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Piano Temperament Pure 12th

  • 1.  Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Posted 03-25-2024 18:32

    We should legitimately be able to post anything related to piano temperament in PianoTech or CAUT.

    During the tuning process, the 'Pure 12th' method was followed and the unisons were tuned to within 0.1 ¢.

    The link is meant as an 'aural check,' of Pure 12th Tuning, playing parallel 5-partial chords: In the left hand, playing the octaves, and in the right hand playing partials 3,4,5 (a 2nd-inversion major triad). Playing them chromatically starting at A0 and ending up at C8.

    https://youtu.be/8hmVoHHfxrk

    Respectfully submitted,

    Steve



    ------------------------------
    Steven Norsworthy
    Cardiff By The Sea CA
    (619) 964-0101
    ------------------------------


  • 2.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Posted 30 days ago

    Steve, thanks for the post. Is there a musical reason that you chose perfect twelfths to tune by? I personally think of tuning in twelfths in an ET as adding "character" to the music, as opposed to adding the "mood" and "color" that is associated with historic temperaments (which are not ETs). And with the above all being compared to our piano-industry-standard ET with its aurally-pure octaves.

     

    (All reference in this post being to "musical"/aural frequency, NOT actual physical frequency via the Railsback Curve / inharmonicity.)

     

    I presume that you used an Equal Temperament for the P12 tuning, 19-TET based on the 12th. Correct? In the audio that you provide there are obvious coincident partial beats. At first I assumed I was hearing the effects of the 1.23 cents non-pure octave, but then as you continue chromatically I was not sure – I might have a follow-up question after you respond. 

     

    For a concert performance involving a duet of piano + violin or other string instruments, I am always amazed at the skill of the string player in adapting to the ET (12-TET based on the octave) of the piano, with its enharmonics and with every musical interval except the octave being (aurally) impure. I would assume that there are never concert performances where the piano is tuned in perfect 12ths – but I have a feeling that I will shortly be told how wrong I am!? Regards, Norman.



    ------------------------------
    Norman Brickman
    Potomac Piano Service
    Potomac, Maryland
    potomacpiano@verizon.net
    https://potomacpiano.com
    (301) 983.9321
    ------------------------------



  • 3.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Posted 30 days ago
    Hi Norman,

    Kent Swafford and I have been working on this now for the past month. We carefully examined the IH curves of my piano and determined that the 3:1 or Pure 12th tuning would be best. You are hearing that result when I play the chords using 1,2,3,4,5 together.

    As Kent told me, ‘aural tuners’ are generally more concerned with major 3rds and all their combinations of the 10th and 17th octave versions. He and I agree that we should simply ‘let the major 3rds fall where they wish to fall’ because in the history of of Western European musical composition from the 18-20th century, the foundation of that kind of harmony is always the 5ths and octaves, so if we let them balance each other then the major and minor 3rds take 2nd place.

    You and I could have a zoom call with Kent, I propose, if further interested.

    I had 4 concert tuners last week at my house, each with 30+ years of experience and all RPT’s. Without exception all of them said it was “The best sounding tuning they have ever heard.” Paul McCloud and Rick Clark were in that mix in the room.

    At least some like it!

    Best,
    Steve




  • 4.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 30 days ago

    > For a concert performance involving a duet of piano + violin or other string instruments, I am always amazed at the skill of the string player in adapting to the ET (12-TET based on the octave) of the piano, with its enharmonics and with every musical interval except the octave being (aurally) impure. I would assume that there are never concert performances where the piano is tuned in perfect 12ths – but I have a feeling that I will shortly be told how wrong I am!? Regards, Norman.

    I don't really have enough experience tuning for violinists to say for sure, but the couple that I do work with don't seem to mind.  Pure 12 ET's offsets vs. the more traditional 4:2 octave midrange are really pretty minor; I forget the exact number but it's something like 1.3 cents per octave?



    ------------------------------
    Nathan Monteleone RPT
    Fort Worth TX
    (817) 675-9494
    nbmont@gmail.com
    ------------------------------



  • 5.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Posted 30 days ago
    Hi Nathan,

    Kent Swafford and I have been working on this now for the past month. We carefully examined the IH curves of my piano and determined that the 3:1 or Pure 12th tuning would be best. You are hearing that result when I play the chords using 1,2,3,4,5 together.

    The Pure 12th ET was discovered by Bernhard Stopper several decades ago. Kent Swafford became the leading writer and proponent of it, having published many papers.

    In that temperament, here is the math, which you can run this code in Matlab:

    % Pure 12ths Tuning Concept
    % 3.^((0:19)/19); % 20 half steps from the fundamental to the 3rd partial
    % 1.0000 1.0595 1.1226 1.1894 1.2602 1.3352 1.4147
    % 1.4989 1.5882 1.6827 1.7829 1.8890
    % 2.0014 2.1206 2.2468 2.3805 2.5222 2.6724 2.8315 3.0000
    % The first octave is stretched
    % log2(3)*12; % = 2.001426
    % 3^(12/19); % = 2.001426 Ideal Octave Ratio Stretched
    % ans/2; % = 1.0007 Ideal Octave Ratio 'Stretch Factor'
    % 1200*log2(ans); % = 1.2347 cents sharp
    % The first 5th is compressed by the same amount as the stretch of the first octave
    % 3^(7/19); % 1.4989 Ideal 5th Ratio Compressed
    % 1200*log2(ans/1.5); % = -1.2347 cents flat

    As Kent told me, ‘aural tuners’ are generally more concerned with major 3rds and all their combinations of the 10th and 17th octave versions. He and I agree that we should simply ‘let the major 3rds fall where they wish to fall’ because in the history of of Western European musical composition from the 18-20th century, the foundation of that kind of harmony is always the 5ths and octaves, so if we let them balance each other then the major and minor 3rds take 2nd place.

    I had 4 concert tuners last week at my house, each with 30+ years of experience and all RPT’s. Without exception all of them said it was “The best sounding tuning they have ever heard.”

    At least some like it!

    Steve




  • 6.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Posted 30 days ago

    Thanks for the replies. Nathan, yes, 1.23 cents per octave off from being a pure octave in a P12 tuning. Our piano-industry-standard ET has a perfect octave.

     

    Every day 95+% of us (I am guessing) tune using the industry standard ET and get pure octaves – whether aural tuners or visual tuners. With aural tuning the intervals chosen (with some choices involved) arrange for perfect (aural) octaves, and with visual tuning the ETD compensates for the piano's inharmonicity and also gives perfect aural octaves. As a result, when we are done, we all can play C3 + C4 + C5 + C6 simultaneously and (particularly with a better piano) it sounds like you are playing one note, not 4. Or, OK, C2 + C3 + C6 + C7 if you prefer. If it does not sound like one note, you need to get a better ETD or hone your aural tuning skills to do better.

     

    I am curious as to what tuning in a P12 ET buys over the industry standard ET? I know some call the octaves in a P12 tuning "clean" (we have discussed this here before) versus being pure in the industry standard tuning. (As I recall there is a demo of this available online.) I always assume that string players would prefer pure musical intervals – wrong? And do pianist prefer impure octaves versus pure octaves, to accompany the other impure musical intervals in our tunings? What I was calling "character" in a P12 tuning.

     

    Steve, in my opinion, you might want to check the P12 tuning algorithm of your ETD, maybe try a different ETD. An ET tuning, any ET, will have a progression of any single musical interval's coincident partial beat rate as you move up chromatically, doubling in speed each octave (or 3x each 12th). Your chromatic progression seems to start off good, until #6 and #7, then gets back on track, and later seems to "fall apart" -- plus it does not ever seem to have the beat rate progression one would expect of an ET tuning. I blame it on the ETD algorithm, and not on my hearing aids (!) nor on the strings of your piano! :-) Regards, Norman.



    ------------------------------
    Norman Brickman
    Potomac Piano Service
    Potomac, Maryland
    potomacpiano@verizon.net
    https://potomacpiano.com
    (301) 983.9321
    ------------------------------



  • 7.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Posted 30 days ago
    I am using Kent as my ‘check’ and he agreed and so I keep on this. I tried a slightly less stretch on the octaves and the chords did not sound as good. The 5th and octave balance is to my liking better.




  • 8.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Posted 30 days ago

    Steve, sure. Personal preference. But I do think that for some of our customers one needs to be careful of the reputation that we project for the tuning temperament that we use.

     

    To save you the math, Kent previously posted the following in comparing P12 ET to the industry standard ET.

     

    Octave, 1.23 cents wide
    Perfect 5th, 1.23 cents narrow
    Perfect 12th, pure
    Perfect 4th, 2.47 cents wide
    Double octave, 2.47 cents wide

     

    Regards, Norman



    ------------------------------
    Norman Brickman
    Potomac Piano Service
    Potomac, Maryland
    potomacpiano@verizon.net
    https://potomacpiano.com
    (301) 983.9321
    ------------------------------



  • 9.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Posted 30 days ago
    I am a mathematician and here is the Matlab code I did a long time ago on this, yes, I know this.

