Enharmonic" explanation

Greetings,

If I may just scramble the quotes from a few of the previous postings, (I
am a bit confused over who says what by the time my digest comes loaded with
<<<<>>>>.) I shall just chop stuff out and respond.

> > I tend to feel that 1900 is more meaningful as the date of

> > complete domination of 12-tET because it was around that time

> > that composers started using the 12 chromatic notes as an

> > entity in itself,

I agree. I believe the major part of the thread seems to be keyboard
related, and my study of the history of keyboard tuning tells me that 1900 is
a very logical place to locate the widespread use of ET on keyboards. It was
an age where the infatuation with science had its effect on composers as well
as instrument makers. It is also the era that Helmholtz's writings were able
to be put into actual effect. Combined with the 1911 or so writings of Jerry
Fischer and William Braid-White, pianos were finally being tuned in strict
ET.
Jorgensen posits that the techniques required to tune an ET on keyboard
didn't exist for any practical tuner before this time. Montal had published
a book in 1834 that gives info which would make ET possible, but we hear
nothing of it for 60 years following, so I don't think it is plausible.(his
instructions are also incredibly difficult to put into actual practise,
further supporting my skepticism of ET being used)

>>Certainly Chopin used all 12 notes in ways that make the most

sense when tuned as 12-tET.

I must respectfully disagree. In a well tempered tuning, the keys with 4
or more accidentals have a particular quality of contrast, ie. Whereas the
harmony, whose tonal image is dependant on the quality of the thirds, is
"active", those keys also contain purer fifths. This juxtapostion of
harmony provides a distinct character to these keys. Chopin's music goes
very well on the tunings of 1800. That is not to say there are alternatives,
one of which appears on our next well-tempered piano CD. We use the DeMorgan
tuning, which reverses the order of key color, for Chopin's fantasy 66. I
will await a response on this when the CD is available, as it IS an
avante-garde offering.

>>I'd say that Beethoven was really

the first composer to exploit the unique possibilities of

12-tET in a serious way. His use of surprise modulations, etc.,

could not have been done in meantone or well-temperament, which

are what I assume he grew up with. <<

Whoa! This is totally opposite to my experience, as well as every
classical pianist I have been able to get my tuning hammer near. Beethoven's
music displays a very logical use of key color available from the well
temperaments. His modulations obey all the conventions of key-character.
What is so dramatic in his music is how far he is able to carry the listener
into the extreme keys and how vivid his modulations are between them. The
second mvt. of the Waldstein displays this with tremendous clarity.

>>I think Beethoven's pieces

are both a reflection of and a stimulus for the further

acceptance of 12-tET as a standard tuning. So this is around

1800-1825.<<
There is no evidence that any keyboard maker of the time was interested in
ET, and there is scant evidence that any musician would have accepted it.
There is much evidence of opposition to the concept, though. Coupled with
the lack of any usuable techniques to achieve it, I can find nothing to
support the use of ET in the early to mid 1800's. One of the few bits of
evidence are quotes from A.J. Hipkins that none of the Broadwood tuners of
1850 tuned "anything like ET", and the Ellis documentation, as presented by
Jorgensen, that in 1885, the Broadwood tuners were still following
Werckmeister's principles, albeit in a very subtle shape.

>The entire 19th century was thus a time when 12-tET slowly

>gained acceptance. I would argue that as late as the 1880s

>and 1890s composers of even very experimental music (say,

>Mahler) were still regularly using harmonies that were based

>on JI or meantone theory.<<

ET was accepted in the non-keyboard world during the 19th century, yes.
The use of machine made horns required a universal intonation,(McClaren
writes of this in some very compelling posts of the early to mid 1990's).
However, it is a lot easier to make an ET flute or fretted instrument than it
is to aurally render 12 notes into an organization.

>>From a tuning standpoint, what really characterizes an ET in an immediately

audible way is the melodic smoothness of the chromatic scale, and this is

where I would say Chopin's music may have been the first to exploit this

feature as a compositional resource. I'm hard pressed to think of any 20th

century compositional technique that necessitates ET more directly and

convincingly than this.>>

From a tuning standpoint, the main feature of ET is a sameness to the keys.
Also, pianists that have familiarized themselves with well tempered
keyboards find that ET has a very "busy" sound. Adjectives that I
consistantly hear include "buzzy", restless, sour, and "out of tune
everywhere"!.
In the recording studios here that I tune in well temperaments, the
guitarists seem to feel that their instruments mesh with the piano a lot
better, and the general feeling is that the WT pianos sound more in
tune.(Nancy Griffith's next CD is done with a piano tuned in a Thomas Young
temperament, as are all of the recordings done by Steve Earle)

