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Erard tuning instructions from 1927

  • 1.  Erard tuning instructions from 1927

    Posted 02-17-2019 11:21
      |   view attached
    Can anyone help to interpret the tuning instructions from Blondel, head of Erard https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k123724v.pdf page 678 of the PDF

    As I read them -

    1. A the diapason and the 5th from the bass in unison
    2. The octave below without beats
    3. 5th A E feeble, small
    4. 4th below E B without beats, pure
    5. 5th F# B, tempered feeble
    6. Prove 6th A F# precipitous - ?fast ?faster beats
    7. 4th below Gb Db pure without beats. Prove E G# fast beats the same as 6th B G#, the same as A F# with fast beats and the chord B E G#
    8. 4th Ab Eb without beats. Prove B D# with fast beats the same as A C# and the chord A D# F#
    9. 4th below Eb Bb and tune the Bb above from which gives proofs - Gb Bb the same as 3rd B D# and 6th B G# with fast beats and chords Db Gb Bb and Eb Gb Bb
    10. 5th Bb F tempered - prove Db F with fast beats the same as A C#
    11. 4th below F C without beats - prove Db F with fast beats the same as A C# with fast beats, the 6th C A (query pure or beating) and the chord C F A
    12. 5th C G tempered - prove 3rd Eb G and the 6th Bb G with fast beats and the chords C E G and Bb Eb G
    13. 4th below G D. Prove A D and D G without beats, 3rds Bb D and D F# with fast beats. Equal intervals and chords A D F# and Bb D F and B D G

    Does this sound like the tuning instructions of which anyone's familiar with and for convenience of many can anyone decipher these into cent deviations from ET?

    I'm attaching an extract from the book and the original French is on the last page.

    Best wishes

    David P

    ------------------------------
    David Pinnegar BSc ARCS
    Curator and House Tuner - Hammerwood Park, East Grinstead, Sussex UK
    antespam@gmail.com

    Call for papers - Seminar 6th May 2019 - "Restoring emotion to classical music through tuning."
    ------------------------------

    Attachment(s)

    pdf
    Blondel tuning.pdf   1.26 MB 1 version


  • 2.  RE: Erard tuning instructions from 1927

    Posted 02-18-2019 09:45
    Sorry my last post was nonsense :)

    ------------------------------
    Bernhard Stopper
    Klavierbaumeister
    Tuebingen
    ------------------------------



  • 3.  RE: Erard tuning instructions from 1927

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 02-18-2019 10:41
    Note this is also being discussed on Pianoworld

    ------------------------------
    Anthony Willey, RPT
    Willey Piano Tuning
    Easy Piano Tuner
    ------------------------------



  • 4.  RE: Erard tuning instructions from 1927

    Posted 02-18-2019 12:06
    Brilliant - thanks for pointing us to the Pianoworld discussion. Not having email notification of posts I hadn't seen the progression but there are interesting things coming to light - http://forum.pianoworld.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/2816527/help-interpreting-1927-erard-tuning.html

    I haven't had time to tune it on a piano or harpsichord yet so the people using simulation are really in the lead. 

    Equal, quasi equal, unequal it's certainly a puzzle.

    In correspondence with someone who always takes the opposite of my opinion I commented that at the very least it demonstrates that even less than 100 years ago a tuning wasn't as predictable as it is now, and very much a matter of "taste" and "preference", OK as long as it sounded OK, rather than the ubiquitous straightjacket of exactitude we are given to expect today.

    On the thread two simulations have come forward so far - 
    C -1.17 
    C# -1.56 
    D -1.96 
    D# -2.35 
    E -2.74 
    F -3.13 
    F# -3.52 
    G -3.91 
    G# -4.30 
    A 0.00 
    A# -0.39 
    B -0.78 
    C -1.17 

    and 

    C 5.2
    C# 3.2
    D -2
    D# 3.4
    E 0
    F 3.2
    F# 1.2
    G -3.9
    G# 1.5
    A 0
    A# 5.3
    B 1.9
    C 5.2

    and as this was the Encyclopedia for the Conservatoires in France pre WWII in my opinion it's capable of being quite an enlightening exploration.

    Debussy, Fauré, Ravel and the rest.

    In another thread I'm talking about the effects of impuring ET on removing resonances away from the 9th Harmonic. It will be interesting to see if the family of results of experimenters with this temperament is capable of achieving that and taming the metallic aspects of piano sound.

    Best wishes

    David P 
    --
    - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
    David Pinnegar, B.Sc., A.R.C.S.
    - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
    +44 1342 850594





  • 5.  RE: Erard tuning instructions from 1927

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 02-18-2019 16:27
    For the sake of anybody who is actually interested in this, the author of the passage in the encyclopedia article, after clearly stating that equal temperament has been the norm since the beginning of the 19th century, first gives a circle of fifths procedure, alternating as needed with octaves, with the only "proof" being the fact that the final fifth is tempered the same as the rest. He then says he prefers to tune alternating fifths and fourths (like Broadwood). But he proceeds to describe all the fifths as tempered narrow a wee bit, and all the fourths as beatless, while noting that all the thirds and sixths should be quite wide and beat with the same rapidity. There is a footnote stating that all the thirds and sixths should have beat rates that progress evenly, explaining that their equal width is proportional. So how to solve the conundrum of the beatless fourths?

    As I pointed out privately to David Pinnegar prior to his posting, and with exhaustive documentation, this apparently arose from a tradition started by LaSalette in 1786, and promulgated by others thereafter. LaSalette claimed to have "discovered" that an octave is made up of a just fourth and an equally tempered fifth. Hence, to tune equal temperament, all you have to do is tune a circle of just fourths. Montal derided LaSalette as well as Momigny (who had espoused the same idiocy) in the introduction to his Art of Tuning. Nevertheless, the idea appeared in Giorgio Armellini's book on tuning, published in 1834, reissued thereafter at least until 1855, ivy Roret, publisher of do it yourself how-to books.