    Steve


    % Pure 12ths Tuning Concept
    % 3.^((0:19)/19); % 20 half steps from the fundamental to the 3rd partial
    % 1.0000 1.0595 1.1226 1.1894 1.2602 1.3352 1.4147
    % 1.4989 1.5882 1.6827 1.7829 1.8890
    % 2.0014 2.1206 2.2468 2.3805 2.5222 2.6724 2.8315 3.0000
    % The first octave is stretched
    % 3^(12/19); % = 2.001426 Ideal Octave Ratio Stretched
    % ans/2; % = 1.0007 Ideal Octave Ratio 'Stretch Factor'
    % 1200*log2(ans); % = 1.2347 cents sharp
    % The first 5th is compressed by the same amount as the stretch of the first octave
    % 3^(7/19); % 1.4989 Ideal 5th Ratio Compressed
    % 1200*log2(ans/1.5); % = -1.2347 cents flat
    % Therefore, 2 octaves is simply 1.2347*2= 2.4694 cents




  • 10.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 30 days ago
    Steve wrote:

    " 'aural tuners' are generally more concerned with major 3rds and all their combinations of the 10th and 17th octave versions. He and I agree that we should simply 'let the major 3rds fall where they wish to fall' because in the history of of Western European musical composition from the 18-20th century, the foundation of that kind of harmony is always the 5ths and octaves, so if we let them balance each other then the major and minor 3rds take 2nd place."

    This is essentially correct, but I'd phrase it slightly differently. To calculate a pure 12th ET, ETD tuning calculators tend to use the  12th (3:1), the octave (2:1, 4:2, 6:3), and the fifth (3:2 and 6:4). If the tuning calculator keeps the 12ths pure, and at the same time balances the fifth and octave as near as it can get both to a temper of 1.23 cents, then the 3rds, 10ths, 17ths, are bound to be close to their target tempers as well. Because of inconsistent inharmonicity, _all_ of the tuning intervals, including the 5ths, octaves, and 12ths may possibly be drawn away from their theoretical amount of temper, but _all_ the tuning intervals will be very close to correct, within reasonable tolerances, with none needing special priority.

    Kent






  • 11.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Posted 30 days ago
    With respect I find thirds in perfect 12th tuning too wide, harsh, and give the impression to other musicians that the instrument is discordant and unmusical.

    Of course there will be a solidity and resonance to the sound with coincidence of 3rd harmonics with perfect 12ths, but this serves the stridency of the instrument and not the musical expressions of the music.

    Mood is critically expressed by the thirds.

    Best wishes

    David P

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





  • 12.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 30 days ago
    David wrote:

    "With respect I find thirds in perfect 12th tuning too wide, harsh, and give the impression to other musicians that the instrument is discordant and unmusical."

    Pure 12th equal temperament is simply a codified way of executing the (more or less) same stretch that has always been done in fine piano tuning. If you dislike equal temperament, then I suppose you'll dislike the M3rds in pure 12th ET, and that is fine.

    However, to describe a pure 12th ET tuning as discordant and unmusical is probably just wrong, plain and simple, as evidenced by its wide adoption around the world over the past 35 years.

    All the best,

    Kent






  • 13.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 30 days ago

    Like Norman, I expect to hear an even progression of intervals in an equal tempered scale, yet in this recording I don't, and I hear several near beatless M3's in the 4th/5th octaves. Am I wrong? It's a little garbled with all the notes being played.

    Kent? Anybody?

    It would be helpful to hear the typical intervals tests using a single interval at a time i.e. M3's M6's, M10ths etc.



    ------------------------------
    Steven Rosenthal RPT
    Honolulu HI
    (808) 521-7129
    ------------------------------



  • 14.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Posted 30 days ago

    Hi, Steven R., Maybe you and Kent can engage in a longer dialog. The 'Pure 12th System' produces what you hear in my recording and you will hear beat-less 12ths, of course, and you should also be hearing very balanced 5ths and octaves of course. Now as for all the major 3rd combinations, they are what they are. Some may like the overall system, and some may not. It is a highly regarded system, as Kent pointed out, and my 'implementation' passed the 'Kent Test' before publishing it. I had 5 tuners over at my house last week, all with 30+ years experience, all familiar with large concert grands, and all said it was the best-tuned piano to their ears they ever heard! It becomes a matter of taste.

    Kindly,

    Steve



    ------------------------------
    Steven Norsworthy
    Cardiff By The Sea CA
    (619) 964-0101
    ------------------------------



  • 15.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Posted 29 days ago

    Kent, I respectfully suggest you reconsider your position wrt P12 tunings. You say

     

    (a) Pure 12th equal temperament is simply a codified way of executing the (more or less) same stretch that has always been done in fine piano tuning.

     

    Since the invention of the piano, the historic temperament tunings and now the pure-octave industry-standard tunings DO NOT stretch the musical octave. ONLY pure 12th ET tunings stretch the octave (as I explained earlier in this thread).

     

    (b) However, to describe a pure 12th ET tuning as discordant and unmusical is probably just wrong, plain and simple, as evidenced by its wide adoption around the world over the past 35 years.

     

    The M3 does, of course, get a little worse sounding with a P12 tuning as David indicated. I did not realize the level of adoption of P12 tunings. Is there some way to substantiate/quantify your statement? 

     

    Steve N, I suspect that there is just something wrong with your recording setup. Your technique of slowly going chromatically is great. And if those five experts not only approved the tuning (as you indicated) but also tested and confirmed the accuracy of the P12 ET temperament, then you obviously truly have a P12 ET tuning. But the recording clearly says that you do not have an ET tuning, much less a P12 ET tuning – listen to it. I suggest that you follow Steven R's advice. Play the complex set of partials again, it is interesting, but then separately repeat with particular musical intervals (in the same type of slow chromatic progression) as Steven suggests.

     

    Thanks. Regards, Norman.



    ------------------------------
    Norman Brickman
    Potomac Piano Service
    Potomac, Maryland
    potomacpiano@verizon.net
    https://potomacpiano.com
    (301) 983.9321
    ------------------------------



  • 16.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 29 days ago
    Norman wrote:

    "Kent, I respectfully suggest you reconsider your position wrt P12 tunings."

    Kent's reply:

    LOL. Well, I've been tuning pure 12th ET since 2007. But if something better should happen to come along, I'll change in a heartbeat. Possible, but probably unlikely at this point.

    Norrman wrote:
    "You say 

    (a) Pure 12th equal temperament is simply a codified way of executing the (more or less) same stretch that has always been done in fine piano tuning.

    Since the invention of the piano, the historic temperament tunings and now the pure-octave industry-standard tunings DO NOT stretch the musical octave. ONLY pure 12th ET tunings stretch the octave (as I explained earlier in this thread)." 

    Kent's reply:

    My PTJ article series '21st Century Tuning Style' cites a previously published author who claimed that standard practice in traditional tuning, nominally pure octave equal temperament, was actually a stretch in the single octave of about one cent. I thought the idea of stretched tunings was well established.

    Norman wrote:

    "(b) However, to describe a pure 12th ET tuning as discordant and unmusical is probably just wrong, plain and simple, as evidenced by its wide adoption around the world over the past 35 years.

    The M3 does, of course, get a little worse sounding with a P12 tuning as David indicated. I did not realize the level of adoption of P12 tunings. Is there some way to substantiate/quantify your statement?"

    Kent's reply:

    Norman, I don't think the math bears you out with regard to the "worse-sounding M3rds". If it is true that the standard stretch in the single octave in traditional tuning is one cent and the stretch in the single octave of Pure 12th ET is 1.23 cents, then the difference in octave stretch is about one quarter cent, which translates to an additional temper of less than a tenth of a cent in the M3rds, not enough to be significant.

    With regard to the widespread adoption of pure 12th equal temperament, I personally have received requests from Japan and have sent Bernhard Stopper's aural temperament instructions to Japan as a result.

    I have received word from Moscow that one of the pianos prepared for the Tchaikovsky Competition had used my pure 12th style in Verituner.

    Speaking of the various piano tuning apps:

    Reyburn CyberTuner's default tuning has been pure 12th ET for many years.

    TuneLab was modified some years back to execute a good pure 12th ET.

    OnlyPure was introduced in 2007 and is still available. It tunes exclusively pure 12th ET.

    I developed "style files" for Verituner that allow Verituner to tune various widths of ET including pure 12th ET.

    Newer apps such as PianoMeter, PianoScope, and PiaTune all include the ability to tune in pure 12th ET.


    Thanks,


    Kent






  • 17.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Posted 29 days ago
    Dear Kent

    Haha - yes I appreciate what you say . . . but many musicians really do consider the piano to be discordant and  strained but in the industry it's the sound that people are familiar with.

    In my opinion it's one of the reasons that many who play the piano aren't listening to the sound, the music that they're making, reducing their performance to the technicality of the fingers at the keys. There was indeed a famous interview with Lang-Lang when he actually talked about this and that he was now starting to listen to the sound rather than to listening to the sound as he thought it should be merely in his head.

    For instrumental musicians or barber shop quartet singers all familiar with bringing perfect intervals to the harmony between them there's always a listening dimension and a tuning modification to achieve best harmony between the instruments. Between such musicians movement towards perfect thirds are a specific target and it's possibly for this sort of musician that the standard uniform stretched thirds are less than musical. It's for this reason that universal adoption of particularly wide thirds throughout the scale isn't likely to endear the piano to people and isn't therefore in the best interests of the industry.

    Best wishes

    David P 



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





  • 18.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 29 days ago

    I'm replying to no one in particular, but I have been using the P12 aurally for the top half of the piano, after stumbling on it 35 years ago (and writing about in the PTJ a few years later). For the temperament and the bottom half, I use a 6:3 octave. I might have used the P12 for the temperament, except that it didn't lend itself to the 3ds&6ths scheme of dividing a compass octave into smoothly ascending ladders of thirds and fitting 6ths in between them. (Yes, the late Bernard Stopper did have a scheme for building ladders of 3rds, but with its dependence on occasional 4ths and 5ths which had to be tempered subjectively, working with ladders inside a P12 compass really seemed more kluge than scheme.)

    To use Dan Levitan's Expansion Units, the P12 (8 EUs) seemed to be the next right step the the 6:3's 27 EUs and a better tempering than the 4:2's 12 EUs. The 6:3 had to be abandoned pretty quickly by the top of the 4th octave, and on smaller pianos, it was too wild even in the temperament.

