Open letter on forthcoming Lehman article in "Clavichord International"

Dear Francis,

in the latest �Clavichord International�, you as the
editor of the publication announce that for the
November issue �Dr. Bradley Lehman is also writing an
article for us on his exciting and controversial
discovery of �the� Bach temperament (discussed in two
articles in Early Music this year)�. In the Clavichord
Yahoogroup whose owner-moderator I am, and whose
member Brad Lehman has been since 1998, I had on
January 24, 2001 outlined that Andreas Sparschuh of
Germany had made this discovery back in 1998. Andreas
had written a long article with extensive mathematical
and theoretical work which appeared in the German
Mathematicians� Association 1999 yearbook, and he had
earned the Golden Tuning Fork Award of the German
Tuners� Association for it. So anything Bradley could
have �discovered� was an alternate solution to the
Sparschuh hypothesis. That he dismisses Andreas as
somebody who only has a �vague idea� on his private
homepage in my opinion is a disrespectful way of
presenting his own work as the first scientific effort
on this theme. This, and his complete omission of
Andreas Sparschuh�s name and discovery in the Early
Music article makes him a plagiarizer, nothing less. I
have long been silent on this issue, because my own
role, apart from presenting a dissenting opinion on
the Sparschuh Tuning, was the one of the distributor
of Andreas� discovery to a music world that does not
read mathematical yearbooks in Hun language, and my
position as the moderator of the Clavichord Group
forbade a strong intervention on my own behalf. But I
must urge you as the publisher of Clavichord
International to employ the necessary due diligence of
at least presenting the facts, and not repeat
Bradley�s and Early Music�s mistake of omitting
Andreas� work and opinion.
I am sending this as an open letter to both the Tuning
and the Clavichord Yahoogroups, as an effort to pay
justice to a kind German mathematician who isn�t a
member of either of them.
Michael
N.B. In case you want to get in contact with Andreas,
his e-mail address is in the CC section of this mail.

___________________________________________________________
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Dear Mr. Zapf,

It seems a bit hasty to jump to the conclusion the Brad Lehman is a
plagiarist. In some countries, without sufficient evidence, this amounts to
libel. History has shown that co-discovery is a very real phenomenon; the
case of Newton and Leibniz co-discovering the calculus being perhaps the most
famous. Certainly both Mr. Sparschuh and Mr. Lehman can coexist and both have
insights into the question of Bach's tuning, many of which might share the
same general flavor, or same general conclusions.

Although it might be lamentable that Mr. Lehman chose not to mention Mr.
Sparschuh's work, there are several reasons that one might explain this
before one feels it necessary to slander Mr. Lehman. For starters, it might
be just plain paranoia about precedence, jealousy, or genuine disagreement or
lack of regard for his work. All of this can happen quite naturally without a
shred of willful plagiary. And one doesn't have to particularly *like* Mr.
Lehman to see that we are talking about general people princples here.

You haven't definitively proven anything below against Mr. Lehman; what you
say amounts to circumstantial and loose arguments that seem very emotionally
based, as if you bear a personal grudge against Mr. Lehman. Rather, at least
in this scenario, you revealed yourself to be in poor taste to not handle
this matter in private. Not only is this potentially libelous, but it is
basically pretty poor behavior to try to publicly embarrass or humiliate a
colleague, no matter what your personal grudge(s) against them might be.
Ironically,you also realize that you publically open yourself and your
motives up for scrutiny as well.

A grave injustice has been done against Bradley and his character; you appear
to have acted here as judge, jury, and executioner, and, well, without
evidence of any kind except that you find Mr. Lehman strikes you as being a
bit sneaky, it is rather alarming.

Regards,
Aaron.

