Quoting myself:
I have three recordings of the Raindrop Prelude. Identical performances, same piano and recording set-up, but three different tunings,I was hoping some might take a listen and report their preferences.The files are in my Dropbox:tinyurl.com/y3wrojfd[end of quote]
Thanks for taking a listen.
These were made with a professionally-produced MIDI file.
This was the digitally-modeled Steingraeber in Pianoteq. I have been using Pianoteq for many years, and it has greatly improved over the years.
The tunings I use are complex to produce. I tune just as I would a real piano. In this case, I used Verituner with my styles for pure octave ET and pure 12th ET. I used Verituner to convert the pure octave ET into Kellner.
The tunings are built note by note: I read each note with Verituner and create an 88 note Scala file which can be loaded into Pianoteq. The process is tedious, but yields a real tuning that I can take responsibility for.
500k is Kellner. Mild, right?
508 is pure octave ET. In fairness, few if any actually tune ET this narrow. Octaves and compound octaves are kept absolutely as clean as is possible, albeit pure 4:2 in temperament area. See comments below. I developed a Verituner style for pure octave ET to demonstrate that we don't really tune that way, but that it is possible. I dislike those 2 cent contracted fifths! But the pure octave style, in which both octaves and compound octaves are very clean, serves as a fine base in Verituner for historical temperaments. The lack of artificial stretch should preserve the original intent of unequal temperaments and allow their implementation on the modern piano.
512 is pure 12th ET. I like it because of the pure effect in sustained chords and the balance between octaves and fifths. Accurately tuned pure 12th ET is only slightly "stretched".
I think the differences between the three are surprisingly subtle. The subtlety may come from the "laboratory" conditions here. The tunings are very accurate and the stretch is uniformly and very carefully controlled; humidity and temperature cannot introduce drift; the piano tone is idealized with no wild notes to interfere with tuning and listening.
By the way, the pure octave ET is done with partials. It is never, NEVER correct to tune a piano outside the treble from the fundamental. Note that aurally it isn't really possible to tune the mid-range using the fundamental (except perhaps from a set of tuning forks?). In the early days of ETD tuning, piano mid-ranges were indeed tuned from the fundamentals, with disappointing results. True, lower partials are less affected by inharmonicity, but higher partials are greatly affected; intervals as basic as the 3:2 fifths can be thrown grossly off by inharmonicity. This is basic knowledge and is not controversial; I have heard gross tuning errors from tuning only the fundamentals with my own ears.
For the most part, frequency ratios are irrelevant to piano tuning. Piano tuners refer to coincident partials pairs, not frequencies. Don't be confused by the similar numbers. On a piano, a 2:1 octave is that in which the upper note is tuned beatless with the 2nd partial of the lower note. The frequency ratio between the two fundamentals of a 2:1 octave is irrelevant. (Well, it is irrelevant unless one can demonstrate in a real tuning that it is relevant, and then explain exactly why such relevance is so. Good luck with that.)
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Kent Swafford
Lenexa KS
913-631-8227
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Original Message:
Sent: 09-14-2019 11:18
From: Kent Swafford
Subject: Three "Raindrops"
David Pinnegar wrote:
"... Chopin's Raindrop Prelude is the acid test as to whether it's too strong.... Really with the way in which pianos go out of tune in time tuning isn't as precise a science as decimal points might indicate. The importance of Kirnberger or Kellner are the very pleasant smooth thirds in F C and G and their contrast in modulation which gives a feeling of movement in the music. This effect is achieved even if tuning has degraded so whilst it's nice to be spot on, obsessive attention to detail isn't musically vital at all."
Interesting comments.
I have three recordings of the Raindrop Prelude. Identical performances, same piano and recording set-up, but three different tunings,
I was hoping some might take a listen and report their preferences.
The files are in my Dropbox:
https://tinyurl.com/y3wrojfd
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Kent Swafford
Lenexa KS
913-631-8227
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