    Hearing all this talk of tunings based on pure octaves, I'm reminded on Dan's appearance on a Piano Technicians Masterclass. Someone asked him what he thought of P12. He replied," Which one, the 3:1, the 6:2, or the 9:3?"



    ------------------------------
    William Ballard RPT
    WBPS
    Saxtons River VT
    802-869-9107

    "Our lives contain a thousand springs
    and dies if one be gone
    Strange that a harp of a thousand strings
    should keep in tune so long."
    ...........Dr. Watts, "The Continental Harmony,1774
    ------------------------------



  • 19.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Posted 29 days ago

    Kent, thanks for the update. The author you mentioned is Claudio Di Veroli in your article in the PTG Journal of October 2017 on page 33, for those interested. There you refer to "traditional pure-octave equal temperament", and then in the next paragraph you bring in Di Veroli's opinion where you paraphrase him ("in usual octave stretching") and explain that he refers to the mid-range of the keyboard. The piano industry tuning standard is what you call the "traditional pure-octave equal temperament" – with no octave stretch. When a visual tuner sets an ETD for a "traditional pure-octave ET," I presume that the ETD does not then stretch the octave!

     

    We know that piano tuners enjoy their independence. In your and my case -- I follow the piano industry standard and tune with perfect octaves and imperfect twelfths; while you, in turn, tune with perfect twelfths and imperfect octaves. My tests / demonstrations upon completion include the simultaneous playing of, say, C2+C3+C5+C6, and on a better piano having it sound like a single note being played. I'm sure that you have different types of tests and demonstrations of a quality tuning with perfect 12ths.

     

    Concerning the discussions in this thread on the M3 in a P12 ET tuning versus an octave-based ET tuning, on the same PTG Journal page referenced above you say that "the M3rds will end up additionally widened by less than 0.4 cent over pure-octave equal temperament." This is a part of what David has been referring to.

     

    Regards, Norman.



    ------------------------------
    Norman Brickman
    Potomac Piano Service
    Potomac, Maryland
    potomacpiano@verizon.net
    https://potomacpiano.com
    (301) 983.9321
    ------------------------------



  • 20.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 29 days ago

    Norman went: "Concerning the discussions in this thread on the M3 in a P12 ET tuning versus an octave-based ET tuning, on the same PTG Journal page referenced above you say that "the M3rds will end up additionally widened by less than 0.4 cent over pure-octave equal temperament.

    Again, which octave relationship are we talking about, the 2:1, the 4:2, or the 6:3? And that's just the single octaves.

     



    ------------------------------
    William Ballard RPT
    WBPS
    Saxtons River VT
    802-869-9107

    "Our lives contain a thousand springs
    and dies if one be gone
    Strange that a harp of a thousand strings
    should keep in tune so long."
    ...........Dr. Watts, "The Continental Harmony,1774
    ------------------------------



  • 21.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Posted 29 days ago

    Bill, yes indeed. Right on. And I think that Bill Bremmer also brings in the 8:4 octave in some of his discussions. I'm really not much of a minor-sixth guy for using the 8:4 octave, but I'm a regular for use of the others. Hopefully we select the proper one to use at the proper time. And agreed, you only mentioned the single octaves. Regards, Norman.



    ------------------------------
    Norman Brickman
    Potomac Piano Service
    Potomac, Maryland
    potomacpiano@verizon.net
    https://potomacpiano.com
    (301) 983.9321
    ------------------------------



  • 22.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Posted 28 days ago

    Steven R and all -- I think we can understand now this tuning that Steve N posted. To reiterate, he is chromatically playing five notes: the fundamental and partials 2,3,4,5. So a heavy emphasis is on the octave and double octave, which can easily dominate, particularly when working lower in the scale. The equal beating that we are clearly hearing in the lower two octave (but elsewhere as well) primarily originates from the octave and double-octave coincident partials. (Steve sent me a cleaner recording for the first octave of the chromatic progression that agrees with his audio that is posted above.)

     

    Conclusion: the ETD tuning is labeled as a P12 ET, but (in my opinion) it is not. In the lower part of the scale it stretches the octave much more than the specified 1.23 cents impurity, but I estimate that the stretch elsewhere in the scale also exceeds spec. PLUS (a second problem) it actually continually increases the octave stretch as one goes lower in the scale (!), hence the reason for the audible coincident partial beat rate remaining uniform for, say, most noticeably the lowest two octaves but elsewhere as well.

     

    It should be easy enough for the ETD developer to reprogram to correct the problem. (Or is the extra octave stretch controlled by ETD user controls?) It is no secret that I prefer pure octaves via use of our piano industry ET tuning standard. But with 5 experienced tuners liking what I consider an "Enhanced Octave Impurity Tuning," perhaps this new tuning temperament will be preserved within the ETD.

     

    Steve N -- it would be great to hear the same chromatic progression for a proper P12 ET tuning when you get it, with its 1.23 cents impure octaves. Regards, Norman.



    ------------------------------
    Norman Brickman
    Potomac Piano Service
    Potomac, Maryland
    potomacpiano@verizon.net
    https://potomacpiano.com
    (301) 983.9321
    ------------------------------



  • 23.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Posted 28 days ago

    Here's the math for both octave ET and pure-12 ET

    >> 2.^((0:12)/12)

        1.0000    1.0595    1.1225    1.1892    1.2599    1.3348    1.4142    1.4983    1.5874    1.6818    1.7818    1.8877    2.0000

    >> 3.^((0:19)/19)

        1.0000    1.0595    1.1226    1.1894    1.2602    1.3352    1.4147    1.4989    1.5882    1.6827    1.7829    1.8890    2.0014    2.1206    2.2468

        2.3805    2.5222    2.6724    2.8315    3.0000

     Now compute the difference at the M3

    1200*log2(1.2602/1.2599)

        0.4122 cents sharper for pure-12 ET over octave ET

    Now the question: how well did I line up with actual measurements I just made from the recordings I posted at the M3? Here it is

    Theoretically

    1200*log2(1.2602/1.25) = 14.0695 cents sharp for pure-12 ET at the M3

    and in pure octave it is

    1200*log2(1.2599/1.25) = 13.6574 cents sharp

    In actual measurement from my pure-12 ET, I got several examples at

    13.90 - 14.01 range of variances, which means I am indeed getting consistent progressive beat rates

    Kent suggests that there is a natural 'masking' that one may not be hearing which is due to the coherent of the slow beat rates of the 5ths and octaves, i.e., lower stronger partials. That is his answer as to why you may not have been hearing what is actually a very consistent M3, M10, M17 progression that you were expecting.

    Nearly ideal!

    Any questions?

    Steve



    ------------------------------
    Steven Norsworthy
    Cardiff By The Sea CA
    (619) 964-0101
    ------------------------------



  • 24.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Posted 28 days ago

    Steve, I was not questioning the M3 of P12 ET versus the M3 of octave ET. That was David. I was questioning whether you have your piano tuned for P12 ET. (a) Did you manually have the ETD additionally stretch the octaves in the tuning over that of a P12 ET? (b) How did you achieve an equal beating musical interval in a chromatic progression (octave or any other interval) in an ET tuning? (Note: such is a contradiction for an ET, it is not physically possible.)

     

    Suggestion. Please post a new chromatic progression of your current piano tuning – as is. It will take you 5 minutes. Cover the whole scale chromatically like you did before. First do just the octave+double-octave. Then do a new progression with just the M3. Post both. Much appreciated. It will be very insightful. Regards, Norman.



    ------------------------------
    Norman Brickman
    Potomac Piano Service
    Potomac, Maryland
    potomacpiano@verizon.net
    https://potomacpiano.com
    (301) 983.9321
    ------------------------------



  • 25.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 28 days ago

    The P12 tuning is a style, not a temperament per se, P8 or P12 we are still talking about an equal temperament. I have been using the P12 tuning since it became available for Verituner, 6 years or so to great effect. Any ET will yield a smooth progression of beats of all intervals, accelerating as you ascend and decelerating as you descend. This is our objective aural test to see if our tuning is adhering to the ET scheme. As you say, Steve, it's just physics. This even progression is what gives ET its utility in Western chromaticism. (Adherents to the use of colored temperaments have their points too)

    On the recording I hear the M3's at the top of each chord speed up and slow down as it ascends, this indicates a problem somewhere along the line. Perhaps the beats are obscured by the 5 notes over 3 octaves, perhaps some notes drifted from the original tuning, perhaps there was a problem with the sampling, I can't hazard a guess. If you listen from 0:30 to 1:05 this is quite evident.

    A standard test using single intervals would eliminate several variables. Then we can clearly hear the beat progression. Regardless of theory or style the proof is in the pudding, if you have a smooth progression of beats, your golden, if not then there is some work to be done. Steve N mentions letting M3s "fall where they may", this is in reference to the specific beats per second, not whether or not they progress as per standard.

    There are samples of these progressions if you go here and click on Module 2; Hearing intervals. 

    Another note on "styles", this is where tuners can exercise some creative discretion in building a tuning as seen in the discussion above between Bill and Norman and it is where aural tuners can really shine.



    ------------------------------
    Steven Rosenthal RPT
    Honolulu HI
    (808) 521-7129
    ------------------------------



  • 26.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 28 days ago

    IMO (and remember it is strictly an opinion),

    One can tune "ET" by concentrating even  tempering on the 4ths and 5ths, and letting the 3rds and 6ths "fall where they may" (which on a well scaled instrument the progessions will be pretty darn good overall) OR one can concentrate on evenly tempering the 3rds and 6ths, creating (hopefully) a "perfect" ascension ladder of these intervals and let the 4ths and 5ths "fall where they may" (which on a well scaled instrument...). 