    In spite of my explanation, Pinnegar seems determined to pretend that this actually means something. It does not. There is no there there. Just some ignorance being displayed by Blondel, who was the plant manager at Érard, but was actually quoting, he wrote, from Dolmetsch. I'm going to guess that Dolmetsch read Armellini.

    Should anyone care to examine all those sources, I'll be happy to provide LaSalette's initial tuning procedure (published in 1786 in a piano method by JC Bach and Ricci), his letter to the French Academy of 1808, Montal's critique of him and of Momigny in 1836, together with links to Armellini's two editions, 1834 and 1855. I provided all this earlier to Pinnegar. There is a lot of misinformation in many tuning instructions, both today and in the past. No need to promulgate it as actually meaning something significant. It is patently obvious in this case that the intent was equal temperament.

    ------------------------------
    Fred Sturm
    University of New Mexico
    fssturm@unm.edu
    http://fredsturm.net
    http://www.artoftuning.com
    "We either make ourselves happy or miserable. The amount of work is the same." - Carlos Casteneda
    ------------------------------



  • 6.  RE: Erard tuning instructions from 1927

    Posted 02-18-2019 17:05
    Well the intent might have been equal temperament but what resulted from anyone following such instruction in 1927 was likely to be rather less than equal.

    And Blondel acknowledged in former times that there was a tuning with 5 tempered fifths and 7 perfect ones, and that the pianos of Chopin's time were not the instruments then of today.

    The bottom line of this then is that in the 1920s there was a great deal of listening experience, playing experience and practice far removed from the straightjacket of precision standard tuning on precision standard instruments with performance approaching precision repetition which is starting to bore people of today. Music is more fluid, more dynamic, more expressive of emotion than the predictability of today has to offer and for that reason exploration of variabilities, even of varieties of equal temperament is no bad thing.

    Furthermore it might just be that variabilities inherent in people following Blondel's instructions might just be far enough from harmonic resonance of the metallic 7th 9th and 11th harmonics to make the instruments of today sweeter and less metallic.

    Electronic simulation such as Pianoteq provides current musicians with a whole host of variations that stick-in-the-mud technicians refuse to offer to the consumers of acoustic instruments. They exist for tonal and musical advantages and if the acoustic instrument fails to keep up and supply them then the whole acoustic trade from manufacturers to tuners will gradually decline, whimper and die. Whilst the US market might be healthy the market in Britain is considerably diminished. It's diminished so much in France that a skills shortage has led to a vast number of unmaintained and untuned instruments to the point that their owners are enthusiastic about inviting a British eccentric such as myself across the sea to come and untune their instruments unequally and welcome me with glee.

    Now were Fred and I to go together I wonder whose tuned instruments they would want to welcome more to hear and to play?

    The historical controversy is a matter of interest but what really matters is what people want to experience in the now, how it relates to them and how it can lead to a better performance and greater enthusiasm in the listening. It's no use just being stuck in the past.

    Best wishes

    David P

    --
    - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
    David Pinnegar, B.Sc., A.R.C.S.
    - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
    +44 1342 850594





  • 7.  RE: Erard tuning instructions from 1927

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 02-18-2019 17:13
    David,
    Please show your documentation for this statement: 

    "And Blondel acknowledged in former times that there was a tuning with 5 tempered fifths and 7 perfect ones, and that the pianos of Chopin's time were not the instruments then of today." 

    It isn't anywhere in the pdf you provided. Did you find it somewhere else, or did you just make it up?
    "Believe those who seek the truth; doubt those who find it; doubt everything, but don't doubt yourself." Gide






  • 8.  RE: Erard tuning instructions from 1927

    Posted 02-18-2019 18:15
      |   view attached
    I believed it to be in the PDF to which I've linked. I'll try attaching it here. However, having spent rather too much of a day last week searching for the needle in the haystack it's quite possible that I'm back a step and confused, following the implanted memory from Paul Kildea's book Chopin's Piano p137 referring to a publication of 1913. The edition I've attached is 1927 so there may well be differences rather than misquotation by Kildea: "this leaves seven of the twelve fifths of a chromatic scale pure, the remaining five slightly smaller"

    Indeed it's a matter of commonsense that the overstrung or cross-strung piano of the 1920s was a very different animal to that of the 1830s. How one treats a 1920s or 2020 instrument to be able to achieve musically what an 1830 instrument might not be one that can be addressed by specific historical copying, but certain historical practices are available to us in the toolbox.

    It's not a cop-out to give argument about historical matters a position of secondary importance. What's relevant is that which gives people now a good experience of piano music, of sound, of encouragement of sensitivity, communication and a taste of humanity.

    As far as equal temperament is concerned I've demonstrated that a 7-5 perfect-tempered tuning unstretched can validly serve as a an equal temperament, the temperament providing good service in all keys. What we appear to be looking at in Blondel's instructions is an equal temperament with considerable room for variation to the point of achieving rather different effects to that which we experience in modern tuning. 

    When we look at the ability of a temperament such as Vallotti or even Kellner to be able to service all keys and to the extent that an audience does not consciously have awareness, arguments of history reduce to irrelevance. It's a matter of what enables a sensitive performer to perform to the best and what gives the best sound. My observations on the metallic harmonics and how temperament is a tool with which to overcome them demonstrate reason to pursue such enquiry.

