Pianotech

Hello,

I've taken a deep dive into temperament and temperament history. Veroli's e-book has been incredible as well as others. But to get an authentic sense of historic tuning practice, I really like downloading tuning manuals from the 18th-19th century and reading their descriptions. One that particularly caught my eye as of late was an essay published in English from German in 1853 based on Scheibler's work a couple decades earlier. It's seems particularly relevant when we still weigh the benefits and drawbacks of tuning by eye and/or by ear. It reads:

"A much quicker and more acute judge of small differences than the ear, is, however, the eye, and by calling into assistance the aid of this organ, and making it, as it were, a superintendent of the former, Mr. H. Scheibler was enabled to obtain the great desideratum of a perfectly equalized temperament, and to benefit the musical world by an invention which is as beautiful as it is ingenious, and as simple as it is complete."

Scheiber was not a musician by trade, but a silk maker. Apparently he liked to tinker with numbers and using the calculated frequencies of mathematically perfect ET, he tuned tuning forks so that they would beat 4 bps when the pitch was correct, counting beats precisely with a metronome. 

At this point in history, tuning instructions were nearly all in 4ths, 5ths and octaves and nearly always a very imprecise method of tempering fifths compared to today's standard. The essay mentions this in making an argument for this superior method of tuning by eye as he saw it:

"Before Mr. Scheibler's invention no such means existed by which even a tolerable equality of temperament could be obtained. In theory, and upon paper, the requisites of such a temperament were indeed known long ago; the precise number of vibrations for each semitone had been correctly calculated, and the necessary deviations from the mathematical scale pointed out. But when it came to practice - when a musical instrument had actually to be tuned - then all the calculations of the theorists proved so much worthless rubbish, because practice knew of no other means or criterion to regulate the pitch of the different sounds and their ratios to each other, than the ear. The practical proceeding, which was and is still adopted by those who know no better, is this: As the intervals of the Fifth and Fourth are those which the ear measures most easily, and in which it detects an impurity of attunement sooner than in any other, these are chosen as the media - either one of the two alone, or both together - through which all the other intervals (except the octave) are to be obtained by deduction. For if a series of twelve ascending Fifths or descending Fourths be attuned according to their ratios, such series will nominally include all the twelve semitones of the octave , and finally lead to the octave of the sound with which the series commenced ; thus…"

He then includes a series of 4ths/5ths as a normal way of attempting to aurally tune ET, and then concludes:

"After the twelve semitones of one octave have been thus tuned, the other lower or higher notes are tuned by octaves. This is the operation of the old method of tuning, whose perfect hopelessness of obtaining a satisfactory result shall now be shown."

Hello,

I've taken a deep dive into temperament and temperament history. Veroli's e-book has been incredible as well as others. But to get an authentic sense of historic tuning practice, I really like downloading tuning manuals from the 18th-19th century and reading their descriptions. One that particularly caught my eye as of late was an essay published in English from German in 1853 based on Scheibler's work a couple decades earlier. It's seems particularly relevant when we still weigh the benefits and drawbacks of tuning by eye and/or by ear. It reads:

"A much quicker and more acute judge of small differences than the ear, is, however, the eye, and by calling into assistance the aid of this organ, and making it, as it were, a superintendent of the former, Mr. H. Scheibler was enabled to obtain the great desideratum of a perfectly equalized temperament, and to benefit the musical world by an invention which is as beautiful as it is ingenious, and as simple as it is complete."

Scheiber was not a musician by trade, but a silk maker. Apparently he liked to tinker with numbers and using the calculated frequencies of mathematically perfect ET, he tuned tuning forks so that they would beat 4 bps when the pitch was correct, counting beats precisely with a metronome. 

At this point in history, tuning instructions were nearly all in 4ths, 5ths and octaves and nearly always a very imprecise method of tempering fifths compared to today's standard. The essay mentions this in making an argument for this superior method of tuning by eye as he saw it:

"Before Mr. Scheibler's invention no such means existed by which even a tolerable equality of temperament could be obtained. In theory, and upon paper, the requisites of such a temperament were indeed known long ago; the precise number of vibrations for each semitone had been correctly calculated, and the necessary deviations from the mathematical scale pointed out. But when it came to practice - when a musical instrument had actually to be tuned - then all the calculations of the theorists proved so much worthless rubbish, because practice knew of no other means or criterion to regulate the pitch of the different sounds and their ratios to each other, than the ear. The practical proceeding, which was and is still adopted by those who know no better, is this: As the intervals of the Fifth and Fourth are those which the ear measures most easily, and in which it detects an impurity of attunement sooner than in any other, these are chosen as the media - either one of the two alone, or both together - through which all the other intervals (except the octave) are to be obtained by deduction. For if a series of twelve ascending Fifths or descending Fourths be attuned according to their ratios, such series will nominally include all the twelve semitones of the octave , and finally lead to the octave of the sound with which the series commenced ; thus…"

