Re: re: thoughts on Haba's 2th quartet/Ives/Wyschnegradsky

Joe, are you sure that Wyschnegradsky asked for a piano tuned up? I don't
think so. Though, Ives did want a piano tuned up for his "Three Quarter-tone
Pieces" for 2 pianos.

When we recorded it for the CD Joshua Pierce found that the touch of the
piano had changed radically. The top lines have more punch and bounce.
There is a difference in the music. (Though most piano owners would rather
the tuning was flatter rather than sharper.)

Problem with the Steinways: they can't be tuned down a full quartertone and
remain steady. Certainly nothing lower is possible because its part of the
design.

Johnny Reinhard
AFMM

Afmmjr@aol.com wrote:

> Problem with the Steinways: they can't be tuned down a full quartertone and
> remain steady. Certainly nothing lower is possible because its part of the
> design.

How long before the recording was it pitch-lowered? I bet it was tension
differences due friction from the duplexes, and in this case you'll get the same
with pitch-raising.

We were going to start raising the pitch on a piano now, for a concert in January
in Boston but there seem to be major problems with the venue.

Clark

Clark, that's what I had thought. The piano was tuned many time through the
day for an evening concert. It was a piano used by Vladimir Horowitz. The
piano tuner was extremely frustrated. Certainly the principle of old strings
tuned for a long time being resistant to rash changes is familiar.

However, Steinway specifically forbids quartertone tunings. No other company
has that policy. I do believe the reason is in their technology. There does
not seem to be enough free string.

Johnny Reinhard
AFMM

Jay here,
So _now ya scare me! In my brash, younger days I tuned several
Steinways down a quarter-tone for various concerts. The then head tuner at
Indiana specifically asked me to do it, only don't tell him I did, and also,
don't let him know that I pulled it back up to pitch, and don't tell him how
frustrating it is. I've never worried about the change in tension since, in
the Midwest, if you tune a piano to standard pitch in January, bu June it'll
be a very generous quarter-tone higher. If I break a string in the process,
well, it's just piano wire and can be replaced. We did make sure the
soundboards were um, sound, and I'd hesitate to muck with a piano that had
acquired some pedigree.
I achieved enough stability for the concert by giving it my brute force
treatment the day before. I lowered the thing half again farther so that, by
the time I finished, it was pretty much in the ballpark. Then I'd do the
fine tuning.
Of course it was a chore, stabilizing it for the next concert, but I didn't
care. I'd do anything to further rarely heard contemporary music.
He also didn't wanna know of the preparations for the John Cage pieces. What
a boss! To let this brash experimenter run free like that.
And zoh! You have the same tape I have. By
any chance did you preserve it on, say, a high-bias cassette or even, on
open-reel? I compiled mine from tapes I made on two mismatched machines and
then, onto an unremarkable cassette. A better copy would be a daymaker-type
thingy.
Also, Joe, I'm aware of how much time it would take to key in a MIDI file of
that, but oh my! What a
boon for us blind folks. We can look at the sequence with speech
synthesizers, and, so long as tempo changes are in the tempo track and the
real notation's preserved we have a usable score. Orpheus would blessya
plenty and keep you from Hades.
I might even sendya a cd of some fabulous music.
Jay
At 03:46 PM 11/17/99 EST, you wrote:
>From: Afmmjr@aol.com
>
>Clark, that's what I had thought. The piano was tuned many time through the
>day for an evening concert. It was a piano used by Vladimir Horowitz. The
>piano tuner was extremely frustrated. Certainly the principle of old strings
>tuned for a long time being resistant to rash changes is familiar.
>
>However, Steinway specifically forbids quartertone tunings. No other company
>has that policy. I do believe the reason is in their technology. There does
>not seem to be enough free string.
>
>Johnny Reinhard
>AFMM
>
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