On Saturday 25 June 2005 9:13 am, Michael Zapf wrote:
> Dear Francis,
>
> in the latest ‚Clavichord International’, you as the
> editor of the publication announce that for the
> November issue “Dr. Bradley Lehman is also writing an
> article for us on his exciting and controversial
> discovery of ‘the’ Bach temperament (discussed in two
> articles in Early Music this year)”. In the Clavichord
> Yahoogroup whose owner-moderator I am, and whose
> member Brad Lehman has been since 1998, I had on
> January 24, 2001 outlined that Andreas Sparschuh of
> Germany had made this discovery back in 1998. Andreas
> had written a long article with extensive mathematical
> and theoretical work which appeared in the German
> Mathematicians’ Association 1999 yearbook, and he had
> earned the Golden Tuning Fork Award of the German
> Tuners’ Association for it. So anything Bradley could
> have “discovered” was an alternate solution to the
> Sparschuh hypothesis. That he dismisses Andreas as
> somebody who only has a “vague idea” on his private
> homepage in my opinion is a disrespectful way of
> presenting his own work as the first scientific effort
> on this theme. This, and his complete omission of
> Andreas Sparschuh’s name and discovery in the Early
> Music article makes him a plagiarizer, nothing less. I
> have long been silent on this issue, because my own
> role, apart from presenting a dissenting opinion on
> the Sparschuh Tuning, was the one of the distributor
> of Andreas’ discovery to a music world that does not
> read mathematical yearbooks in Hun language, and my
> position as the moderator of the Clavichord Group
> forbade a strong intervention on my own behalf. But I
> must urge you as the publisher of Clavichord
> International to employ the necessary due diligence of
> at least presenting the facts, and not repeat
> Bradley’s and Early Music’s mistake of omitting
> Andreas’ work and opinion.
> I am sending this as an open letter to both the Tuning
> and the Clavichord Yahoogroups, as an effort to pay
> justice to a kind German mathematician who isn’t a
> member of either of them.
> Michael
> N.B. In case you want to get in contact with Andreas,
> his e-mail address is in the CC section of this mail.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ___________________________________________________________
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> voicemail http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
>
>
> You can configure your subscription by sending an empty email to one
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> tuning-subscribe@yahoogroups.com - join the tuning group.
> tuning-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com - leave the group.
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> tuning-help@yahoogroups.com - receive general help information.
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>

After having read the first of two articles on a "new" interpretation of Bach's tuning, I see little to be concerned about regarding primacy. In order to interpret the wiggles the way B. Lehman wants us to seem them, one must turn the title page upside down and then assume a number of far fetched things. There seems to be too many stretches for the imagination for this to be a definitive tuning.

First off, there is no justification for how flat the different tempered fifths are to be treated. Secondly, the upside down look is just silly. Thirdly, for this to be a recommendation by Bach for his Leipzig future bosses makes no sense. They did not change organ tuning for Bach, for if they had, there would be a record. And who is to declare that Leipzig didn't use well temperament, as B. Lehman did.

I believe that Bach walked into tunings that were well tempered and that he avoided opportunites to perform on organs without it. I am looking forward to the second article as it is such fun to reinterpret, almost in a science fiction manner, what secret codes may signify. But it seems a great joke nonetheless.

Johnny Reinhard
Director
American Festival of Microtonal Music

-----Original Message-----
From: Aaron Krister Johnson <aaron@akjmusic.com>
To: tuning@yahoogroups.com
Cc: asparschuh@web.de; clavichord <clavichord@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 00:03:44 -0500
Subject: Re: [tuning] Open letter on forthcoming Lehman article in "Clavichord International"

Dear Mr. Zapf,

It seems a bit hasty to jump to the conclusion the Brad Lehman is a
plagiarist. In some countries, without sufficient evidence, this amounts to
libel. History has shown that co-discovery is a very real phenomenon; the
case of Newton and Leibniz co-discovering the calculus being perhaps the most
famous. Certainly both Mr. Sparschuh and Mr. Lehman can coexist and both have
insights into the question of Bach's tuning, many of which might share the
same general flavor, or same general conclusions.

Although it might be lamentable that Mr. Lehman chose not to mention Mr.
Sparschuh's work, there are several reasons that one might explain this
before one feels it necessary to slander Mr. Lehman. For starters, it might
be just plain paranoia about precedence, jealousy, or genuine disagreement or
lack of regard for his work. All of this can happen quite naturally without a
shred of willful plagiary. And one doesn't have to particularly *like* Mr.
Lehman to see that we are talking about general people princples here.

You haven't definitively proven anything below against Mr. Lehman; what you
say amounts to circumstantial and loose arguments that seem very emotionally
based, as if you bear a personal grudge against Mr. Lehman. Rather, at least
in this scenario, you revealed yourself to be in poor taste to not handle
this matter in private. Not only is this potentially libelous, but it is
basically pretty poor behavior to try to publicly embarrass or humiliate a
colleague, no matter what your personal grudge(s) against them might be.
Ironically,you also realize that you publically open yourself and your
motives up for scrutiny as well.

