Bach's Tuning -- in conclusion

Aaron says Johnny says:

1) Werckmeister was published, and Bach could have not used anything
else, because Werckmeister was published.

2) It couldn't be Neidhardt, that's too late. Therefore it *had* to be
Werckmeister. Adn not only that, it had to be Werck III.

3) combinations of the above, ad nauseum....

Tom, Aaron, others say:

1) Just because some tuning was published doesn't mean Bach didn't
have an unpublished solution. Do we really think Bach is so mechanical
and unoriginal that he would, hmmm---experiment? In fact, Johnny even
goes to great lengths to insist Bach was cocky. Let's say we agree he
was 'cocky'--taken at face value, why would he simply copy an existing
tradition without "putting his stamp" on it?

ANSWER: The above is hogwash, fantasy land. Bach did not order a retuning of any organ as far as history is concerned. He walked into situations where there was an organ ALREADY tuned. You are the cocky one, Aaron.

2) CPE Bach said "temper most fifths" --a decidly UN-Werckmeister III
description. Johnny will have to explain why the ultra-orthodox (his
view, not ours) Bach family would suddenly change its tempering
habits. CPE spoke for Papa Bach in more ways than one---for instance,
insisting his Dad (and he, the bearer of the tradition) were
anti-Rameau harmonic theory.

ANSWER: CPE was writing at a different time, for a different court, when music had moved to the classical paradigm of melody over chords. CPE is irrelevant to the question of Bach’s tuning. Similarly, Kirnberger shifted his tuning for the SAME reasons as CPE, if with different results.

3) If Bach cared, if he thought his music would be spoiled by the
"wrong temperament", he would have left detailed instructions on how
to set the right temperament.

JR: Exactly!

A: The horrible truth Johnny, it hurts you
we know, is that Bach's music is _greater than tuning_. Believe it or
not, it is not an error to enjoy the countless non-AFMM recordings in
non-Werckmeister out there. Nor is at error to (gasp!) enjoy Bach in
12-equal (horrors!!!). If not, let's burn all the lute music he wrote
in error, for certainly 12-equal is a mistake. Let's not forget that
it is *we* who are in the tuning group caring so much about something
that most of the time matters the least about music. Tuning is NOT a
foreground feature of Bach's music, like it is in say Partch, or
Renaissance vocal music. It is UTTERLY INSANE to argue otherwise. It
would be equivalent to saying it utterly fails in 12-equal, which it
doesn't---Renaissance music I agree mostly fails in 12-equal--not Bach.

ANSWER: You are ranting. And you are wrong.
From a historical point of view, the Bach family preferring to use well-temperament, before it had ever been written about, is entirely a tuning issue. Your purview of tuning as based off of a non-12 ET paradigm is inappropriate for this list. It offers nothing on Bach. That Bach works in ET is no surprise, it works in any tuning.

4) 'It' (assuming there is ONE HOLY TUNING---an error---see below)
doesn't have to be Neidhardt, it could be related or whatever.

Johnny: You think this is good scholarship?

Aaron: We will
never know exactly. It's ok to be ok with not knowing. Not knowing
keeps mystery in life. We don't need to know everything. That
said--Neidhardt *might* (again the tentative nature of all speculative
thought is emphasized---how radical!) represent a later publishing of
a distillation of cultural trends for well-temperament that were alive
in some way, *perhaps* in musical families like Bach's, especially
given that Neidhardt had contact with Bach family members.

Johnny: It seems that you may have a chronological malady. Maybe you think Bach used time travel to go to the future to meet Neidhardt, only to return to an earlier date to use it, possibly to inform his whole family.

Aaron: So, it's quite possible that Neidhardt tuning recipe(s) might be the closest
published tuning(s) at the time to what Bach's personal recipe(s)
might have been.

Johnny: In bizzarro world. Rather than accept what is there in history -WIII (and which works as pointed out by Gene and Carl), you would rather deny its likelihood for the fantasy of unknown experiments.

Aaron: Not to radical a statement really, given the way the
world works when you really look at it. The anachronism doesn't
necessarily apply---an idea may be around for decades before someone
publishes, after all. You'd have to prove that all ideas are published
AS SOON AS POSSIBLE to disagree.

ANSWER: Actually, no. I have only to produce excellent performances, or to aid in the production of excellent performances. I have already volunteered that musicologists have failed on this issue. In fact, universities, colleges, and conservatories have all failed to incorporate what we on this list take for granted.

5) The plurals in parentheses above really bring us around to the main
issue one might have Johnny's ultra-fascist conception---Why does Bach
need ONE HOLY TUNING? Jesus, why does anyone? Can't the guy like
variety? Do we screw ONLY in missionary position? There is not one
compelling reason for Bach to feel like there was a single 'holy
grail' temperament, to be used always and forever, Amen.

ANSWER: First off, your religious allegory (no doubt related to personal trauma in your family) is inappropriate here, as I have said to you before. Secondly, my musical practice is to include all tunings, including ET. I am sorry that you have an inability to be flexible on this issue, only to conclude that I must be inflexible. You also fail to recognize that WIII contains different tunings within its variegation. And you misunderstand the Bach family involvement, at a time in Thuringia when they were the cutting edge chromaticists. They were microtonalists for their age. Everyone else was in meantone.