    Experiments are usefully carried out to see how far one need nudge precision ET for it not to resonate and amplify the metallic harmonics, 7th, 9th and 11th which can make certain pianos strident to the extent of being painful to the ears and contrary to the spirit of Blondel " la sonorité du piano devient harmonieuse et acquiert un charme qui met en pleine valeurles qualités naturelles de l'instrument. "

    Just as my venture into the use of Meantone in Mozart's time was spurred by Orde Hume writing that the tuning of the time made one wince and that it was intended to, and Percy Scholes' rhetorical question about how Bach's 48 could have been played on Dr Burney's piano, those people who are using their expertise to see what results from anyone attempting replication of Blondel's instructions have a chance of discovering something that we lack in our modern experience.

    Best wishes

    David P

    --
    - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
    David Pinnegar, B.Sc., A.R.C.S.
    - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
    +44 1342 850594



    Attachment(s)

    pdf
    Blondel tuning.pdf   1.26 MB 1 version


  • 9.  RE: Erard tuning instructions from 1927

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 02-18-2019 22:33
    David,
    Kildea misunderstood what was included in Blondel's article, just as you did. There is no question but that the intention was simply ET, and that the supposedly just fourths are simply an error passed down over more than a century. No question whatsoever. (And there is nothing in what Blondel wrote about Chopin's piano.)

    Read the whole section on tuning. I'll help by translating some of it.

    "The harmonization of the tones of the piano, that is to say the art of tuning the piano according to the equal temperament used today, dates from the beginning of the 19th century. Although the intervals of this temperament are not rigorously exact in their relationships, they come to appear sufficiently close in a well tuned instrument to become very acceptable, even to the finest ear." [He means that intervals like the thirds are not exactly 5:4, etc., but they will sound close enough] 

    He then goes into a bit of theoretical explanation, saying that in non-fixed pitch instruments, a distinction is made between sharps and flats, but in a fixed pitch instrument like the piano you have to make a choice, and that choice is to tune midway between the two.

    He then gives instructions to tune the temperament using fifths and octaves, but says he prefers one that alternates fourths and fifths. The instructions are consistent: tune each fifth a little narrow. Tune each fourth beatless. Make sure that all the thirds and sixths beat fast ("precipitously"). He writes, "The thirds and sixths will be considered correct when they all have very fast beats. In contrast, the fourths and octaves should have no beat. The fifth must be tuned with slow beats, always narrow from the just fifth."

    This is where a reference to Armellino's book becomes very useful in understanding why such contradictory instructions are given. (Tuning all just fourths and all narrow fifths would make for narrow octaves, and this would need to extend throughout the piano, but he says that the octaves must have no beat). 

    Armellino was published in French, and in France. He described the principles of equal temperament explaining the necessity of compromising between sharps and flats, and saying that tuning is done by fifths: "following the principle that all thirds must be wide, all fourths just, all fifths narrow, and the octaves just." 

    Later, he described how to tune the first fifth of the temperament, after having tuned A to the fork, and the octave A below: "After tuning the octave, we will tune the fifth D A. In order to tune this fifth well, you should first tune it just, then raise it just a little, so as to temper it as described earlier. To check to see that the fifth is tempered correctly, the D will form a just fourth with the lower A." 

    Blondel, or whoever Blondel is quoting, is simply following what he read somewhere, quite probably in Armellino, but there were other French sources which gave the same misinformation. I wrote about these earlier, and provided you with the actual documents. 

    The clincher is the footnote: "NB Since the number of beats increasing progressively as one moves upward, we should only understand by the words equal thirds and sixth an approximate equality perceived by the ear."

    Trying to read something besides equal temperament into this article is simply fantasizing. It isn't that hard to understand. If you can figure out how to tune a piano with all the octaves and fourths just, all the fifths narrow, and all the thirds wide, then you will have solved this puzzle in its literal sense. Since that is impossible, there must be some other explanation, right?
    "Believe those who seek the truth; doubt those who find it; doubt everything, but don't doubt yourself." Gide






  • 10.  RE: Erard tuning instructions from 1927

    Posted 02-19-2019 00:11
    Does anyone have accounts of what tunings were used by amatuer and professional musicians from the different eras? Or are we simply discussing theoretical documents here?  Simply because there are equal temperament instructions written by theorists during a said time period is hardly proof of the actual practice by musicians of the time. No musicians ever mentioned that they preferred a "precise" form of equal temperament over a "good" or circulating temperament, when both types were known among theorists and composers of the time? Regardless of historic practice, it is obviouos to me from an artistic standpoint that the universal tuning of precise ET is not helping to diversify or expand musical expression, or increase variation of musical experience. This is true for anything else including architecture etc....constant sameness has the propensity to cause boredom, stagnation, and apathy.  After tuning Vallotti this week on my own piano I realized that circulating temperaments are very satisfying, less predictable, and work great even with fully chromatic blues and stride piano.

    ------------------------------
    Jason Leininger
    Pittsburgh PA
    412-874-6992
    ------------------------------



  • 11.  RE: Erard tuning instructions from 1927

    Posted 02-19-2019 05:15
    Yes I agree and specifically because he mentions wide and narrow semitones which are then equalised.

    However the important thing about this description is that it shows room for error in the trade in the 1920s, room for taste and how personally people liked to do things. It couldn't be standard.

    In contrast with the professionalism of the trade in the past 50 years and the precision of electronic tuners everything is now is the same. Standard instruments, standard tuning, standard performance.

    In fact I was at the beginning of the movement to standardisation with the then acclaimed John Vallier who was the latest Big News when I was young. I found an LP of his metronomic Chopin and his standard performance is completely contrary to what sensitive performers now. But this was the start of a big fashion to exact replication, carried on to the nth degree in many far eastern performers today who have not had the lineage of teaching heritage of some performers who I've had the privilege to have contact with and work with.

    People are outright losing interest in the standard performance on the standard instrument in the standard tuning and it has decreasing relevance. It communicates less and is slowly mourant.