    However, you cannot have both...perfectly ascending and descending RBI's AND perfectly smooth ascending SBI's no matter how ideal the piano is. When we start "splitting hairs" (which is exactly what we ALL do when evaluating other people's tuning), we can, and will, find at least slight "discrepancies" in some of the intervals. It's the nature of what is required to actually produce one of these beasts (they're not perfectly uniform).

    Therefore we make choices as to how we will create an ET scheme that satisfies within reason the tenets of what we mean by ET at this time in history, i.e. "all like intervals tempered the same" (with the term "same" tempered to mean reasonably or pretty close). In the aggregate, when done well, we end up with a reasonably smooth progession of ALL intervals with a few compromises to accommodate the idiosyncrasies of the instrument.  

    Good aural/analog tuners can accomplish this as can good digital tuners do the same. The only difference (IMO) is that aural/analog tuners are listening to the "whole sound" (or largely that) throughout the process, whereas digital tuners are often focusing on selected partials of the intervals, with both methods being "colored" slightly in different ways but not enough to make a functional or musical difference. 

    Show me ANYBODY'S tuning, I don't care who it is, and I can find stuff in it that isn't "perfect" (if I want to...because I CAN BE an obsessive hair splitter if I want to). Generally though I just like to sit down and play music on it. If its well done, I'm very happy. 

    Peter Grey Piano Doctor 



    ------------------------------
    Peter Grey
    Stratham NH
    (603) 686-2395
    pianodoctor57@gmail.com
    ------------------------------



  • 27.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 27 days ago

    Peter Grey went: "However, you cannot have both...perfectly ascending and descending RBI's AND perfectly smooth ascending SBI's no matter how ideal the piano is.

    For my first 10 years, I had a similar attitude, "I'll provide the 4ths and 5ths, and the manufacturer will provide the 3ds and 6ths." In my favorite, the 3ds&6ths temperament, the first RBI series ("runs brought in"?) I use to check out a finished temperament is the M6th series: it contains a M3d and a P4th on top of that, and thus tests both SBIs and RBIs simultaneously. 

    We should expect disagreements between the SBIs and RBIs series. It's a product of the piano's inharmonicity curve, and the more ragged it is, the more disagreements there will be. For an example of how this works, pick any note in the middle of the temperament compass and add a P4th in either direction (# or b) and add a M3d in the opposite direction. (Pick, say, D3-F#3 and F#3-B3 or its converse, C#3-F#3 and F#3-A#3. The outside width of both these pairs is a M6th, and both have the common note F#3.)

    For each of these two pairs of intervals, the expanded width (beyond the mathematically pure) is determined by the inharmonicity of the common note and the added note. If there's a disagreement between the 4ths series and the 3rds series, when each of these hits the common note, a likely assumption would be that it's the inharmonicity of the common note that's the outlier and causing the disagreement. But it would seem just as  likely that the disagreement results from the inharmonicity of one (or both) of the added notes. Remember, they're separated by 3/4 of an octave. Even in a relatively smooth inharmonicity scale, major differences can develop in that distance, especially of one of the added notes is down in the hockey-stick end of the long bridge.

    That's what can happen even to my favorite pet interval, the M6th, when Levitan's secondary inharmonicity gets ahold of it. Regardless of individual preferences in tuning styles in this Forum, I'm confident that everyone here is turning out wonderful tunings. 



    ------------------------------
    William Ballard RPT
    WBPS
    Saxtons River VT
    802-869-9107

    "Our lives contain a thousand springs
    and dies if one be gone
    Strange that a harp of a thousand strings
    should keep in tune so long."
    ...........Dr. Watts, "The Continental Harmony,1774
    ------------------------------



  • 28.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Posted 27 days ago

    Kent makes the point that people use ad hoc stretching of a Pure Octave ET anyway, and Kent suggests it is typically 1 cent. The Pure12th ET makes that 1.2347 cents. It is a minor difference. Here I just did the math:

    Conclusions: for every interval, including all the 3rds, 6ths, major and minor, as well as the 4ths, 5ths, etc., one can only conclude that

    -- The differences are within a hundredth of a cent, so why bother? Just use the Pure 12th ET to do the stretch you would do anyway!
    Here is the exact math model:
    % 1:1 (unison)
    % 2:1 (octave)
    % 5:3 (major sixth)
    % 3:2 (perfect fifth)
    % 4:3 (perfect fourth)
    % 5:4 (major third)
    % 6:5 (minor third)
    %%
    % Let's say you stretch every 1/2 step by 0.1 cent over a pure octave ET
    OneCentStretchOctave = (2.^((0:.1:1.2)/1200)).*(2.^((0:12)/12));
    OneCentStretchOctave'
    %%
    % 1.000000000000000
    % 1.059524293114831
    % 1.122591727700483
    % 1.189413206748411 -- m3
    % 1.260212187101555 -- M3
    % 1.335225426713470 -- 4th
    % 1.414703776387538
    % 1.498913018643888 -- 5th
    % 1.588134756519284 -- m6
    % 1.682667355272188 -- M6
    % 1.782826940142168
    % 1.888948453500208
    % 2.001386774925161 -- Oct
    %
    log_m3_1c=1200*log2(1.189413206748411);
    log_M3_1c=1200*log2(1.260212187101555);
    log_4th_1c=1200*log2(1.335225426713470);
    log_5th_1c=1200*log2(1.498913018643888);
    log_m6_1c=1200*log2(1.588134756519284);
    log_M6_1c=1200*log2(1.682667355272188);
    log_oct_1c=1200*log2(2.001386774925161);
    %%
    % Now use the Pure 12th formula instead
    Pure12thOctaves = 3.^((0:12)/19)';
    %
    % 1.000000000000000
    % 1.059526064738275
    % 1.122595481859776
    % 1.189419173187856 -- m3
    % 1.260220615891982 -- M3
    % 1.335236589858077 -- 4th
    % 1.414717969546883
    % 1.498930562988532 -- 5th
    % 1.588156000719167 -- m6
    % 1.682692677632456 -- M6
    % 1.782856750895827
    % 1.888983197268723
    % 2.001426933358855 -- Oct
    log_m3_P12=1200*log2(1.189419173187856);
    log_M3_P12=1200*log2(1.260220615891982);
    log_4th_P12=1200*log2(1.335236589858077);
    log_5th_P12=1200*log2(1.498930562988532);
    log_m6_P12=1200*log2(1.588156000719167);
    log_M6_P12=1200*log2(1.682692677632456);
    log_oct_P12=1200*log2(2.001426933358855);
    %% Now compare the differences
    %
    Diffs = [log_m3_1c-log_m3_P12 log_M3_1c-log_M3_P12...
    log_4th_1c-log_4th_P12...
    log_5th_1c-log_5th_P12...
    log_m6_1c-log_m6_P12...
    log_M6_1c-log_M6_P12...
    log_oct_1c-log_oct_P12];
    Diffs'
    % -0.008684347166593
    % -0.011579129554491
    % -0.014473911943526
    % -0.020263476722107
    % -0.023158259110346
    % -0.026053041499722
    % -0.034737388665917
    % The differences are within a hundredth of a cent, so why bother? Just use
    % the Pure 12th ET to do the stretch you would do anyway!


    ------------------------------
    Steven Norsworthy
    Cardiff By The Sea CA
    (619) 964-0101
    ------------------------------



  • 29.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Posted 26 days ago

    It is helpful to remember that there are actually at least 2 different approaches that share the "P12th" name. One is the math stretch approach (Stopper, Swafford application to ETDs, etc..) while the other is a direct reference method of setting D3 to a Just 12th to establish the 12th "temperament width" and then using 3:1,6:2,9:3 individual or combination to place notes moving out to each end of the keyboard.

    It is also helpful to remember that the ETD settings are only approximations via the math model - where do the interval matches change place, what kind of smoothing exists between transitions, is the ETD calling a "pure 12th" based on a tempered octave +5th, etc.. All of this leads to small errors that can be heard by those that are paying close attention to the apparent purity of the octaves. (whole tone, Virgil method of hearing the octave matches)

    I've found all of the ETD 12th settings that I've been able to try decent approximations on good instruments but a general failure on many others. Sure, the overall blend is nice on big chords, but the 'problem' octaves stick out for me - and I had clients point them out when I was experimenting with using either method of P12th tunings in the past. 

    I'm glad P12th approaches work for so many in the field. They just aren't for me.

    Ron Koval



    ------------------------------
    Ron Koval
    CHICAGO IL
    ------------------------------



  • 30.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 26 days ago

    Hopefully this is not too far OT but let us also remember that IH only affects us because the strings are vibrating FREELY, whereas a bowed (or driven) string/wire exhibits essentially no IH. It is this "seasoning" that makes the modern piano sound as it does...quite unique in the realm of musical instruments. 

    And of course too much of a good thing can turn the tables on what is considered "good"...

    Peter Grey Piano Doctor 



    ------------------------------
    Peter Grey
    Stratham NH
    (603) 686-2395
    pianodoctor57@gmail.com
    ------------------------------



  • 31.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 26 days ago
      |   view attached

    Again, replying to no one in particular: yes, P12th is a yardstick for laying out the octaves outside the temperament. But it also can be the compass for the temperament itself, regardless of whether we restrict its compass to a single octave, or widen it to 1.5 or even 2 octaves. I commented in this Forum on a topic on the "Only Pure" scheme that it seemed to be a creature from the ETD domain. Kent Swafford (whom I hold in the highest regard) sent me Bernard Stopper's aural P12th temperament, which I decided was a kluge.