He then includes a series of 4ths/5ths as a normal way of attempting to aurally tune ET, and then concludes:

"After the twelve semitones of one octave have been thus tuned, the other lower or higher notes are tuned by octaves. This is the operation of the old method of tuning, whose perfect hopelessness of obtaining a satisfactory result shall now be shown."

I search Google Play Books, an incredible collection of books. You can also highlight and hit translate for books in other languages. The translation feature seems to have come a long way.

Hello,

I've taken a deep dive into temperament and temperament history. Veroli's e-book has been incredible as well as others. But to get an authentic sense of historic tuning practice, I really like downloading tuning manuals from the 18th-19th century and reading their descriptions. One that particularly caught my eye as of late was an essay published in English from German in 1853 based on Scheibler's work a couple decades earlier. It's seems particularly relevant when we still weigh the benefits and drawbacks of tuning by eye and/or by ear. It reads:

"A much quicker and more acute judge of small differences than the ear, is, however, the eye, and by calling into assistance the aid of this organ, and making it, as it were, a superintendent of the former, Mr. H. Scheibler was enabled to obtain the great desideratum of a perfectly equalized temperament, and to benefit the musical world by an invention which is as beautiful as it is ingenious, and as simple as it is complete."

Scheiber was not a musician by trade, but a silk maker. Apparently he liked to tinker with numbers and using the calculated frequencies of mathematically perfect ET, he tuned tuning forks so that they would beat 4 bps when the pitch was correct, counting beats precisely with a metronome. 

At this point in history, tuning instructions were nearly all in 4ths, 5ths and octaves and nearly always a very imprecise method of tempering fifths compared to today's standard. The essay mentions this in making an argument for this superior method of tuning by eye as he saw it:

"Before Mr. Scheibler's invention no such means existed by which even a tolerable equality of temperament could be obtained. In theory, and upon paper, the requisites of such a temperament were indeed known long ago; the precise number of vibrations for each semitone had been correctly calculated, and the necessary deviations from the mathematical scale pointed out. But when it came to practice - when a musical instrument had actually to be tuned - then all the calculations of the theorists proved so much worthless rubbish, because practice knew of no other means or criterion to regulate the pitch of the different sounds and their ratios to each other, than the ear. The practical proceeding, which was and is still adopted by those who know no better, is this: As the intervals of the Fifth and Fourth are those which the ear measures most easily, and in which it detects an impurity of attunement sooner than in any other, these are chosen as the media - either one of the two alone, or both together - through which all the other intervals (except the octave) are to be obtained by deduction. For if a series of twelve ascending Fifths or descending Fourths be attuned according to their ratios, such series will nominally include all the twelve semitones of the octave , and finally lead to the octave of the sound with which the series commenced ; thus…"

He then includes a series of 4ths/5ths as a normal way of attempting to aurally tune ET, and then concludes:

"After the twelve semitones of one octave have been thus tuned, the other lower or higher notes are tuned by octaves. This is the operation of the old method of tuning, whose perfect hopelessness of obtaining a satisfactory result shall now be shown."

I search Google Play Books, an incredible collection of books. You can also highlight and hit translate for books in other languages. The translation feature seems to have come a long way.

Hello,

I've taken a deep dive into temperament and temperament history. Veroli's e-book has been incredible as well as others. But to get an authentic sense of historic tuning practice, I really like downloading tuning manuals from the 18th-19th century and reading their descriptions. One that particularly caught my eye as of late was an essay published in English from German in 1853 based on Scheibler's work a couple decades earlier. It's seems particularly relevant when we still weigh the benefits and drawbacks of tuning by eye and/or by ear. It reads:

"A much quicker and more acute judge of small differences than the ear, is, however, the eye, and by calling into assistance the aid of this organ, and making it, as it were, a superintendent of the former, Mr. H. Scheibler was enabled to obtain the great desideratum of a perfectly equalized temperament, and to benefit the musical world by an invention which is as beautiful as it is ingenious, and as simple as it is complete."

Scheiber was not a musician by trade, but a silk maker. Apparently he liked to tinker with numbers and using the calculated frequencies of mathematically perfect ET, he tuned tuning forks so that they would beat 4 bps when the pitch was correct, counting beats precisely with a metronome. 

