TUNING digest 1263

Greetings, Inre:
>playing in tune with
>lutes, wouldn't a lute provide a very effective equal-temperament tuning
>reference?
Actually not. I had posted earlier the difficulty in transferring a
temperament via unison matching of two instruments. Even though fretted lutes
could be set to ET with some mathematical precision, trying to get a
harpsichord properly tempered by matching the fundamentals to a lute, (not
many overtones in a gut lute string) would only result in a crude
approximation. I would encourage anyone to try this. (all you need is a lute
and harpsichord, plus a lotta time. )

>Date: Wed, 10 Dec 1997 12:20:19 -0500 (EST)


Also from Bill Alves

>But in regards to this question and Neil Haverstick's original question
>about Bach jamming with Weiss, let's do a brief reality check. Given what
>we know about tuning practices of the time, which did not include counting
>beats, as Ed Foote reminds us, there was undoubtedly a significant margin
>of error for any tuning, let alone some circulating temperament with no
>pure intervals other than the octave.

Hmm. These well temperaments had pure intervals galore!! the root
tonic thirds in the keys of G, C and F were often tuned purely. This is a
foundation of the earliest tuning plans. The Prinz temperament of 1806 uses a
pure C-E third as a benchmark in it's pattern. Also, the fifths of the most
remote keys are often left in Just intonation.
>The story that Bach could tune his
>harpsichord in 15 minutes is thus completely believable though still
>impressive.
I personally think that the 15 minutes was the time to change meantone
keys, and may not have necessarily needed a change to all notes...... this is
more suspicion on my part than research.

> (By
>the way, the seeming beat-spotlighting character of the long consonances in
>slow movements is mostly an illusion: performers at that time would
>improvise filler and ornaments in such occasions.)
On the keyboard sonatas? I really don't agree there, as the development
section of the sonata form seems to have grown with the freedom afforded by
ever-increasing ability to temper the higher keys into a more usable degree of
dissonance.

>In this context, the practical differences between temperaments like some
>of Neidhardt's and Marpurg's and ET are angels dancing on the head of pin.
On this I must disagree strongly. Modern day ears can easily hear the
differences in a tuning that provides key character and ET ,which does not.
The temperament CD uses two different tunings, a Prinz and a Young, and
already I am hearing from people that clearly and profoundly hear the
differences between not only these two, but between the sound of both the well
temperaments there and ET.
The differences on a harpsichord would be less vivid than on the
Steinway D that we recorded, but 12 ET has it's own, easily distinguishable
sound.

>If I had been present when he and
>Weiss jammed, I'm sure that, in the wonder of the music of the moment, a
>few acoustical beats here or there would probably be the last thing on my
>mind.
Well, yea, me too......(:)}}
Regards,
Ed Foote
Precision Piano Works
Nashville, Tn.



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From: alves@orion.ac.hmc.edu (Bill Alves)
Subject: Re: TUNING digest 1263
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Gregg Gibson wrote

>Graham Breed wrote:
>> So, the melody C-D-Dbb-Cx-Dbb-Cx-Dbb-D is the same as C-D-C-D-C-D-C-D?
>> You don't hear the interval Dbb-Cx as a semitone?
>
>This melody (if this can be called a melody, and not a purely
>spoken-language progression) would indeed be heard, played in 31-tone
>equal as a slightly out-of-tune C-D-C-D-C-D-C-D. The semitone between
>Dbb and Cx would be heard as a semitone indeed, but you are assuming
>that the listener would be able to hold in his mind two different tonal
>centres through a long sequence of tonally unrelated pitches, which is
>very dubious. To my own ears this sequence sounds simply like the tonal
>progression C-D-C-D etc, but badly out of tune.

The point is that altering each note by less than a limen changes
the interval between the notes by more than a limen. Tonality is
irrelevant to this motif. In a real composition, I expect the Dbb
and Cx would be ornaments to the "real" tune. It is an example of
the sort of trick you can play in temperaments like 31 equal. With
sound chord progressions, you can get away with quite a lot.

I'm assuming a listener will recogise the final D as being the
same note as the first one. The ornamental notes add colour to
the motif. The semitone interval is, at least unconciously,
perceptible. So, these don't sound out of tune with each other
if you play them fast enough. As a result, the whole thing sounds
more interesting than it would in 12 or 19 equal. If you analyse
it in terms of melodic limen, though, it is perplexing.

>Question: can you _sing_ this progression... accurately?

No.


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From: gbreed@cix.compulink.co.uk (Graham Breed)
Subject: Re: septimal intervals
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