    It's a diet of banana and yoghurt, fried egg without salt, chips without salt nor vinegar, a diet of Chicken passanda without the ability to sample Tikka.

    It's for that reason it's worthwhile to investigate instructions from the past and see how they could be interpreted at the time, and misinterpreted too. And then to see how that experience can add the appropriate variety to bring the standard instrument and standard performance of now to something more interesting.

    Best wishes

    David P


    --
    - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
    David Pinnegar, B.Sc., A.R.C.S.
    - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
    +44 1342 850594





  • 12.  RE: Erard tuning instructions from 1927

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 02-19-2019 12:53
    David,
    I realize that on first glance, the notion of a temperament sequence containing seven just fourths and five tempered fifths brings to mind one of your favorite temperaments, Kellner. The problem is that the tempered and just 5ths/4ths alternate in Blondel's sequence. The Kellner/Vallotti/Kirnberger III progression of major third beat rates is a result of a string of just 5ths, and then a string of tempered 5ths to take up the rest of the Pythagorean comma evenly. The alternation of strings of 5ths is what produces the even variation of beat rates that many consider to provide "key color."

    Since the Blondel instructions pique your interest so much, and since the university is closed today because of snow. I did a quick and dirty calculation of how those instructions might be interpreted. I went by the somewhat plausible assumption that since there are a total of seven just 4ths (meaning that, contrary to the opinion of Blondel/Armellino/LaSalette, their complementary 5ths must also be just), we might decide that the remaining five 5ths must be tempered to "take up the slack": they must total about -24¢ ( the Pythagorean Comma) between them. Since there are five of them, they should each be narrow by about 5¢ each. (ET 5ths and 4ths are about 2¢ narrow/wide, respectively.) Here's what we get, following the tuning sequence in order (numbers are cents offset from ET):

    A 0
    D +3
    E +2
    B +4
    F# +1
    C# +3
    G# 0
    D# +2
    A# +4
    F +1
    C -1
    G -4

    And we end up with the G D 4th/5th closing the circle at +7 narrow/wide. That won't sound good, and contradicts the instructions, that claim the final 4th will be just. This is because the theory behind the tuning sequence is faulty, and simply can't be made to work.

    Widths of major thirds compared to ET, given contiguously - the sets of three should and do add up to zero:
    FA -1, AC# +3, C#F -2
    CE +3, EG# -2, G#C -1
    GB +8, BD# -2, D#G -6
    DF# -2, F#A# +3, A#D -1

    IOW, it would be a "colorful" mess. GB being 8¢ wider than ET will sound pretty wild. 

    As an alternative, I'd suggest that you tune it by ear, following the instructions, and see what you come up with. That is what would have been done at the time. Try to figure out how to make all the thirds and sixths wide by the same amount. Do it several times in succession, and measure each. Average them. Consider the result "proof" of something or other. At least, you can guarantee it won't be the evil ET. 

    You asked about "accounts of what tunings were used by amatuer and professional musicians from the different eras." There are none I have run across that would give enough detail to be useful in any way, and I doubt very much anyone has looked more thoroughly than I have - particularly for the eras from 1750 on. 

    You say you don't want "theoretical documents," and complain about equal temperament instructions "written by theorists." The instructions written by what I assume you would call "non-theorists" mostly just give a circle of 5ths, sometimes saying something vague about playing some chords. Some are incoherent, and some have very strange "errors" like Blondel's. Others are straightforward and fairly easy to comprehend, if not to execute. You can find and read several on the PTG Foundation library menu, "tuning and repair manuals." Many of these are aimed at the amateur. 

    Among them is Montal's Art of Tuning, probably the most detailed and descriptive of all, and the more complete title is the Art of Tuning Your Own Piano Yourself . . ., so he obviously aimed it at the amateur. Montal was both a theorist (he understood tuning and temperament in its mathematical complexity) and a practical tuner who had taught himself to listen and tune, then taught others, then wrote down his method meticulously. He knew and tuned for professional musicians. He tuned for the piano professors of the Paris Conservatory, who called him the best tuner in France. 
      
    The evidence you want to find is something that isn't there. You want musicians and tuners to have consciously tuned their fixed pitch instruments in such a way as " to diversify or expand musical expression, or increase variation of musical experience." There is no evidence that happened in the 19th through late 20th century - on fixed pitch instruments. So I'd say you should look to the late 20th and early 21st century for your sources. Or you could take random variation in accordance with one of the more obscure written methods as your touchstone. Or abandon fixed pitch instruments, and take up one that can change pitch expressively on the fly. Perhaps the fluid piano.
    Fred Sturm
    University of New Mexico
    fssturm@unm.edu
    http://fredsturm.net
    www.artoftuning.com
    "Practice makes permanent. (Only perfect practice makes perfect)."






  • 13.  RE: Erard tuning instructions from 1927

    Posted 02-19-2019 16:39
    What I find concerning about this whole discussion is the fact that while Fred may have some written technical information that leans towards the use of equal temperament from the beginning of the 19th century, any student of the history of the trades will know that just because there are documents that discuss certain practices, does not mean that is what everyone practiced. Actually often the exact opposite is true. The people doing it often don't bother to write about what they are doing and the intellectuals, academics, and innovators write about practices that they want to have disseminated and put into use.  If circulating and unequal temperaments were in fact being used extensively, during the late 18th through the 19th century, I wouldn't expect to see much at all in the way of describing it in writing, or if there were descriptions, I would expect them to be vague...which is exactly what we find. This is a common thread that runs through other historic trades. Extreme standardization was not the norm in any of the trades until at least the end of the 19th century and some even later.   Different countries and even different areas of the same country had widely different practices in the various trades. The simple answer is that it is highly likely that different circulating temperaments, and some form of (less than precise according to today's standards) ET were used side by through this time period. I don't need documents to prove what is common sense understanding of the history of the practical arts.  Was Montal a famous technician/tuner, that used ET?.....yes, but that doesn't mean that was common practice or even desired by a large part of the musical world at the time. I don't have an agenda here to push, and don't really care one way or another whether ET was universal by the 19th century, just interjecting an important historical perspective.