    I love the way a ladder of 4 or 5 M3ds divides the temperament compass into a smooth progression of M3ds. Yes, when a given piano forces us to choose between priority for SBIs or FBIs, the only choice is the SBIs: they're the loudest, hence most obvious to our pianists. But I have no problem basing the temperament on M3ds. If you look at Dan Levitan's table of Expansion Units, the M3d, at 9EUs versus the P5th's 5 and the P4th's 7EUs would seem to more warped by the inherent inharmonicity. But for me, the higher EU is an amplification of inharmonicity's warping, a vernier scale, if you will.

    There is not a note on the piano with zero inharmonicity (eg. the whole number 1), and there is not an interval you may work with whose actual width is not pulled away from the mathematically pure by the inharmonicity of its constituent notes. Herewith is Dan Levitan's table (from his "The Craft of PIano Tuning"). If you choose an interval of higher UEs (whether for a temperament compass or as a yardstick outside the temperament), the lower EU intervals will be pulled wide of where they are most comfortable. The same is true when choosing a lower EU interval (say the 2:1 octave) the intervals above this pulled narrow. The choice of interval has a "gravitational" effect on all the others.

    This is why I persist in making the distinction between "the pure octave" and the "pure octave relationship", whenever I hear the former.

     



    ------------------------------
    William Ballard RPT
    WBPS
    Saxtons River VT
    802-869-9107

    "Our lives contain a thousand springs
    and dies if one be gone
    Strange that a harp of a thousand strings
    should keep in tune so long."
    ...........Dr. Watts, "The Continental Harmony,1774
    ------------------------------



  • 32.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 26 days ago

    Ron Koval said:

    I've found all of the ETD 12th settings that I've been able to try decent approximations on good instruments but a general failure on many others. Sure, the overall blend is nice on big chords, but the 'problem' octaves stick out for me - and I had clients point them out when I was experimenting with using either method of P12th tunings in the past.

    I do use P12ET most of the time (Tunelab, "3:1" setting in midrange and treble), but to an extent I agree with you.  I've found that some pianos (or some notes on some pianos) seem to produce subjectively noisier octaves than others with this setting -- especially as you get up to around C5 as the top note.  I have not found any obvious correlation with inharmonicity.  I suspect it may have more to do with the relative strength of partials.  The most egregious examples have been a 1958 Steck Console and a Yamaha G2, both with nasty-grooved hammers.  In all cases backing off to 4:2 octaves in the midrange has produced a nicer sounding tuning in my opinion.  Or at least more tolerable one given the circumstances ;).

    But in the majority of cases, I find the octaves come out very tolerable and even, and to me the overall sound I get with P12ET is worth the hassle of checking all this.



    ------------------------------
    Nathan Monteleone RPT
    Fort Worth TX
    (817) 675-9494
    nbmont@gmail.com
    ------------------------------



  • 33.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Posted 26 days ago

    A few takeaways thus-far on this thread:

     

    1) The tuning that Steve N posted audio for in the start of this thread is not a P12 ET tuning, is not an octave ET tuning, and specifically is not even an ET tuning. (Listen to it.)

     

    2) The tuning Steve N posted is, nonetheless, still rated as an excellent tuning by five experts.

     

    3) When stretching an octave via an ETD, the effect depends on the ETD's algorithm and is not necessarily predictable unless it is published / non-proprietary. Steve stretched the octave of his ETD's preset P12 ET tuning, and thereby got a tuning which is not a P12 ET tuning.

     

    4) By definition, people who tune to the piano industry standard, otherwise known as 12-Tone Equal Temperament Based On The Octave, tune to the pure octave. What Kent calls "traditional pure-octave equal temperament" in his Journal article. Not to a stretched octave. (Again, pure means a pure musical interval as heard by a human ear, not the actual physical inharmonic octave interval as measured with a meter and shown in a Railsback Curve!)

     

    5) The chromatic recordings, like what Steve provided, are an important tool. Keep them coming. We likely need some mods to include (a) only octaves + double octaves, (b) P12s, and (c) a changing combination to test progression as you go up the scale. Like double-octaves changing to thirds changing to tenths changing back to double octaves.

     

    Regards, Norman.



    ------------------------------
    Norman Brickman
    Potomac Piano Service
    Potomac, Maryland
    potomacpiano@verizon.net
    https://potomacpiano.com
    (301) 983.9321
    ------------------------------



  • 34.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 26 days ago

    Norman wrote:

     1) The tuning that Steve N posted audio for in the start of this thread is not a P12 ET tuning, is not an octave ET tuning, and specifically is not even an ET tuning. (Listen to it.)

    Kent replies:

    Steve described for you that he was posting a chord of nature construction that demonstrated the tuning as a whole. His chord played chromatically included a 17th, 10th, and a 3rd all at once. I expect you heard the various fast beating intervals interacting randomly. I don't think you have any basis for declaring that this was an unequal temperament, unless you analyzed it with MatLab and came up with a different result than Steve did. <grin> 

    Norman wrote: 

    3) When stretching an octave via an ETD, the effect depends on the ETD's algorithm and is not necessarily predictable unless it is published / non-proprietary. Steve stretched the octave of his ETD's preset P12 ET tuning, and thereby got a tuning which is not a P12 ET tuning.

     Kent replies:

    Is this intended as a gratuitous insult to visual tuning? I'm fairly certain electronically-aided tuning is more sophisticated and accurate and accepted than that for which you give it credit. 

    Norman wrote:

    4) By definition, people who tune to the piano industry standard, otherwise known as 12-Tone Equal Temperament Based On The Octave, tune to the pure octave. What Kent calls "traditional pure-octave equal temperament" in his Journal article. Not to a stretched octave. (Again, pure means a pure musical interval as heard by a human ear, not the actual physical inharmonic octave interval as measured with a meter and shown in a Railsback Curve!)

     Kent replies:

    I suppose you could call my teacher who taught me aural tuning 45 years ago; I think he'll verify that he taught me to tune with a stretched octave, proven by the 4th-5th test of the 4:2 octave, that is, for example, that A3-D4 beats faster than D4-A4.

    Norman wrote:

    5) The chromatic recordings, like what Steve provided, are an important tool. Keep them coming. We likely need some mods to include (a) only octaves + double octaves, (b) P12s, and (c) a changing combination to test progression as you go up the scale. Like double-octaves changing to thirds changing to tenths changing back to double octaves.

    Kent replies:

    Playing continuous isolated intervals up the scale is fine, but there are other aspects of a tuning to be demonstrated. We don't get to request demos that comply with our particular specifications, do we?







  • 35.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Posted 18 days ago

    Steven - in response to your call for standard recordings of the same repertoire, in response to your excellent P12 tuning demonstration https://soundcloud.com/snorsworthy/chopin-48-1-open, here's the same Chopin Op48 No.1 on Steinway Model B and Bechstein Model A in modified Kellner and Modified Kirnberger III tunings:

    https://youtu.be/IdvT6mAEYjc which I believe to be a fair comparison.

    Of course my tunings would fail a PTG exam. Both were made with Vogel CTS5 ETD and were tuned on the sustains in the main rather than the attack as mentioned on another thread. Pitch was 442 as for seasonal reasons the Steinway had gone up to 445 and I didn't want to lower it so drastically, then for it to sink in the summer to 435.

    Best wishes

    David P



    ------------------------------
    David Pinnegar BSc ARCS
    Hammerwood Park, East Grinstead, Sussex, UK
    +44 1342 850594
    "High Definition" Tuning
    ------------------------------



  • 36.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Posted 15 days ago

    David, I think that you did a good job in giving us an A-B comparison. Both the A and B pianos are quality pianos, all are well-tuned, and while I prefer the tone regulation of the Steinway and Fazioli over the Bechstein, all have good tone.

     

    Playing a Chopin piece on a piano tuned with a Well Temperament, presumably close to the type of Well Temperament used by the composer, of course gives music with the character and mood or color that Chopin desired. The piano tuned in Equal Temperament, whether industry-standard octave-based or in this case P12-based (the difference in the note-to-note multiplier is only like 0.006%), has a temperament that was not designed to convey mood and color as a function of the musical key which the composition was written in – only the difference between major and minor keys.

     

    I preferred hearing the Chopin pieces being played on pianos tuned with a Well Temperament. But let's "hear" what others think. Regards, Norman.



    ------------------------------
    Norman Brickman
    Potomac Piano Service
    Potomac, Maryland
    potomacpiano@verizon.net
    https://potomacpiano.com
    (301) 983.9321
    ------------------------------



  • 37.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Posted 15 days ago
    Dear Norman

    THanks

    In specific debate about what sounds better, whilst a P12 tuning can make an instrument more resonant, it's really only a shift from 2nd partial resonance to 3rd, and sacrificing power in the 2nd partial to that of the third.

    When we take the instrument into a well designed unequal temperament we can add 3rd partials into the resonance mix but as many as 25% or so of 5th partials. More colour is obtained from the instrument, more volume, more solidity and overall making the instrument sound better.

    A rather startling example yesterday was a baby Yamaha GC1 . . . . which didn't sound like a small piano as a result. https://youtu.be/Z_e94lRIrfo?t=365

    In my opinion modern piano trends have gone up a blind alley - and upon hearing the recordings that it's been a privilege to make with a fine performer perhaps I might be forgiven for my outright unswayable stubbornness of opinion. Musicians who want me to travel 1000 miles or 2 are in agreement and if anyone wants to be in such demand, all they need to do is to follow my lead.

