source file: mills3.txt Date: Thu, 11 Dec 1997 19:08:28 +0100 Subject: Re: TUNING digest 1263 From: A440A Greetings, Inre: >playing in tune with >lutes, wouldn't a lute provide a very effective equal-temperament tuning >reference? Actually not. I had posted earlier the difficulty in transferring a temperament via unison matching of two instruments. Even though fretted lutes could be set to ET with some mathematical precision, trying to get a harpsichord properly tempered by matching the fundamentals to a lute, (not many overtones in a gut lute string) would only result in a crude approximation. I would encourage anyone to try this. (all you need is a lute and harpsichord, plus a lotta time. ) >Date: Wed, 10 Dec 1997 12:20:19 -0500 (EST) Also from Bill Alves >But in regards to this question and Neil Haverstick's original question >about Bach jamming with Weiss, let's do a brief reality check. Given what >we know about tuning practices of the time, which did not include counting >beats, as Ed Foote reminds us, there was undoubtedly a significant margin >of error for any tuning, let alone some circulating temperament with no >pure intervals other than the octave. Hmm. These well temperaments had pure intervals galore!! the root tonic thirds in the keys of G, C and F were often tuned purely. This is a foundation of the earliest tuning plans. The Prinz temperament of 1806 uses a pure C-E third as a benchmark in it's pattern. Also, the fifths of the most remote keys are often left in Just intonation. >The story that Bach could tune his >harpsichord in 15 minutes is thus completely believable though still >impressive. I personally think that the 15 minutes was the time to change meantone keys, and may not have necessarily needed a change to all notes...... this is more suspicion on my part than research. > (By >the way, the seeming beat-spotlighting character of the long consonances in >slow movements is mostly an illusion: performers at that time would >improvise filler and ornaments in such occasions.) On the keyboard sonatas? I really don't agree there, as the development section of the sonata form seems to have grown with the freedom afforded by ever-increasing ability to temper the higher keys into a more usable degree of dissonance. >In this context, the practical differences between temperaments like some >of Neidhardt's and Marpurg's and ET are angels dancing on the head of pin. On this I must disagree strongly. Modern day ears can easily hear the differences in a tuning that provides key character and ET ,which does not. The temperament CD uses two different tunings, a Prinz and a Young, and already I am hearing from people that clearly and profoundly hear the differences between not only these two, but between the sound of both the well temperaments there and ET. The differences on a harpsichord would be less vivid than on the Steinway D that we recorded, but 12 ET has it's own, easily distinguishable sound. >If I had been present when he and >Weiss jammed, I'm sure that, in the wonder of the music of the moment, a >few acoustical beats here or there would probably be the last thing on my >mind. Well, yea, me too......(:)}} Regards, Ed Foote Precision Piano Works Nashville, Tn. SMTPOriginator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu From: alves@orion.ac.hmc.edu (Bill Alves) Subject: Re: TUNING digest 1263 PostedDate: 11-12-97 20:03:57 SendTo: CN=coul1358/OU=AT/O=EZH ReplyTo: tuning@eartha.mills.edu $MessageStorage: 0 $UpdatedBy: CN=notesrv2/OU=Server/O=EZH,CN=coul1358/OU=AT/O=EZH,CN=Manuel op de Coul/OU=AT/O=EZH RouteServers: CN=notesrv2/OU=Server/O=EZH,CN=notesrv1/OU=Server/O=EZH RouteTimes: 11-12-97 20:02:06-11-12-97 20:02:06,11-12-97 20:01:50-11-12-97 20:01:51 DeliveredDate: 11-12-97 20:01:51 Categories: $Revisions: Received: from ns.ezh.nl ([137.174.112.59]) by notesrv2.ezh.nl (Lotus SMTP MTA SMTP v4.6 (462.2 9-3-1997)) with SMTP id C125656A.00688BF0; Thu, 11 Dec 1997 20:03:51 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA13120; Thu, 11 Dec 1997 20:03:57 +0100 Date: Thu, 11 Dec 1997 20:03:57 +0100 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA13122 Received: (qmail 2069 invoked from network); 11 Dec 1997 11:03:52 -0800 Received: from localhost (HELO ella.mills.edu) (127.0.0.1) by localhost with SMTP; 11 Dec 1997 11:03:52 -0800 Message-Id: Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu