Re: [tuning] Digest Number 5338

> Remember again C.P.E. Bach's statement in the necrology of his father:
> "Nobody was able to tune his instrument to his satisfaction."
> How would JSB judge about the modern abuse of and in his name?

JSB would say: people who don't tune harpsichords by ear shouldn't be wasting their time arguing about that hands-on process they don't understand, and can't do. Speculation is worthless next to practice.

1. If the person seemed inclined to learn, and genuinely open to the topic: JSB would just sit down, demonstrate it himself in 15 minutes, and play some pieces (from the WTC, et al) showing how and why it works.

2. If the person didn't seem apt to get it (JSB auditioned prospective students for *any* compositional/improvisational talent, before accepting them as pupils): JSB as a busy man wouldn't waste his own time on it further.

There *is* historical record that JSB played through the WTC as demonstration, for a student. H. N. Gerber, student of JSB between 1724 and 1726, as reported by his son: "At the first lesson he set his Inventions before him. When he had studied these through to Bach's satisfaction, there followed a series of suites, then the WTC. This latter work Bach played altogether three times through for him with his unmatchable art, and my father counted these among his happiest hours, when Bach, under the pretext of not feeling in the mood to teach, sat himself at one of his fine instruments and thus turned these hours into minutes."

Brad Lehman