    With greetings and best wishes

    David P

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





  • 38.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Posted 15 days ago
    Kent Swafford 'converted me' to P12 tuning many months ago. He and I spent time analyzing the IH curves on my Fazioli and concluded it was very well suited to a 3:1 setting. I also believe in 'aural checks' of tuning. Kent and I agree that the P12 allows us to listen for beat-less 12ths, but there is another advantage of hearing slow 5ths and octaves which are offset and balanced. 
    Bob Bussell suggested that a more comprehensive aural check would be to play the 5ths, 8ths, and 12ths after tuning. I tried this last night. I used Pianoscope's Pure 12th settings and adjusted the settings by removing the 9:3 and de-emphasizing the 6:2 so that it is mostly 3:1. Also using the sensor. I nailed down the unisons with the 'Freeze Frame' set uniformly to 700 ms for all notes. I was then able to hear the aural check and sure enough was able to find several unisons which had naturally drifted a few tenths from the first pass tuning. I fixed these. Here is an example of the results. To my ears, it is about as good as it gets, given the fact that the piano notes are moving pitch targets anyway. Link below on SoundCloud.

    https://soundcloud.com/snorsworthy/piano-tuning-check-with-5ths-8ths-12ths?si=069459f9a92f441281d8f18ce10f42f5&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing



    ------------------------------
    Steven Norsworthy
    Cardiff By The Sea CA
    (619) 964-0101
    ------------------------------



  • 39.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Posted 14 days ago
    The trouble that you're having with equal temperament is that you're trying to fix foundations upon a jelly of vibrations. No frequencies of equal temperament have any acoustic relationship with any others and this is why minutest focus on unisons and upon nailing notes to the inharmonic series becomes an obsession.

    Last summer I tuned for a Steinway A owner who's a recording engineer and he was OCD about the tuning of his instrument. With him standing over my shoulder doing things for him was a nightmare. 

    The Fazioli put through its paces at Nice https://youtu.be/mnTDkj5dYYc?t=4198 didn't have this attention but sounded so good that the dealer sold the instrument immediately.

    The focus of the piano industry has become engrossed by the instrument as an end itself, looking at its own navel, rather than the music.

    With regard to the examples of Steinway and Bechstein https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdvT6mAEYjc the Steinway might exhibit a precision but against the Bechstein with false beats - and this seems to be a characteristic of them all to the point at which I think it might have been deliberate - does the perfection of the Steinway sound boring?

    The bottom line is whether the music actually benefits from such attention in the extreme to precision to vibrational jelly?

    Best wishes

    David P

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





  • 40.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Posted 14 days ago

    David,

    Going back to Pianotech the year 2020, you and Kent had so many goings back and forth, and I went into the archives of PTG to find them. As a 'newcomer to the subject' here, I will say that you are entitled to your position and so are the expert proponents of ET like Kent. I will boldly say, you will not be hearing 'beats' per se in my link I made, and someone told me, "That tuning is inhuman, Steve! I can't hear any beats in the 5ths, octaves, or 12ths.. how did you do that?" It's called "newer technology." Machines and devices can simply do things we cannot do with our brains. Gary Kasparov could not beat an iPhone-based chess program today. But we don't throw away our ears either. Then it is simply a matter of 'taste'. Let the rest of us like ET and let the rest of us also appreciate your passion for historic temperaments. Then just let it go! Let's not just keep rehashing things we hashed already because it does not convert anyone.

    Kindness and tolerances,

    Steve



    ------------------------------
    Steven Norsworthy
    Cardiff By The Sea CA
    (619) 964-0101
    ------------------------------



  • 41.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Posted 14 days ago
    Dear Steve

    I quite agree that the technology is of interest, amazing indeed if there are no beats . . . but as the piano is an instrument . . . of music . . . the question has to be asked as to what the effect is on the music and whether it adds meaningfully, or enables, what the composers were communicating.

    Asking existential questions is important. It's not criticism, nor a matter of who might be cleverer than who, but examining the reason why. Why are we doing something . , , ? If there is an answer then perhaps it can help us do something better.

    Our question as instrument technicians serving pianists serving the composers of the repertoire has to be whether or not what we are doing serves the music well, or better.

    Are really perfect unisons necessary? Is an equal or unequal temperament necessary? Which sounds better and why? Is one sound more interesting than another? Is another sound more beautiful?

    A client who is a composer and tuning obsessive and who asked me to travel 500 miles to tune his upright Bechstein to Kirnberger III took some note sequences from the recordings I made the other day and put them together for side by side comparison - https://youtu.be/9b09QKyeesM

    A friend of a top technician on Facebook responded to the original recording:
    "Now the tuning. I don't know what the hell is with that bechstein because it sounds very bad and the unisons are also not all good. But the Steinway, sounded fantastic. Regardless of temperament the Steinway unisons were singing and whoever made the unisons took special care to make sure each sing."

    (Thanks by the way to Mark Cerisano for his recent tutorial on Unisons. I didn't understand what he was saying at all but what sank in clearly helped!)

    My Bechstein Upright composer for whom I'd travelled 500 miles to the middle of France to tune his instrument wrote:
    "I find it difficult to distinguish between the two tunings, most probably because of the tonal differences between the two pianos. My immediate preference is for the lithe, crystal Bechstein over the buttery Steinway. Is the Steinway longer than the Bechstein ? In the recording, the bass is more full on that instrument. "

    So from a tech there's praise for unisons and from a musician a preference for the instrument that sounds terrible to the tech. Which opinion is more valuable to the music? Which opinion is more valuable to me?

    Currently juggling dates for tuning trips between France, Italy and Greece, if anyone wants to be in such demand, people who tune have the choice as to whether to tune to the fashions of techs or tune to the demands of musicians. 

    Why do I bother to draw attention to the questions? Because interest in classical music is dying. It's dying for lack of interest and that arises from lack of heart, lack of emotional communication, lack of appreciation of vibrations as music as essential language of communication that words cannot speak.

    One of my sons has launched a new album. https://freshlov3.bandcamp.com/album/breathe It's as far from that emotional communication audible in the recent recordings I've posted as can be, and the prevalence of people going to hear such music vs going to hear classical piano is probably 10,000 to 1. 

    Our house of culture is burning down. With "interesting" tuning that brings interest to the music, we can rescue the piano from the burning house.

    By giving tuning which is not robotically the same between keys we can encourage musicians to listen to the sound that they're making and so that anyone's able to distinguish between keyboardists who make a noise and musicians who create paradise such as in the four pieces exemplified https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZiAwLsEzJo

    The tech who thought the Bechstein was horrible wrote:
    "First of all, the playing. Whoever is playing amateur or professional, it's top top level of extracting sound. Whoever is playing knows how to listen to tone. Many professional pianists can't listen to tone."

    So in whatever tuning style we adopt, our objective really needs to be to get our pianists to listen to tone and reward them for doing so.

    Does ET reward pianists for listening to tone? Does P12 tuning reward musicians for listening to tone? Famously a Canadian pianist who plays a Fazioli plays Mendelssohn as Prokofiev and does nothing to bring an audience to classical music as essential emotional communication. I've heard her playing the Appassionata without understanding passion at all. Tuners can hone their tuning for her Fazioli if they like - but why? Will it bring the instrument to be more popular and better for the industry or merely to bring people to fawn over a name?

    As a postscript a recent contributor to the debate on tuning on the strike or sustain brought forward a recording of the Chopin 4th Ballade https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaglAzsdVDw. Many years ago and before achieving the sound I find today, Miena Senada recorded this and the comments on both videos are enlightening. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJT5Q6HooyA

    Best wishes

    David P

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





  • 42.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Posted 13 days ago

    Steve -- thanks for clarifying about the special characteristics that you put into the latest tuning. If the musical quality is very desirable, good, go for it. When you mentioned 5ths (3:2), 8ths (2:1) ad 12ths (3:1), and then played a different type of progression from the last time -- I still am a little off in following it.

     

    David – thanks for posting the link to that concert in Nice with the Fazioli piano. (https://youtu.be/mnTDkj5dYYc?t=4198 ) Very good sound, tops. I was particularly impressed with the preceding piece played by the artist in the sparkly dress (I backed up about 20 minutes in the recording). I hope others will also listen to her and share their opinion. I thought that there was excellent coupling between the composition she was playing, and the particular termperament that the piano was tuned for, and the orchestra – as well as the tone and quality of the piano. No wonder the piano was purchased afterward!

     

    Can you clarify how a piano tuner supports a concert repertoire with multiple pieces to be played using only one piano and not tuning it in an ET? It must be tough because, as we know, some pieces (and sometimes some portions of pieces) might match a given historic temperament well while others could be far from optimum for the same temperament. Also, I'm curious, am I correct in assuming that the orchestra prefers the increased harmony achievable with a piano tuned (in a historic temperament) to match a piece of music and thereby also tuned to closer match the harmony of the other instruments in the orchestra? Regards, Norman.



    ------------------------------
    Norman Brickman
    Potomac Piano Service
    Potomac, Maryland
    potomacpiano@verizon.net
    https://potomacpiano.com
    (301) 983.9321
    ------------------------------



  • 43.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Posted 13 days ago
    Norman - thanks

    It was now some 19 years since my revelation that modern tuning was wrong and what followed was a dozen years of research and then five years to find perfection. Crucial to this was a seminal book "The Well Tempered Organ" by Charles Padgham https://www.abebooks.co.uk/book-search/isbn/9780906894132/used/ and some preceding articles and experiments published in the British Institute for Organ Studies journal. I'd become familiar with it, as a teenager before apps, wondering how to tune the pipe organ I'd rebuilt in my parents' house. I chose Werkmeister III temperament and came to hate it - but this was a better background from which to assess the temperaments and their effect. I tuned an 1830s Collard & Collard square to 1/4 comma Meantone out of curiosity and that had been the end of the journey.

