Young &/ Valloti setting bearings

Group,
Hi, I'm a piano tuner interested in historical temperaments (unsatisfied with the equal temperament I was taught). I am looking for tables for setting bearings in various temperaments, particularly Young's and Valloti's.
I've heard some of Beethovan's sonata's played on to an older temperament and concert pitch and was mesmerized. I'm not sure home much setting such a temperament on my wife's grand might upset her! She plays more Chopin, Schumann et. al. than I do. Does anyone out there have comments regarding how the romantic and late romantic composers sound on these temperaments?

Andrew

On Sunday 26 October 2003 04:56 pm, Andrew & Rebeca Anderson wrote:
> Group,
> Hi, I'm a piano tuner interested in historical temperaments (unsatisfied
> with the equal temperament I was taught). I am looking for tables for
> setting bearings in various temperaments, particularly Young's and
> Valloti's. I've heard some of Beethovan's sonata's played on to an older
> temperament and concert pitch and was mesmerized. I'm not sure home much
> setting such a temperament on my wife's grand might upset her! She plays
> more Chopin, Schumann et. al. than I do. Does anyone out there have
> comments regarding how the romantic and late romantic composers sound on
> these temperaments?
>
> Andrew

Andrew-

You ought to look into scala, for Windows or Linux, by Manuel op de Coul. It
is packed with historical scales, and almost every possible tool for studying
them, including beat rates, etc. So you should be able to lay a bearing for
Young from that.....

briefly, Vallotti/Young is 6 pure fifths and then distributing the remaining
pythagorean comma around the other 6. It's a common tuning enough, and in the
public eye, but there are better ones from the period...my favorite, after
reading a paper by Paul Poletti regarding it, and tuning it on my keyboard
here, would be Neidhardt I. (try IIand III as well (neidhardt IV is
12-tet!!!!)) They are a welcome change from the 'only three anyone knows'
syndrom of Werckmeister, Kirnberger, V/Young......Poletti also makes case for
the Sorge tunings.

Yes, 'romantics' sound great in these tunings, very colorful, as do the
baroque and classical composers...it's a simple argument really...12-tet was
not really a stong keyboard standard when most of them wrote, so they didn't
use it themselves...these tunings open up new levels of harmonic meaning when
they are used for the 'romantics' (I dislike the label 'romanticism', and
prefer '19th century music')

If you're interested, here's the Poletti link:

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/paulpoletti/T4D.PDF

Best,
Aaron.

Andrew asks:
<< Hi, I'm a piano tuner interested in historical temperaments (unsatisfied

> with the equal temperament I was taught). I am looking for tables for

> setting bearings in various temperaments, particularly Young's and

> Valloti's. I've heard some of Beethovan's sonata's played on to an older

> temperament and concert pitch and was mesmerized. I'm not sure home much

> setting such a temperament on my wife's grand might upset her! She plays

> more Chopin, Schumann et. al. than I do. Does anyone out there have

> comments regarding how the romantic and late romantic composers sound on

> these temperaments? >>

Greetings,
Yes, I have a majority of my customers using something other that 12 ET.
Whereas some of the songwriters here in Nashville like the Young, (or even a
Kirnberger), for most of my advanced home pianos that are used for
everything, the Jorgensen posited "Broadwood" tunings seem to be most in favor. These
are going to be very difficult to produce by ear until you have developed your
sense of graduated tonality, but with the modern machines, they are very
simple.
Basically, the Broadwood that I use a lot of has a C-E third that is 7
cents wider than Just, and the M3's of C#,F#, B and E are all 18 cents wide.
Keys in between have a progression of tempering between these two extremes.
The difference between ET and these "Victorian" tuning is profound. Chopin
sparkles, Schumann gets deep. As was mentioned, the Young is a very simple
tuning to replicate, just go, from C, "down" six pure fifths, then go back and
beginning from C, go "up" six equally tempered 5ths. This will get you very
close, but you have to accomodate your ear to recognize when the tempered
fifths are actually the same.
You might take a look at the charts:
http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/3rds_chart.html

Ed Foote RPT

www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/well_tempered_piano.html
<A HREF="http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/399/six_degrees_of_tonality.html">
MP3.com: Six Degrees of Tonality</A>

Andrew asks:
<< Hi, I'm a piano tuner interested in historical temperaments (unsatisfied