A grave injustice has been done against Bradley and his character; you appear
to have acted here as judge, jury, and executioner, and, well, without
evidence of any kind except that you find Mr. Lehman strikes you as being a
bit sneaky, it is rather alarming.

Regards,
Aaron.

On Saturday 25 June 2005 9:13 am, Michael Zapf wrote:
> Dear Francis,
>
> in the latest ?Clavichord International?, you as the
> editor of the publication announce that for the
> November issue ?Dr. Bradley Lehman is also writing an
> article for us on his exciting and controversial
> discovery of ?the? Bach temperament (discussed in two
> articles in Early Music this year)?. In the Clavichord
> Yahoogroup whose owner-moderator I am, and whose
> member Brad Lehman has been since 1998, I had on
> January 24, 2001 outlined that Andreas Sparschuh of
> Germany had made this discovery back in 1998. Andreas
> had written a long article with extensive mathematical
> and theoretical work which appeared in the German
> Mathematicians? Association 1999 yearbook, and he had
> earned the Golden Tuning Fork Award of the German
> Tuners? Association for it. So anything Bradley could
> have ?discovered? was an alternate solution to the
> Sparschuh hypothesis. That he dismisses Andreas as
> somebody who only has a ?vague idea? on his private
> homepage in my opinion is a disrespectful way of
> presenting his own work as the first scientific effort
> on this theme. This, and his complete omission of
> Andreas Sparschuh?s name and discovery in the Early
> Music article makes him a plagiarizer, nothing less. I
> have long been silent on this issue, because my own
> role, apart from presenting a dissenting opinion on
> the Sparschuh Tuning, was the one of the distributor
> of Andreas? discovery to a music world that does not
> read mathematical yearbooks in Hun language, and my
> position as the moderator of the Clavichord Group
> forbade a strong intervention on my own behalf. But I
> must urge you as the publisher of Clavichord
> International to employ the necessary due diligence of
> at least presenting the facts, and not repeat
> Bradley?s and Early Music?s mistake of omitting
> Andreas? work and opinion.
> I am sending this as an open letter to both the Tuning
> and the Clavichord Yahoogroups, as an effort to pay
> justice to a kind German mathematician who isn?t a
> member of either of them.
> Michael
> N.B. In case you want to get in contact with Andreas,
> his e-mail address is in the CC section of this mail.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ___________________________________________________________
> Yahoo! Messenger - NEW crystal clear PC to PC calling worldwide with
> voicemail http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
>
>
> You can configure your subscription by sending an empty email to one
> of these addresses (from the address at which you receive the list):
> tuning-subscribe@yahoogroups.com - join the tuning group.
> tuning-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com - leave the group.
> tuning-nomail@yahoogroups.com - turn off mail from the group.
> tuning-digest@yahoogroups.com - set group to send daily digests.
> tuning-normal@yahoogroups.com - set group to send individual emails.
> tuning-help@yahoogroups.com - receive general help information.
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>

You can configure your subscription by sending an empty email to one
of these addresses (from the address at which you receive the list):
tuning-subscribe@yahoogroups.com - join the tuning group.
tuning-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com - leave the group.
tuning-nomail@yahoogroups.com - turn off mail from the group.
tuning-digest@yahoogroups.com - set group to send daily digests.
tuning-normal@yahoogroups.com - set group to send individual emails.
tuning-help@yahoogroups.com - receive general help information.

Yahoo! Groups Links

Johnny,

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Afmmjr@a... wrote:
> I am looking forward to the second article as it is such fun to
reinterpret, almost in a science fiction manner, what secret codes may
signify.

So, what do you think - can this become a tuning version of the "Da
Vinci Code"? :)

Cheers,
Jon

Well said, Johnny.