    --
    "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes." -Romans 1:16





  • 14.  RE: Erard tuning instructions from 1927

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 02-19-2019 17:07
    Having encountered and tuned between 10-20 thousand pianos in my life, I can say with confidence that any piano tuned precisely to ET or any other scheme at any given time is rare indeed.

    ------------------------------
    Steven Rosenthal
    Honolulu HI
    808-521-7129
    ------------------------------



  • 15.  RE: Erard tuning instructions from 1927

    Posted 02-19-2019 19:30
    Yes good side point. However, with the advent of better instructions, electronic tuning devices, and standard acceptance of ET as the norm "good" ETs became increasingly more common.  Historic precision in tuning is not at the heart of the point I was making anyhow. It is the principle,....ET, or a working good temperament that enables the use of fully chromatic modulation, with difference in the keys.......and what was actually practiced.

    --
    "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes." -Romans 1:16





  • 16.  RE: Erard tuning instructions from 1927

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 02-20-2019 00:12
    Jason, actually I'm not being critical of people's tuning abilities or subtle variations of ET.
    There are theoretical ideals, practical ideals, and then there are facts on the ground. Even pianos tuned on a regular basis drift and the different sections drift -more or less coherently- at different rates. If there's, say, a 3 to 8 cent disparity across the length of the piano, there will be all manner of "colored" intervals especially if the intervals are compounded across 2, 3 or more octaves. My point is this is the condition of most pianos most of the time yet musicians still can make beautiful music on them. It's a wavy world out there.

    ------------------------------
    Steven Rosenthal
    Honolulu HI
    808-521-7129
    ------------------------------



  • 17.  RE: Erard tuning instructions from 1927

    Posted 02-20-2019 01:17
    Stephen, point well taken.  It could be a good thing that pianos dont stay long where we put them for more than one reason! 

    --
    "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes." -Romans 1:16





  • 18.  RE: Erard tuning instructions from 1927

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 02-19-2019 19:58
    Jason,
    Fifteen years age and more, I thought the same as you do. Then I started investigating, and found out that a lot of what I was reading was seriously mistaken, at odds with the facts without any question. When I say "the facts" I mean surviving documentation interpreted in a reasonable way. That's the main thing we have to go on in making the past real, together with physical objects - but tuning of stringed instruments doesn't survive other than through documentation.

    So I set out to make myself an expert. I decided to try to base my research almost entirely on practical tuning instructions, with the idea that if there weren't methods for accomplishing a tuning, it was just so many words and theoretical ideas. Luckily, more and more things have been scanned and made available, so I was able to access a very wide range of material. The result was the nine articles I published in the Journal starting in 2010. In the process of research I also consulted with several experts in the field, and ran all my articles past them before publication. So I believe that that work was pretty solid.

    That project led me to my Montal translation, during which I made an effort to become acquainted with whatever tuning documentation there was for his time and surrounding eras. I have continued searching ever since then, rather obsessively. So when I state something, it is based on copious research that I am constantly questioning and following up on. 

    While you are correct that not all procedures are/were well documented, and certainly not all are/were standardized, tuning was a pretty public activity. A lot was written about it, in educational texts, in manuals concerning how to learn to play the piano, in encyclopedia and dictionary entries, in articles in the various musical newspapers (there were three to four weeklies of this type in Paris in the mid 19th century, similar publications in Britain, Germany, and the US). And those were virtually unanimous in agreeing that ET had been adopted universally since something like 1800, that it was the best choice, and that everything else was obsolete.

    Where is there any hint of practical procedures for tuning in some other fashion, in print, post 1800? There are some references to Kirnberger II - in which ten just fifths and a just third are tuned, then the remainder fudged between D, A and E - but I have found exactly nothing that would help someone understand how to create a sophisticated circulating temperament. If there was a stealth non-equal circulating temperament underground, it was very secretive.

    That obviously doesn't mean that a refined ET was practiced by all tuners. And, no doubt, there were pockets of people still tuning mean tone, and probably "modified mean tone" (where the wolf at the end is split between two or more fifths, making it roughly circular). But by far the majority of tuners were attempting to tune ET, making it as even as they could. That is certainly what they said they were doing.

    I'll describe a couple of exceptions I have found - and note that these are very rare exceptions, in the midst of hundreds of examples that advocated for ET:

    In 1774, Henrich Laag gave a brief temperament description with six just fifths on the white keys, F to B, the remainder tempered evenly. That constitutes a "reverse Vallotti."

    Ignace Pleyel and Dussek gave one in 1799, comprised of fifths with intervening octaves as needed. The fifths are described as AE wide, AD wide, DG narrow, GC wide, CF wide, FB flat wide, B flat E flat wide, EB narrow, BF# narrow, then the rest of the fifths with no instructions, except that the last fifth, D#G# is supposed to be just. No additional information (as in how wide, how narrow, etc.)

    Can you make head or tails out of that? Six wide fifths, four of them between white keys, would likely make for thirds on the white keys wider than Pythagorean, worse than what Laag suggested. The last few fifths would have to be quite narrow to make up for six wide ones, as the total of the fifths needs to be narrow by 24¢, and any wide one must be made up for.

    My impression from reading these is that most musicians didn't have a clue - as almost none do today. They may have notions of what sound they would like in one context or another, but no concept of how to achieve it, and no knowledge of how much the whole process is filled with compromise, where every action has multiple results, every gain causes an equal loss.

