have drifted
> unequally, it's time to get the piano tuned,

The piano is an untunable instrument, and the best tuners are the
ones that made the best compromises. This is what makes it hard to define
standards.
There are two ways that pianos "drift" out of tune. A poor tuner's
work is usually marked by single note unisons being out of tune, as well as
uneven progressions in the beat rates of the thirds. This tuner should be
avoided.
The other "out of tuneness" is due to seasonal weather changes, which
cause wholesale pitch movement, most easily heard in the octaves. If you
must tune to a "bent" piano tuning, determining a center is not always best
done by the A number 49. There may be a different pitch at a different place
on the keyboard. (for ease, all notes on the piano are referred to by number
1-88, i.e middle C is C40).



It is important to understand that the bass strings on a piano are anchored
on a separate bridge. This smaller bridge doesn't respond as dramatically as
the longer treble bridge, so the bass section of the piano will usually be
closer to the originally tuned pitch.
A tuned piano in a dry environment will go sharp as moisture is
introduced, but it will not go sharp all together. The bass section will
exhibit some rise,(big pianos have the bottom 20 notes on the bass bridge,
smaller pianos have 26), but the notes just above the bass, i.e., on the very
bottom end of the treble bridge, will be dramatically sharp. This is the
point of greatest change. From there up, the rest of the piano will be sharp
in varying degrees. This whole thing works in reverse, also. Tune in the
middle of summer, and by mid winter, there is this huge flat section, right
above the bass. It makes all the octaves that span these two bridges, (span
span??) sound terrible.
As far as flatness having less emotional effect than being sharp, I
must wonder. The causes and degrees of emotional response in music are so
subjective, that more of a comparitve tool that the drifting piano needs to
be used, (IMHO).

> My own pet theory is that as you listen to music, your ears accept >the
imperfections in tuning that are presented to them, and knows >what was
"meant". So the same idea/emotion/whatever comes >across, whether you're
using equal temperament/meantone >temperament/just intonation/whatever.
Temperament is a different perpective than just being out of tune.
However, some temperaments sound "out of tune" to some ears. This is not
uncommon when you begin getting out on the edge of any thing.
To wit: I know some wine drinkers that like their wine dry; not sorta
dry, but skull and crossbones, battery-acid, twist-your-face-off DRY! I
don't want to get used to it!
I know people that like their steaks so rare you can hear them moo.
I know very wealthy people with nice pianos in homes decorated poorly
enough to make Elvis wince.
However, I like Beethoven on a Werckmiester........ (and yes, I have
seen others cringe at the same. At some point, my "Stairway to Heaven"
becomes someone else's "Highway to Hell".
So hey, what is taste but a yardstick we are all on? Since we can only
measure distances from ourselves to the places of others, the validity of
our observations is only as good as our understanding of our own position.
For locating help, I have gone back to Vallotti, et al.
Others here have gone forward into ET territory with buckets of math .
The emotional circuitry in a lot of Classical keyboard music is such
that alteration of the tuning fundamentally alters the effect of hearing and
feeling it. Use of a meantone tuning would cause much of Beethoven's music
to come unhinged, with dissonant occurances in the strangest of places, and
little modulatory graduations among near keys. In 12TET, his music becomes
static, even tedious. His keyboard music uses the irregular, circulating
temperaments of the late 18th century to do their work. In a more modern
view, Gershwin's compositions on a Justly tuned keyboard would probably lose
some of their flow, no?
Gregorian music doesn't work as well in ET as in pure pythagorean, does
it? Can you chant your way to heaven in ET, or are pure fifths the only
thing that will get you there?
I guess the point I would like to offer is that there is an emotional
package in much classical music that doesn't get delivered if the tuning is
not right. This value, formed by the varying use of consonance and
dissonance, may be neglible to some, but to others it is a major reason for
listening.

Ramble on..........
Regards,
Ed Foote
Precision Piano Works
Nashville, Tn.



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From: kukula@synopsys.com
Subject: missing fundamental
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>There's a blurb on pg 22 of the 9/8 issue of Electronic Engineering Times,
>about a company Wave Ltd. that is using pycho-acoustic trickery to produce
>the illusion of deep bass sound out of small/cheap equipment.

Interesting. I presume this is more involved than a beat frequency, right?



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Subject: Re: 1/1 article
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James Kukula wrote:

> There's a blurb on pg 22 of the 9/8 issue of Electronic Engineering Times,
> about a company Wave Ltd. that is using pycho-acoustic trickery to produce
> the illusion of deep bass sound out of small/cheap equipment.

I heard a demonstration of this on the radio, and it works
extremely well.



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From: reinhard@IDT.NET
Subject: Re: pop in microtones
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