-Carl

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Afmmjr@a... wrote:
> After having read the first of two articles on a "new"
> interpretation of Bach's tuning, I see little to be concerned
> about regarding primacy. In order to interpret the wiggles
> the way B. Lehman wants us to seem them, one must turn the
> title page upside down and then assume a number of far fetched
> things. There seems to be too many stretches for the
> imagination for this to be a definitive tuning.
>
> First off, there is no justification for how flat the different
> tempered fifths are to be treated. Secondly, the upside down
> look is just silly. //
>
> I believe that Bach walked into tunings that were well tempered
> and that he avoided opportunites to perform on organs without it.
> I am looking forward to the second article as it is such fun to
> reinterpret, almost in a science fiction manner, what secret codes
> may signify. But it seems a great joke nonetheless.
>
> Johnny Reinhard
> Director
> American Festival of Microtonal Music
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Aaron Krister Johnson <aaron@a...>
> To: tuning@yahoogroups.com
> Cc: asparschuh@w...; clavichord <clavichord@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 00:03:44 -0500
> Subject: Re: [tuning] Open letter on forthcoming Lehman article
> in "Clavichord International"
>
> Dear Mr. Zapf,
>
> It seems a bit hasty to jump to the conclusion the Brad Lehman is
> a plagiarist. In some countries, without sufficient evidence, this
> amounts to libel. History has shown that co-discovery is a very
> real phenomenon; the case of Newton and Leibniz co-discovering the
> calculus being perhaps the most famous. Certainly both
> Mr. Sparschuh and Mr. Lehman can coexist and both have insights
> into the question of Bach's tuning, many of which might share the
> same general flavor, or same general conclusions.//

It probably wasn't too good an idea of mine to post he
open letter here also, because I had just entered this
group several days before because of my interest in
Turkish tone systems. I had checked the messages
section for the WTC question out of curiosity,
stumbled into the long discussion some 2000 posts
back, and therefore decided to circulate my open
letter. The purpose wasn't to create an open dispute
here, and so far I have answered to responses directed
at me off-list. Bradley has in the meantime posted a
long explanation and apology in the harpsichord list
which explains a lot. For those interested, I am
adding my response to this post, hoping it isn't
considered spam. Now, where was that ney of mine?
Michael

Having read Bradley�s explanation and apology in the
HPSCHD-L list, I get the impression that he is also a
victim, a victim of a questionable editorial process.
He states that the reference to the original
discoverer of the squiggle hypothesis originally was
in the body text of his paper, but was buried in the
appendix by the editors. As a result, the reader was
forced to get the impression that the discovery was
Bradley�s. One must suspect, that the editors of Early
Music wanted to create this very impression, thus
upgrading the article to a �first�, which would rub
off on the magazine as such. This has nothing to do
with content but with procedure. It shows once more,
that journalistic principles of quoting and crediting,
the principles of conduct of scientific argument, are
a guideline which avoids what happened in the
aftermath of this article � that its content gets worn
down by procedural arguments.

I am not a tuning expert and never claimed to be one,
and I never published anything on the Sparschuh
hypothesis because I felt that the quick and dirty
solution which I had presented with the announcement
of Andreas� discovery back in 2001 to the clavichord
newsgroup was far too conjectural to survive a decent
editorial screening. It matched with some of the
anecdotal evidence on Bach�s harpsichord tuning, i.e.
that he needed little time for tuning and that his
thirds were a bit sharp, but there were other
solutions possible for that. The important thing to me
was to present the original Sparschuh idea, which by
itself was also only hypothetical, but had a strong
intuitive appeal, and therefore it deserved to be
thrown into the arena of professional discourse. That
the draft opinion of mine ever made it into the
appendix of Early Music is embarrassing for me, I
never had claimed it to be a defensible theory, and I
never put any additional work into it. Worse, this
little sketch of mine is now presented in the EM
article as the theory of Andreas Sparschuh, who has
nothing to do with it. I outlined my opposing variant
because I felt that Andreas� tuning, which he
presented in 2001 to a class of music students in
Frankfurt and which he backed by a table from the
mathematical yearbook, was highly questionable by
itself.

The procedural mistakes which overshadow the content
of Bradley�s paper thus were:
1. The credit to the original inventor of the squiggle
was deleted from the body text and pushed into the
annex.
2. The discussion of the Sparschuh thesis in this very
annex never concerned the Sparschuh thesis at all, but
my own sketchy post which never claimed to be a
scientific solution, and it was an opinion opposing
not quoting Sparschuh. Somebody, be it Bradley or the
editors, should have had a look at the source which
was my petty little post, and the discrepancy would
have become evident immediately.

Professional argument must decide on the merit of
Bradley�s and others� solutions, but unfortunately a
discussion which should have concentrated on content
has been warped by procedural mistakes which should
never have happened in a serious article in a serious
scientific journal.

Michael

___________________________________________________________
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