    ET, however closely or roughly achieved, was adopted essentially universally for one and only one reason: it was the least bad way to tune a fixed pitch instrument so that music could be played in all keys without "surprises" and nasty sounds. It never pretended to be any better than that.

    A fairly wide variety of tuning will be accepted and interpreted as ET by the vast majority of people. Exactly how wide has never been established, and it is unclear whether or not variations, either conscious and designed, or random due to lack of skill, are significant to more than a small minority of listeners and musicians. They may be, but I think the significance is far less than what is claimed by the temperament obsessed.


    ------------------------------
    Fred Sturm
    University of New Mexico
    fssturm@unm.edu
    http://fredsturm.net
    http://www.artoftuning.com
    "We either make ourselves happy or miserable. The amount of work is the same." - Carlos Casteneda
    ------------------------------



  • 19.  RE: Erard tuning instructions from 1927

    Posted 02-19-2019 23:21
    Some possible objective witnesses:
    Roller et Blanchet's Chromametre 1827
    Bootman's PianoForte Tuning Scale 1853
    Brambach's Piano Tuner 1903
    These are each monochord devices for piano tuning. They are all scaled to produce equal temperament.
    My test of Bootman's Scale gave very erratic results, but the scale was intended to produce equal temperament.
    I've not discovered any patents for piano tuning devices intended to produce any tuning other than ET.
    Niles Bryant patented the idea of making a phonograph record with twelve individual grooves, each producing one pitch of an ET scale, about 1905!

    ------------------------------
    Ed Sutton
    ed440@me.com
    (980) 254-7413
    ------------------------------



  • 20.  RE: Erard tuning instructions from 1927

    Posted 02-20-2019 01:35
    Fred, 
    Thanks for the link to your articles, I will re-read them, as when I originally read them, I didn't make time to think it all through thoroughly. It seems that Bach was more likely to have been using a circulating "good" temperament as his connection with Werkmeister, although I am sure throughout his life he used and was exposed to multiple different tunings. Did compsers of the late 18th century and 19th century tune their own pianos....ie...Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert , Chopin etc....? Any record of that? Also another question that comes to mind is,.....if ET was widely used by the 19th century, what were the driving factors in key selection for particular piano compositions. 


    --
    "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes." -Romans 1:16





  • 21.  RE: Erard tuning instructions from 1927

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 02-20-2019 10:36
      |   view attached
    Jason,
    Bach did tune his own harpsichords. He was not pleased by the tuning of most church organs, as it was mean tone, and made the constant modulation to distant keys of Bach's style impossible. There is no evidence that Bach preferred some specific temperament, though many said, during his lifetime and after, that he preferred ET. 

    Composers and pianists rarely or never tuned their own instruments at least past 1800. There is some record of Beethoven's and Chopin's tuners. It is possible there may be records of Broadwood tuners tuning for specific composers and pianists when they were in London. Broadwood provided pianos for Haydn, Dussek, and many others who took up residence in London, and there are day books that record transactions - unfortunately not scanned and publicly available.

     There are specific records of John Broadwood tuning harpsichords and pianos in the 1760s through 80s - thereafter there were many Broadwood employees who were sent out to tune. James Shudi Broadwood, John's son and heir, was taught by his father, and in 1811 he wrote a lengthy letter to the Monthly Magazine (attached), outlining the most practical way to tune pianos. This seems likely to have been based on his father's teaching, and to have been what was taught to tuners in Broadwood's employ.

    His sequence is a simple series of fifths and intervening octaves, moving alternately up and down the circle of fifths from A, he contrasts it with the old method (mean tone) that went up fifths from C to G#, down to E flat, and left the remainder, saying that it had been deservedly abandoned, and equal temperament was now generally adopted.

    He provides a way to learn just exactly how narrow to make each fifth, which seems likely to be the way it would have been taught in the factory. He says you should take two strings a half step apart, then tune one to the other, but very gradually in steps. You should learn to do that in 40 steps. A single step of about that size, he says, will be the amount to narrow each fifth. 

    There was an exchange of letters with a certain John Farey (whom I would describe in modern terms as a "troll"), who quibbled that 1/40 was not the amount by which an ET fifth should be narrowed (he was correct, it is closer to 1/50. But does that make a practical difference, considering normal error in practice?). Broadwood responds in a civil way, noting that Mozart, Haydn, and other masters of harmony have declared ET the best system. I had not had access to this exchange when I wrote my series of articles, or I would have amended it quite a bit.

    Concerning how composers choose keys, I think it has largely to do with "tessitura": how particular harmonies sound at different points along the pitch spectrum. Note that along with simple pitch perception, there will also be, in ET, different beat rates for the various thirds and sixths involved. A simple cadential I IV V I formula will sound different depending where you play it, up an octave, up a third, down a sixth, in different inversions, etc. Also note that key choice probably has much to do with instrumentation. Strings sound best with sharps, most brass with flats, for instance. And those instruments have completely different tuning issues, which they are lucky to resolve within 5¢.

    There are a lot of factors, and it seems to me that the particular shape of a somewhat unequally tuned keyboard temperament would be a very minor consideration, if it were even noticed. Obviously people like David Pinnegar disagree vehemently, but I am happy to agree to disagree. I am more interested in trying to be certain that arguments that claim to have a connection to history are made on a factual basis. Often they are based, as in this thread, on a misinterpretation of a minor source, or, in many cases (like Lehman's "Bach" temperament), on pure fabrication.
     