    Then it was a performance of Chopin's 2nd Sonata in 2005 by Lady Rose Cholmondeley which woke me up. Bb minor - said to have been chosen to put the notes under the pianist's fingers, but to me from the organ heritage it meant more. Schubart refers to the key as presaging suicide, indeed, but which I didn't know at the time, hearing the Funeral March and the wind howling over the cold graves. According to YouTube the recording of the 2nd Sonata in unequal temperament was 13 years ago https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgA1-I5MfNY and shortly after the pianist did a concert elsewhere in equal temperament on a nice Yamaha C7. Surprisingly it was possible to bring the two recordings into balance to take out the differences between the pianos and people can judge whether the unequal has the edge there over the ET performance. In live concert, personally, I was blown away by the performance on the Hammerwood Bechstein but left the ET concert feeling indifferent. "Oh that was good, but I've heard it before . . .  " and it's that about which I'm talking in respect of emotional content and what we need to do as an industry to retain interest in the piano and to grow it into the upcoming electrotech-rap-distracted generation. 

    A possible good recording of the whole sonata on a Steinway B is on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2py2xz1hX8. That was fun - I had just 1 1/2 hours to pitch change the instrument from 440 down to 432. This was on account of the violinist that evening insisting on the pitch-change playing Brahms https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7AoF3zvcaI. That recording is interesting. It starts and one thinks "Oh yes I've heard this before" but then . . . I wonder if the recording does to others what I experienced that night?

    So why is this relevant? It's in answer to the question "Why are we doing what we are doing? Are we leading the instrument and the industry in the right direction?" 

    P12 takes the ET direction potentially down a more resonant path and that's great. But it might be good for the piano but is it good for the music?

    It's interesting that you picked out the Chopin 2nd Concerto - that is one of my favourite recordings and I often return to it https://youtu.be/mnTDkj5dYYc?t=2239. It was recorded with an interesting mic setup that might possibly give the spacial 3D impression of the piano in front of the orchestra. It was on that occasion when a bass player in amazement expressed his shock that the piano was in tune with the orchestra and this was the first time he'd experienced this.

    So the choice of temperament. . . . In the harpsichord world there's quite a lot of opinion that Vallotti was in common use. It's easy to tune, being a good point in its favour, with 6 perfect fifths, and Young is similar but shifted. However in performance I can't hear it. It's not strong enough and I can't tell the difference between Vallotti and ET in the music. Accordingly whilst hating Werkmeister III with 8 perfect fifths I've gone for the 5th comma tunings with 7 perfect fifths. 

    Using perfect fifths, my unequal temperament usage and Steve's enthusiasm for P12 tunings aren't far apart. However, the stretch of P12 carries all thirds in the direction of Pythagorean whilst the Well Temperaments exploit contrast from near Meantone purity of thirds in the home keys to the Pythagorean in the remote keys. We therefore have more variety, more dynamics of intonation to play with for keys to unlock. 

    Another recording which I particularly enjoy is the Schumann concerto https://youtu.be/Nq9sb4t3N6o?t=4523 here recorded with a Steinway D. In competition the tuning shows up the performer who's listening to the musicality of the sound, so we can compare directly https://youtu.be/_52SJEgY2YU?t=1996 although there recorded on Yamaha C6.

    It's a matter of belief, and on which I'm happy to be disproved, that orchestras may find P12 tuning less happy to play with. Orchestral players aim for sweet thirds between themselves and avoid Pythagorean thirds. Most orchestral works are in the home rather than the remote keys and in which purer thirds predominate. 

    Upon my encouragement my mentor tuned a Steinway D as I would some years ago - https://youtu.be/L2kERGR069o?t=3551
    https://youtu.be/L2kERGR069o?t=6513 
    so there's quite a good spread of sample recordings of the genre of tuning in practical circumstances.

    As techs it's easy for us to listen to the tecchy stuff and upon which our ears are honed, forgetting that the real substance at the end of the day is the music.

    In my observation the path to ET and P12 tuning started with the cross-stringing of instruments which was a tool commercially sacred to the manufacturers for selling pianos, putting straight strung Broadwoods and Erards out of business. But because the French composers who we normally think of as having been composing in ET years, Fauré, Ravel, Debussy, were composing with French straight strung instruments, they were composing with unequal temperaments in their heads. Even now microtonality is doing away with ET, and the recordings of Arvo Paart played on unequal give that microtonality upon which the music shines. There's no repertoire which doesn't benefit from the acoustic beauty that shifts between stretched and pure thirds can bring. Stretching all thirds to the point of being Pythagorean might make the instrument glisten so that we are impressed by the shining quality of the instrument.

    I appreciate Steven's frustration in my presentation of an opposite point of view, but look forward to recordings of repertoire where the P12 serves the music well. In my view the debate is crucial to the future of piano music and upon which the whole piano industry depends.

    Best wishes

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





  • 44.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 12 days ago

    "…because interest in classical music is dying…"

    An unsupportable-and reductionist-statement, especially for the implied reason that audiences don't like equal temperament and therefore have stopped liking classical music. 

    Temperament might be one (tiny) facet of the emotional content of music, but it certainly plays no part on how an audience perceives non-piano music: orchestras, string quartets, etc.

     Emotionality in music is created primarily, in my opinion, by timing and rubato, by phrasing, dynamics, and even tonal beauty. Audiences also attend to revel in sheer virtuosity.



    ------------------------------
    Scott Cole, RPT
    rvpianotuner.com
    Talent, OR
    (541-601-9033
    ------------------------------



  • 45.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 12 days ago

    "…because interest in classical music is dying…"

    Most classical music concerts I attend seldom feature a piano. Are you saying that strings, woodwinds, and brass are playing in equal temperament'



    ------------------------------
    Larry Messerly, RPT
    Bringing Harmony to Homes
    www.lacrossepianotuning.com
    ljmesserly@gmail.com
    928-899-7292
    ------------------------------



  • 46.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Posted 12 days ago
    Scott - I'm sorry to have to tell you that interest in the piano and classical music on the English side of the Atlantic really is dying. It hasn't been taught in schools for the best part of 30 years and orchestras and even university departments are in crisis with people of inadequate abilities to enter undergrad level.

    This is frequently reported in the press
    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/classical-music-becoming-preserve-of-private-schools-sn9knt8xd
    and more recently 

    " Emotionality in music is created primarily, in my opinion, by timing and rubato, by phrasing, dynamics, and even tonal beauty. Audiences also attend to revel in sheer virtuosity."

    With respect, music is founded upon vibrations. Because the piano as conventionally tuned cannot be at peace, is always moving, always ringing, never still, people go to Buddhist healing bells - but they don't have to. Even the piano can do it. People revel in virtuosity because there's less else on the modern piano to revel in. Put varying intervals into the mix and the existing repertoire is transformed with new nuances of interest. If the performer listens, and is of the quality to listen, then the audience listens. 

    A recent concert talked about the concept of Arvo Paart and an instrument that's enabled to give stillness (other than the first note here https://youtu.be/289iHaTM2f4?t=2813) enables that contemplation. Other performances include possibly better on a more controlled instrument https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dDo1GBMspE and by the same composer in an old recording before I was able to tune to the quality I'm currently achieving https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7v5jYkw13w

    There are more dimensions to music than loud and soft and fast and slow and loud and fast. To a generation only familiar with 100dB in nightclubs, loud and fast on the piano is no longer of the interest it used to be.

    Listening to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dDo1GBMspE I challenge anyone to be able to repeat that stillness in ET or P12. 

    To bring audiences back to the piano, the quality of what we produce, as an industry, a trade, a craft, an art, has to be completely extraordinary.

    Whilst emotional content has been reduced to the factors quoted, key was such an important entry to each door of emotion that it was well documented - https://wmich.edu/mus-theo/courses/keys.html and if our tuning isn't capable of doing what it says on the tin, it's not fit for musical purpose.

    Pieces in F minor in modern tuning result in only another little ditty. Another key of importance is D minor.  Perhaps https://youtu.be/rfqhL7UaB3Y?t=1881 gives some of the character of contemplation for which the key was chosen. ET or P12 is incapable or expression of "Melancholy womanliness, the spleen and humours brood." https://youtu.be/rfqhL7UaB3Y?t=3647 was an experimental repeat in 1/4 comma Meantone, which I use as the litmus test for emotional content.  The Scarlatti in that video is followed by Haydn in A flat major - the key of "putrefaction and death". ET is incapable of recreating the smell. Another Meantone recording is https://youtu.be/AHAZjcPmtrs?t=2808, there in Eb major, "The key of love, of devotion, of intimate conversation with God." (These were recorded on a Broadwood 1869 Cottage Grand and anyone who has tuned one will know the challenges and therefore any defects audible in the recordings here). 

    https://youtu.be/AHAZjcPmtrs?t=1566 is to my ears sheer sweetness and I challenge anyone to recreate that in an ET or P12 tuning.

    It's for these reasons that audiences come knowing that they receive a special experience, even magic. 

    It's not just particular favourite brands of pianos that can do it nor particular performers - here https://youtu.be/RXymuml03pE?t=2343 a Yamaha C3 in a very different acoustic and context a couple of thousand miles away gradually attracting increasingly enthusiastic audiences and of an age that is audible in the background.

    Larry - spot on. Orchestral players will gravitate towards the purer thirds between them. It's interesting to listen to how many pieces finish with a last note with an exposed major third, in harmony.

    Best wishes

    David P

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





  • 47.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 12 days ago
    "Scott - I'm sorry to have to tell you that interest in the piano and classical music on the English side of the Atlantic really is dying. It hasn't been taught in schools for the best part of 30 years and orchestras and even university departments are in crisis with people of inadequate abilities to enter undergrad level."

    That has nothing to do with temperament.





  • 48.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Posted 12 days ago
    Dear Scott

    With respect it does. It relates to whether audiences appreciate concerts merely as a sport which is optional or a deep form of emotional communication which is essential.