Bach is critical to a proper understanding of what we call Western Art Music.
I am truly disappointed that this appears as ad nauseum to some.

Aaron: Ok, this is tiring. It really has gotten beyond lame. This thread MUST
DIE. Sorry for keeping it alive well beyond what it ultimately merits.

-A.

ANSWER: If there is no further interest, I retire from the list.

Johnny
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--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Afmmjr@... wrote:

> ANSWER: CPE was writing at a different time, for a different court,
when music had moved to the classical paradigm of melody over chords.
CPE is irrelevant to the question of Bach’s tuning.

I don't see the relevance of CPE Bach to JS Bach, but this instruction
is interesting anyway. Temper them how much, I wonder? The result is
hardly likely, compared to Werck3, to value chords over melody--quite
the reverse, I would have thought.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Afmmjr@... wrote:
>
>
> Aaron says Johnny says:
>
> [lots snipt]
>
> ANSWER: The above is hogwash, fantasy land. Bach did not order a
retuning of any organ as far as history is concerned. He walked into
situations where there was an organ ALREADY tuned. You are the cocky
one, Aaron.
>
[lots more snipt]
>
> 5) The plurals in parentheses above really bring us around to the
main issue one might have Johnny's ultra-fascist conception---Why
does Bach need ONE HOLY TUNING? Jesus, why does anyone? Can't the guy
like variety? Do we screw ONLY in missionary position? There is not
one compelling reason for Bach to feel like there was a single 'holy
grail' temperament, to be used always and forever, Amen.
>
>
> ANSWER: First off, your religious allegory (no doubt related to
personal trauma in your family) is inappropriate here, as I have said
to you before. Secondly, my musical practice is to include all
tunings, including ET. I am sorry that you have an inability to be
flexible on this issue, only to conclude that I must be inflexible.
You also fail to recognize that WIII contains different tunings
within its variegation. And you misunderstand the Bach family
involvement, at a time in Thuringia when they were the cutting edge
chromaticists. They were microtonalists for their age. Everyone
else was in meantone.
>
> Bach is critical to a proper understanding of what we call Western
Art Music.
> I am truly disappointed that this appears as ad nauseum to some.

Yahya: Me too. And Aaron's language here is
totally inappropriate. We're discussing tuning,
not theology, fercrissake!

> Aaron: Ok, this is tiring. It really has gotten beyond lame. This
thread MUST DIE. Sorry for keeping it alive well beyond what it
ultimately merits.
>
> -A.

Yahya: No go, Aaron. You don't get to say when
we stop discussing anything. So you find Johnny
unresponsive to your ideas; did you think you
can convince everyone? If you feel so passionately
you are right, try to find more convincing arguments.
The effort will be worthwhile anyway. Wouldn't it
be "lame" to give up so soon ...?
>
>
> ANSWER: If there is no further interest, I retire from the list.
>
> Johnny

Yahya: Don't go, Johnny, don't go! I've only
been listening to you for a bit over a year, and
still have heaps to learn.

At this stage, I don't see how anyone can be
*certain* what JS Bach's preferred tunings were;
but I do believe that the intuitions of performers
and scholars alike are valuable indicators in
assessing the probability of him using one or
another tuning. Still, it can't hurt any of us
to continue to listen to other viewpoints with an
open mind.

What seems to me to be of paramount importance
in choosing a tuning is to first determine the
musical objectives of its use: What are the music-
ians (composer, performer, conductor) trying to
achieve? And it's also necessary to at least try
to understand what motivates them: What are the
driving forces behind their music? Which musical
issues are they exploring and which are they
ignoring? Without gaining a feeling for these
things, I think that any speculation is just
academic hot air.

Regards,
Yahya

Dear Yahya,

It is so refreshing to hear your point of view. In resonse to your comments:

"At this stage, I don't see how anyone can be
*certain* what JS Bach's preferred tunings were
but I do believe that the intuitions of performers
and scholars alike are valuable indicators in
assessing the probability of him using one or
another tuning. Still, it can't hurt any of us
to continue to listen to other viewpoints with an
open mind."

J: That's fair. Essentially, as a result of following up my thesis paper called Bach's Tuning with further research and performances, I became more confident. /thanks for listening!

"What seems to me to be of paramount importance
in choosing a tuning is to first determine the
musical objectives of its use: What are the music-
ians (composer, performer, conductor) trying to
achieve? And it's also necessary to at least try
to understand what motivates them: What are the
driving forces behind their music? Which musical
issues are they exploring and which are they
ignoring? Without gaining a feeling for these
things, I think that any speculation is just
academic hot air. Regards, Yahya"

J: Yes, there is a superior value for using WIII in counterpoint that goes well with the rules about not crossing voices. Each line has a greater etching, and more recognizeability. ET fails this dimension of listening. And its sequences sound trite in comparison. As a practical musician, it seems almost silly that the obvously known tuning in a very small pool of musicians, amongst a decimated population (e.g., 30 years war, plague), would not be used as the defacto tuning for Bach.

And this is the reasons that musicians are tuning instruments in Werckmeister III. I guess I have a different set of expectations of what people would constitute in this musical situation. I can say that I have personally visited all the Bach cities. It really does confirm what I have been saying. You can see the unequalness represented on the Quedlinberg Church door (supposed the same door used by Werckmeister).

all best with all inquiries, Johnny
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