    Regards,
    Fred Sturm
    "We either make ourselves happy or miserable. The amount of work is the same." - Carlos Casteneda




    Attachment(s)

    pdf
    1811JamesShudiBroadwood.pdf   1.97 MB 1 version


  • 22.  RE: Erard tuning instructions from 1927

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 02-20-2019 15:47
    I know this thread is probably over long and not interesting to a lot of subscribers, but I am going to add another post about the topic of unequal/historical temperaments in general. When I first approached historic tunings, back in the 1970s, I was struck by how complicated the instructions were, especially Jorgensen's in his Tuning the Historical Temperaments by Ear. Common sense told me nobody actually tuned like that.

    This is a major reason why, when I began researching temperament history, I chose to concentrate on practical tuning instructions. I wanted to know what actual people were likely to have done when tuning their instruments. And I discovered that I had been right: most of the "tunings" that are discussed as "historical" were purely theoretical. They were a mathematical exercise to show that the writer had a familiarity with the ratios of music that are impossible to resolve (2:1 octaves, 3:2 fifths, 5:4 thirds being the primary ones). There simply isn't a system that allows them to coexist, and a struggle with the mathematics showed a certain intellectual competence that was required for anyone to get a higher degree in Music (with a capital M, not a mere practicing musician with a lower case c).

    Hence the incredible number of patterns that were passed down to us. Many are intriguing, many others are simply stupid, but boy are there a lot of them. The fact is, they are only theoretical, nothing more than feats of ingenuity not intended for use, other than to show off intellectual chops. Nobody devised a way to tune the vast majority of them through an aural sequence before Jorgensen got out his logarithmic tables and calculated beat rates.

    Practical tuning was done quite simply. For a long period of time, mean tone reigned. Simple: start on a note, often C, and tune series of fifths up and down. Upward on the sharp side (G, D, A, E, etc.), ending on G#. Downward on the flat side (F, B flat, Eflat), ending on E flat. E flat to G sharp sort of seemed like it might me called another fifth, but it was not, and was usually called the wolf. These methods had essentially two principles: all fifths are narrowed the same, all thirds are widened the same (or they are pure, beatless). Easy to learn, easy to execute. Easy to be sloppy, too, but it wouldn't be very noticeable. 

    As composers and improvising keyboard players became more adventuresome harmonically, wanting to do things like sequences that moved through many what we now call key centers, they wanted more usable pitches beyond two flats and three sharps. So they started trying to "close the circle" and make it possible for, say, G# to equal A flat, or for that note to be usable as both. With relatively small thirds, this couldn't get very far in terms of having the distant notes sound bearable, so larger thirds became more acceptable to the ear. 

    Equal temperament had been known, talked about, and practiced at least somewhat from the very beginning. The adoption of ET was very rapid in historical terms, first in Germany, then elsewhere. How was it tuned? Mostly just a circle of fifths, joining at the end, as described by Rameau in the 1720s. While there was scholarly conversation, mostly among Germans, of alternate circulating temperament schemes involving fifths of two sizes, some of them just, others tempered to one degree or other, consensus on ET being a better way to go was reached by most of the loudest voices within less than 50 years.

    Tuning needs to be easy enough to learn and execute without a whole lot of effort. We obsess more than most as professional piano technicians, because that is what we have been trained to do. In fact, a wide range of execution will be found acceptable to almost everyone, as long as the most obvious intervals (unisons and octaves) are acceptable. 

    To tune other shapes of temperament, giving sophisticated ranges of inequality around the circle, you need specialized knowledge and procedures. This knowledge is quite rare. Today, Vallotti is well known, and it is fairly easy to accomplish (some say easier than ET, and I wouldn't disagree), so we kind of take it for granted that tuners of the past knew about the possibility of tuning some number of just fifths, then making up the difference in the remaining fifths by narrowing them alike. The thing is, there is not a lot of evidence that that knowledge was at all wide spread. Vallotti apparently wrote down his temperament design of six just fifths on the white keys, six tempered equally among the sharps (one of the latter with a "schisma" added, to be precise), around 1728, but it remained unpublished during his lifetime.

    I described tunings published by Henrich Laag and Ignace Pleyel in an earlier post. That is the type of alternate to ET I have seen in print: generally badly conceived, showing lack of understanding on the part of the writer. The same is, of course, true of whoever wrote the "1927 Érard tuning" referenced at the beginning of this post. I think those examples give ample evidence that well-meaning musicians, wanting to offer an alternative (or, in the case of "1927," just trying to present ET), did not know enough to do so effectively.

    Today. with ETDs, we can plug in numbers and go, so it is all very simple and easy. That was not the case in the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and we must bear that in mind. It's easy to speculate about magical tuners who could pull amazing patterns out of thin air, but the reality is much different.

    ------------------------------
    Fred Sturm
    University of New Mexico
    fssturm@unm.edu
    http://fredsturm.net
    http://www.artoftuning.com
    "We either make ourselves happy or miserable. The amount of work is the same." - Carlos Casteneda
    ------------------------------