    In the latter respect it's well known that even when the brain is severely impaired music is the last thing to go. Vibrations are the very foundation of our being from the heartbeat to many other systems in the body and the body responds to vibrations. It was for this reason that Sir Richard Stilgoe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stilgoe who enjoys his Steinway C in Kirnberger III temperament gave his house to the Orpheus Foundation https://www.orpheus.org.uk/ to help disabled people be able to build independent lives through music. Music is an essential power in our lives https://youtu.be/6wdMbiOlw9s?t=426 and the piano should be part of it but is ceasing to be. 

    It's by reason of tuning which has been conventional for the past century and accentuated by electronic standardisation in the past four decades that many people find the piano as an instrument discordant and disturbing. It's on account of this that people have been floundering about trying to fathom why and a whole pseudo science has evolved about A=432 and which is wholly unfounded. It's the differences between the notes, whether they accord or whether they don't that's important. 

    As a result of ET and P12 variation of ET we've steamrollered through the keys and instead of having 24 keys we have two keys, major and minor, transposed through 12 pitches. It's like having a house full of stairs but no doors other than two for which there are any keys. 

    This has made the expression of the piano boring, and even friends well versed in classical music aren't listening to it because we've all heard it all before.

    But when we abandon the false deification of equality of distances between notes, we open up the whole repertoire to get those audiences back and to re-record the whole repertoire.

    The recording at Orpheus above demonstrates that the adoption of ET with or without P12 variation does not have to be universal, and that when we abandon it, music not written for it can be expressed just as well as in conventional tuning such as https://youtu.be/6wdMbiOlw9s?t=665 which will be familiar to all, but relevant repertoire the music is enabled in new and harmonious directions. (The instrument on that occasion was a Yamaha C2 on which conflicting demands prevented the finest tuning.)

    If as an industry we limit the instrument by means of the tuning that's limited the dimensions in which the instrument can speak, its trajectory won't be changed.

    Best wishes

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





  • 49.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 12 days ago

    Mr Pinnegar,

    Please read the message I sent to you as a "reply privately" function. If you didn't get a copy in your regular email you can find it by clicking your avatar at the top right hand of this web page ("unread email").

    Thank you very much,

    Patrick Draine

    Chair, Communications Task Group 



    ------------------------------
    Patrick Draine RPT
    Billerica MA
    (978) 663-9690
    ------------------------------



  • 50.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 11 days ago

    I would add that when it comes to the modern piano specifically, there's kind of an opposite theoretical angle we can take with it.  Because inharmonicity prevents us from tuning perfectly just intervals anyway, to some extent the "jelly" is already baked into the instrument.  Granted, any beating we accept because of inharmonicity is fairly minimal compared to ET thirds and sixths (both major and minor), but it does at least help to distract from the effect a bit.

    Subjectively I rather like how nonequal temperaments sound on pianos for some repertoire... but subjectively I also find a good equal temperament to be very pleasing as well.  I honestly believe if classical music has anything to gain from all of this, it's the greater interest and enjoyment that comes from experiencing music in a variety of tempermanets, both equal and not.



    ------------------------------
    Nathan Monteleone RPT
    Fort Worth TX
    (817) 675-9494
    nbmont@gmail.com
    ------------------------------



  • 51.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Posted 11 days ago

    Yes - variety is vital.

    Attached is a spreadsheet which I put together years ago which has grown like topsy, and so it's awfully inelegant but I hope potentially useful.

    Normally one can add Name of temperament on the Front page, square E2, insert offsets in column B and then in column H is a summary analysis of harmonic accordance counting the number of beats between scale notes and harmonics. Whilst IH takes its toll, there will be an even progression not invalidating the coincidences in a well tuned instrument, but here P12 takes its own Pythagorean direction from the 2/3 and 3x ratios below and above the tuning octave. Bodging this into the analysis, the result comes out very well for P12 tuning and Steven's observation of lack of beats in his sound is accurate and predictable.

    The analysis is capable of refinement but looks at comparing % of accordance between scale note and harmonics, in equal, in Kellner, Well Temperament as a landmark, and the chosen temperament, here P12 and sorts into coincidence within 0-1/2 cycles per second, 0.5 to 1.5 cycles per second so around one cycle, then 1 1/2 to 5 cycles per second and 2 1/2 to 5 cycles per second. In the spreadsheet I've wrongly labelled these numbers as beats, but this doesn't invalidate the comparisons. 

    P12 comes out in the middle between ET and Well Temperament for proportion of the same frequencies. For the low near coincident frequences around 1 cycle per second P12 is impressively good, scoring 5% rather than the ET of 15% and 9% of WT and then continues to come out top of the pack for the 1-5cps and 2-5cps. 

    Proportion of same frequencies
    Equal 38%
    Kellner 43%
    P12 41%
    Around 1 beat  
    Equal 15%
    Kellner 9%
    P12 5%
     
    1 to 5 beats  
    Equal 33%
    Kellner 28%
    P12 17%
     
    2 to 5 beats  
    Equal 16%
    Kellner 17%
    P12 11%

    There are refinements possible to this analysis but P12 shines impressively subject to the reservations for which I'm somewhat known.

    P12 and WT schemes using multiple perfect fifths are closely related of course and the analysis demonstrate ET worthy of question.

    That a temperament which scores well in this analysis is guaranteed to sound good is demonstrated by Kelletat, Young II, Werkmeister III, Barnes 1977, Stanhope (although near P12 for the around 1beat per second score), Vallotti, Kirnberger III, Kirnberger I and Kirnberger III (better than any and even P12),  all demonstrating similar figures but some, such as Werkmeister III to my knowledge sounding horrible at times.

    Attached also is the blank spreadsheet for anyone to plug in the figures of any tuning anyone's curious about. I'm sure there are refinements to the elegance of the sheets and any suggestions or help in that regard would be great. Perhaps we should identify the spread of 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and more than 5, even up to 10, to see the way in which tunings can give stillness or glistening to the instrument.

    With all major thirds as Pythagoreans conflicting with the 5th harmonics in P12 it would be interesting to see if the instrument glistens in its sound in the same way that ET achieves.

    Another factor in choosing a tuning is the extent to which difference tones on major thirds fall onto scale notes or between them.

    Best wishes

    David P



    ------------------------------
    David Pinnegar BSc ARCS
    Hammerwood Park, East Grinstead, Sussex, UK
    +44 1342 850594
    "High Definition" Tuning
    ------------------------------



  • 52.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Posted 9 days ago

    This table is FYI. We discussed several of these musical interval ET's a couple years ago on this listserver. (In general, there is an infinite number of possible "general" ET's.) Maybe some of the rows in the table relate to the variability available in Verituner that Kent talked about earlier ("style files"), or in other ETD's. Regards, Norman.

     



    ------------------------------
    Norman Brickman
    Potomac Piano Service
    Potomac, Maryland
    potomacpiano@verizon.net
    https://potomacpiano.com
    (301) 983.9321
    ------------------------------



  • 53.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Member
    Posted 9 days ago

    That's an interesting table of the note-to-note ratios for various kinds of equal temperament.  I think those figures assume zero inharmonicity.  So I wondered how inharmonicity might affect them.  Obviously it could be different on pianos with different inharmonicity, but for a typical piano, I looked at the P12 tuning.  In the table it says the note-to-note ratio is 1.059526  (the 19th root of 3).  Indeed this is just what it would take to make 19 repeated applications of going from note to note (which is a 12th interval) to result in a pitch that is exactly the 3rd harmonic of the original pitch.  But if we want to match the 3rd partial instead of the 3rd harmonic, we have to shoot for something higher than 3.  My calculation on a typical piano shows that the note-to-note ratios matching the 3rd partial would be:

     C3 to C#3 = 1.05957

    C5 to C#5 = 1.05959

    C6 to C#6 = 1.05979

    C7 to C#7 = 1.06005

    I limited the calculation to 6 significant figures because I only had the frequencies calculated to 6 significant figures.  But even with only 5 decimal places the differences between sections of the scale and the differences from a zero-inharmonicity value are apparent.



    ------------------------------
    Robert Scott
    Real-Time Specialties (TuneLab)
    fixthatpiano@yahoo.com
    Hopkins MN
    ------------------------------



  • 54.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Posted 9 days ago
    Robert - an essential observation. On the assumption of tuning an instrument by ear then perhaps one can assume that the harmonics will line up in proportion to the inharmonicity and so relate scale notes to 3rd harmonic just the same?

    It might mean that on a long instrument with minimum IH it works but on smaller instruments too much stretching of the already stretched thirds could result. . .?

    Rather than assuming the central octave tuned as standard equal and then working P12 out in both directions from there, inserting the 1.059526  ratio for the central octave makes the accordance of same frequencies even more remarkably impressive

    Proportion of same frequencies
    Equal 38%
    Kellner 43%
    P12 56%


    Around 1 beat
    Equal 15%
    Kellner 9%
    P12 7%


    1 to 5 beats
    Equal 33%
    Kellner 28%
    P12 20%


    2 to 5 beats
    Equal 16%
    Kellner 17%
    P12 12%


    nothwithstanding my expressed reservations about musicality.

    Best wishes

    David P

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





  • 55.  RE: Piano Temperament Pure 12th

    Member
    Posted 9 days ago

    The following content is from this book《Le Clavier Bien Obtempere (essai de temperamentologie)》

    ISBN : 9782954140131

    You can also watch two videos

    EuroPiano France 

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FrY9T7iJ4MM&list=LL&index=49

    Russia

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1ByiOAiz-34&list=LL&index=48&t=13s



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    Zhanxi Huang
    Benxi
    86-18741420582
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