> with the equal temperament I was taught). I am looking for tables for

> setting bearings in various temperaments, particularly Young's and

> Valloti's. I've heard some of Beethovan's sonata's played on to an older

> temperament and concert pitch and was mesmerized. I'm not sure home much

> setting such a temperament on my wife's grand might upset her! She plays

> more Chopin, Schumann et. al. than I do. Does anyone out there have

> comments regarding how the romantic and late romantic composers sound on

> these temperaments? >>

Greetings,
Yes, I have a majority of my customers using something other that 12 ET.
Whereas some of the songwriters here in Nashville like the Young, (or even a
Kirnberger), for most of my advanced home pianos that are used for
everything, the Jorgensen posited "Broadwood" tunings seem to be most in favor. These
are going to be very difficult to produce by ear until you have developed your
sense of graduated tonality, but with the modern machines, they are very
simple.
Basically, the Broadwood that I use a lot of has a C-E third that is 7
cents wider than Just, and the M3's of C#,F#, B and E are all 18 cents wide.
Keys in between have a progression of tempering between these two extremes.
The difference between ET and these "Victorian" tuning is profound. Chopin
sparkles, Schumann gets deep. As was mentioned, the Young is a very simple
tuning to replicate, just go, from C, "down" six pure fifths, then go back and
beginning from C, go "up" six equally tempered 5ths. This will get you very
close, but you have to accomodate your ear to recognize when the tempered
fifths are actually the same.
You might take a look at the charts:
http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/3rds_chart.html

Ed Foote RPT

www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/well_tempered_piano.html
<A HREF="http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/399/six_degrees_of_tonality.html">
MP3.com: Six Degrees of Tonality</A>

Andrew asks:
<< Hi, I'm a piano tuner interested in historical temperaments (unsatisfied

> with the equal temperament I was taught). I am looking for tables for

> setting bearings in various temperaments, particularly Young's and

> Valloti's. I've heard some of Beethovan's sonata's played on to an older

> temperament and concert pitch and was mesmerized. I'm not sure home much

> setting such a temperament on my wife's grand might upset her! She plays

> more Chopin, Schumann et. al. than I do. Does anyone out there have

> comments regarding how the romantic and late romantic composers sound on

> these temperaments? >>

Greetings,
Yes, I have a majority of my customers using something other that 12 ET.
Whereas some of the songwriters here in Nashville like the Young, (or even a
Kirnberger), for most of my advanced home pianos that are used for
everything, the Jorgensen posited "Broadwood" tunings seem to be most in favor. These
are going to be very difficult to produce by ear until you have developed your
sense of graduated tonality, but with the modern machines, they are very
simple.
Basically, the Broadwood that I use a lot of has a C-E third that is 7
cents wider than Just, and the M3's of C#,F#, B and E are all 18 cents wide.
Keys in between have a progression of tempering between these two extremes.
The difference between ET and these "Victorian" tuning is profound. Chopin
sparkles, Schumann gets deep. As was mentioned, the Young is a very simple
tuning to replicate, just go, from C, "down" six pure fifths, then go back and
beginning from C, go "up" six equally tempered 5ths. This will get you very
close, but you have to accomodate your ear to recognize when the tempered
fifths are actually the same.
You might take a look at the charts:
http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/3rds_chart.html

Ed Foote RPT

www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/well_tempered_piano.html
<A HREF="http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/399/six_degrees_of_tonality.html">
MP3.com: Six Degrees of Tonality</A>

Thanks for the replies. I have a lot to study. Temperament history, the why's and how's were not taught in my course work. I'm still working at understanding the lingo utilized here. I do utilize an ETD (Peterson 490ST) to assist in my work (especially helpful for old spinets and short cheap grands and bad jumps in scaling) and it had several built in "historic" temperaments. I've learned to be doubtful of the tuner and needed somewhere to turn to find aural checks etc. This I have found and much more.
I did tune the piano (a cheap short grand) to Young and my wife liked it. "...has some brighter chords."
Someone suggested Niedhart for Chopin. Which of his proposed tunings might that be. I've encountered various nomenclature for his work. He did propose ET for the royal court tunings. I have been reading Poletti's work on this and am most familiar with his nomenclature right now. I'm curious what tuning methods might have been prevalent, regionally etc., with various composers.

Thanks again,
Andrew

Andrew, one interesting things about well-temperaments: The
well-temperaments sound more alike to each other than they do to equal temperament. Part of
the reasons is that the most overtone related key is C major. All the
temperaments start from C.

best, Johnny Reinhard