  • 23.  RE: Erard tuning instructions from 1927

    Posted 02-20-2019 19:02
    Fred, No not too long at all. Sorry this is quite long too... hopefully someone else other than you finds it worth reading...I find all the temperament history and even the math to be extremely interesting. I appreciate the time you took to achieve an understanding of topic that is difficult to study. My thoughts at this point, that having only tuned ET through my 12 years as a tuner, I find it interesting to explore other possibilities and learn about other ways of doing things even if in the end I decide to return to tuning solely in ET.  Regardless of what was actually practiced historically I find so far that tuning Vallotti does to my ear add noticeable difference to the music at hand, and is enjoyable and inspiring. The different speeds of the thirds adds subtle nuances to the music and being a tuner allows me to adjust this without having to pay a tuner to do so. What I think we can say for sure is that from before the baroque era and stretching into the beginning of the classical era, musicians and listeners were in fact exposed to a wider range of temperamnets (circulating, ET, and, various forms of meantone) than we have been for the last 150 years or more. The effect of this variety of tunings heard in music could have had an impact on the achievments of the time, even if it was simply just making musicians strive towards the use of universal ET. Your last post also made clear that concept of spreading out the wolf through the octave was a concept that was known and could have been practiced in many different ways by amatuer tuners and professionals who personally preferred certain intervals to be more pure, no matter what influential people of the day recommended. I even recall attempting to tune a temperament with very little knowledge and zero instruction......I never could get it right and it was always because I naturally tended to tune my fourths and fifths pure or too close to pure. Pure intervals are alluring and if I would have known that I could tune at least some of the them pure and still close the circle, that is the aesthetic choice that I would have naturally made. Lastly, when practices become extremlely standardized, especially in the arts, this can lead to stagnation, and I think experimentation with temperaments is good, even if it means sometimes limiting modulation in music to achieve a different sound with more pure intervals.

    To address David's comments on irregular temperaments helping to reduce the "metallic" sound of modern instruments and spark people's interest again in piano music, I would comment that something should be done for sure and anything that helps is good, but the problem I believe is much more related to design techniques, and materials used to build pianos. Many pianos today I find actually very offensive in sound.  The wire used is far too stiff to be easy on the ears, the actions are too heavy, and lead aspiring amatuers to have trouble gaining the necessary strength to advance, the hammers are too hard and heavy (and they actually need to be to move the stiffer wire), most are quite loud, and many design features today do not incorporate the natural musical qualities that increase proper resonance. The increase in inharmonicity from the stiff wire, and hard hammers, leads to more stretch and I think to the greater interest in the pure twelfth tuning. These issues I believe, along with the growing interest and capabilities of electronic keyboards is badly hurting the sale of new pianos and general interest in acoustic pianos.  Not to mention many people are now more interested in portable instruments with variety not extremely heavy, sterile sounding, piano shaped objects. The acoustic piano needs to sound more pleasing than it currently does to compete. Although, I could be wrong because apparently piano sales in China are great.

    ------------------------------
    Jason Leininger
    Pittsburgh PA
    412-874-6992
    ------------------------------



  • 24.  RE: Erard tuning instructions from 1927

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 02-20-2019 21:36
      |   view attached
    Some of the most fascinating sources, for me, have been Schlick's account of tuning in his 1511 organ building manual, and Lan Franco's 1533 account in his Scintille di Musica. Both are much more vivid and practical sounding than much tuning instruction, though not precise enough to come up with a clear interpretation. Perhaps that's part of what I like about them, since it gives aural tuning more of a sense of discovery and adventure. Lan Franco is another source I turned up long after writing my articles.

    I described Schlick in my fifth article on German tuning, probably well enough. I did my best to translate Lan Franco's archaic Italian, with its Italian renaissance pitch terminology base on Guido d'Arezzo, which I have never deciphered. So my translation is tentative, but the content is intriguing. I'll attach a pdf. See what you think. Rudolf Rasch (a major German temperament scholar) wrote that it appeared to advocate for something very like equal temperament, but that that seemed unlikely for the time. Mark Lindley decided to classify it as 1/5 comma mean tone. I tend to think Rasch was closer to correct.

    Regards,
    Fred Sturm
    "A mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled." Plutarch




    Attachment(s)

    pdf
    LanfrancoTrans.pdf   61 KB 1 version


  • 25.  RE: Erard tuning instructions from 1927

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 02-20-2019 21:45

    Fred.

    I'm grateful for your distillation of this complex material.

    As always, your writing is succinct and purposeful, with much kindness

    toward original authors and your new audience.

    Ruth

     

    Ruth Zeiner

    215-534-3834 cell

    ruth@alliedpiano.com

     






  • 26.  RE: Erard tuning instructions from 1927

    Posted 02-20-2019 22:34
    Thanks. very interesting, sounds a lot like what I do everyday. He mentions nothing about pure intervals except the octave, although its not clear what the thirds are to sound like. Is there an English translation of Schlicks book on organ building? I have wanted to read it for sometime, but can't read German.

    --
    "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes." -Romans 1:16





  • 27.  RE: Erard tuning instructions from 1927

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 02-20-2019 23:39
    Jason,
    Schlick was translated, in a facsimile edition with parallel modern German and English translation. I managed to get a copy through interlibrary loan. 

    The data: 
    Spiegel der Orgelmacher und Organisten, Arnolt Schlick
    translation and notes by Elizabeth Berry Barber
    Netherlands : F. Knuf ; New York : distributors in U.S.A., Pendragon Press, 1980.

    Not sure if you could find a copy to purchase, but it is in quite a few libraries, especially university. Searh worldcat.org. I photocopied the chapter that described tuning. 

    A scan of an 1869 reprint can be had at https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/101656113, but it is untranslated.
    "Believe those who seek the truth; doubt those who find it; doubt everything, but don't doubt yourself." Gide






  • 28.  RE: Erard tuning instructions from 1927

    Posted 02-21-2019 00:38
    Thanks again Fred. I will look for it.

    --
    "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes." -Romans 1:16





  • 29.  RE: Erard tuning instructions from 1927

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 02-20-2019 23:04
    Thanks Fred! Thanks Ed! Thanks Steven!

    All great points and research about temperament and tuning. It has always been obvious to me, since I became diversely skilled at tuning an ET temperament, that the old descriptions of ET tempering sequences were just the starting point in the learning process. I can imagine a higly skilled artisan writing up a description thinking to themselves; "If they keep at the skill long enough, it will all become clear to them if they have the talent".


    ------------------------------
    Edward McMorrow
    Edmonds WA
    425-299-3431
    ------------------------------