It is important to define what I mean by ET. The use of the tuning
computers allows me to produce a clinical version of this, in which the
thirds progress evenly. The variation from this that is discernable to my
most sensitive customers is about 2 cents. Below that, and all keys are
accepted as equal. This limit is surpassed by even the latest well
tempereaments.
I hate to talk before I walk, but we are still waiting on the record
company to finish our next CD. In it, there is a range of tunings, from 1/4C
meantone to the latest Victorian style. When it comes available, I will be
sure to post here.
Regards to all,
Ed Foote
Precision Piano Works
Nashville, Tn.
http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html

I wrote,

>>From a tuning standpoint, what really characterizes an ET in an
immediately

audible way is the melodic smoothness of the chromatic scale, and this is

where I would say Chopin's music may have been the first to exploit this

feature as a compositional resource. I'm hard pressed to think of any 20th

century compositional technique that necessitates ET more directly and

convincingly than this.>>

Ed Foote wrote,

>From a tuning standpoint, the main feature of ET is a sameness to the keys.

Agreed, but you have to modulate through all the keys before you can hear
that, which is why I said "in an immediately audible way" above. And in 20th
century music, keys themselves were being abandoned, let alone the idea of
modulating through all of them.

--- In tuning@egroups.com, Ed Foote <a440a@a...> wrote:

> If I may just scramble the quotes from a few of the
> previous postings

Hi Ed. The last quote is by Paul Erlich; all the rest are
by me.

>
>
> > I tend to feel that 1900 is more meaningful as the date of
> > complete domination of 12-tET because it was around that time
> > that composers started using the 12 chromatic notes as an
> > entity in itself,
>
> I agree. I believe the major part of the thread seems to
> be keyboard related, and my study of the history of keyboard
> tuning tells me that 1900 is a very logical place to locate
> the widespread use of ET on keyboards. It was an age where
> the infatuation with science had its effect on composers as well
> as instrument makers.

Thanks for that. I think what you say supports my opinion well.

> > Certainly Chopin used all 12 notes in ways that make the
> > most sense when tuned as 12-tET.
>
> I must respectfully disagree. ...<snip> ... Chopin's
> music goes very well on the [well-tempered] tunings of 1800.

I knew *someone* was going to debate this. I should have
qualified it more: "Certainly Chopin *sometimes* used all
12 notes...".

To my knowledge, I have never heard Chopin's music in any
tuning other than (ostensible) 12-tET.

> > I'd say that Beethoven was really the first composer
> > to exploit the unique possibilities of 12-tET in a serious
> > way. His use of surprise modulations, etc.,could not have
> > been done in meantone or well-temperament, which are what
> > I assume he grew up with. <<
>
> Whoa! This is totally opposite to my experience, as well
> as every classical pianist I have been able to get my tuning
> hammer near. Beethoven's music displays a very logical use
> of key color available from the well temperaments. His
> modulations obey all the conventions of key-character.
> What is so dramatic in his music is how far he is able to
> carry the listener into the extreme keys and how vivid his
> modulations are between them. The second mvt. of the Waldstein
> displays this with tremendous clarity.

OK, Ed. I suppose here I need to defer to your much greater
experience in dealing with Beethoven's music in well-temperaments.

I know his music very well, and my comments were based simply
on the fact that he used so many extreme changes of key in
his modulations (meaning that the two keys are quite far
removed in the circle-of-5ths, or that he often preferred
mediant/submediant relationships rather than perfect-4th/5th
relationships in the root movement), which implies to me a
tendency toward much freer use of all 12 notes, which in
turn implies a tendency towards equalizing the relationships
between those notes.

I'd agree that Beethoven's music sounds right in well-temperament.
Perhaps it's more accurate to suggest that while Beethoven
himself may have always thought in terms of well-temperament
(particularly since he became totally deaf in his 30s and could
not hear any subsequent trends in tuning after that), the new
harmonic techniques he introduced encouraged composers after
him to view the 12 notes of the chromatic scale as needing to
have the equalized relationships of 12-tET.

Perhaps I'm just wildly speculating again... but hey, it's
food for thought. Future researchers may jump on ideas like
this as subjects for dissertations; then we can really get to
the bottom of it.

>
> > I think Beethoven's pieces are both a reflection of and a
> > stimulus for the further acceptance of 12-tET as a standard
> > tuning. So this is around 1800-1825.<<
>
> There is no evidence that any keyboard maker of the time
> was interested in ET, and there is scant evidence that any
> musician would have accepted it. There is much evidence of
> opposition to the concept, though. Coupled with the lack of
> any usuable techniques to achieve it, I can find nothing to
> support the use of ET in the early to mid 1800's.

OK, Ed, I accept this as the expert answer on the matter.

-monz
http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/homepage.html
'All roads lead to n^0'