At this point in history, tuning instructions were nearly all in 4ths, 5ths and octaves and nearly always a very imprecise method of tempering fifths compared to today's standard. The essay mentions this in making an argument for this superior method of tuning by eye as he saw it:

"Before Mr. Scheibler's invention no such means existed by which even a tolerable equality of temperament could be obtained. In theory, and upon paper, the requisites of such a temperament were indeed known long ago; the precise number of vibrations for each semitone had been correctly calculated, and the necessary deviations from the mathematical scale pointed out. But when it came to practice - when a musical instrument had actually to be tuned - then all the calculations of the theorists proved so much worthless rubbish, because practice knew of no other means or criterion to regulate the pitch of the different sounds and their ratios to each other, than the ear. The practical proceeding, which was and is still adopted by those who know no better, is this: As the intervals of the Fifth and Fourth are those which the ear measures most easily, and in which it detects an impurity of attunement sooner than in any other, these are chosen as the media - either one of the two alone, or both together - through which all the other intervals (except the octave) are to be obtained by deduction. For if a series of twelve ascending Fifths or descending Fourths be attuned according to their ratios, such series will nominally include all the twelve semitones of the octave , and finally lead to the octave of the sound with which the series commenced ; thus…"

He then includes a series of 4ths/5ths as a normal way of attempting to aurally tune ET, and then concludes:

"After the twelve semitones of one octave have been thus tuned, the other lower or higher notes are tuned by octaves. This is the operation of the old method of tuning, whose perfect hopelessness of obtaining a satisfactory result shall now be shown."

...still waiting for how the piano was tuned by eye.

Here are a couple of papers you might find interesting. 

https://escholarship.mcgill.ca/concern/theses/k930c094p -you have to download this one

The politics of musical standardization in nineteenth-century France and Britain can be read online here:

https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10141595/1/Gillin_French-Anglo%20pitch%20article_Past%20and%20Present.pdf

I search Google Play Books, an incredible collection of books. You can also highlight and hit translate for books in other languages. The translation feature seems to have come a long way.

Hello,

I've taken a deep dive into temperament and temperament history. Veroli's e-book has been incredible as well as others. But to get an authentic sense of historic tuning practice, I really like downloading tuning manuals from the 18th-19th century and reading their descriptions. One that particularly caught my eye as of late was an essay published in English from German in 1853 based on Scheibler's work a couple decades earlier. It's seems particularly relevant when we still weigh the benefits and drawbacks of tuning by eye and/or by ear. It reads:

"A much quicker and more acute judge of small differences than the ear, is, however, the eye, and by calling into assistance the aid of this organ, and making it, as it were, a superintendent of the former, Mr. H. Scheibler was enabled to obtain the great desideratum of a perfectly equalized temperament, and to benefit the musical world by an invention which is as beautiful as it is ingenious, and as simple as it is complete."

Scheiber was not a musician by trade, but a silk maker. Apparently he liked to tinker with numbers and using the calculated frequencies of mathematically perfect ET, he tuned tuning forks so that they would beat 4 bps when the pitch was correct, counting beats precisely with a metronome. 

At this point in history, tuning instructions were nearly all in 4ths, 5ths and octaves and nearly always a very imprecise method of tempering fifths compared to today's standard. The essay mentions this in making an argument for this superior method of tuning by eye as he saw it:

"Before Mr. Scheibler's invention no such means existed by which even a tolerable equality of temperament could be obtained. In theory, and upon paper, the requisites of such a temperament were indeed known long ago; the precise number of vibrations for each semitone had been correctly calculated, and the necessary deviations from the mathematical scale pointed out. But when it came to practice - when a musical instrument had actually to be tuned - then all the calculations of the theorists proved so much worthless rubbish, because practice knew of no other means or criterion to regulate the pitch of the different sounds and their ratios to each other, than the ear. The practical proceeding, which was and is still adopted by those who know no better, is this: As the intervals of the Fifth and Fourth are those which the ear measures most easily, and in which it detects an impurity of attunement sooner than in any other, these are chosen as the media - either one of the two alone, or both together - through which all the other intervals (except the octave) are to be obtained by deduction. For if a series of twelve ascending Fifths or descending Fourths be attuned according to their ratios, such series will nominally include all the twelve semitones of the octave , and finally lead to the octave of the sound with which the series commenced ; thus…"

He then includes a series of 4ths/5ths as a normal way of attempting to aurally tune ET, and then concludes:

"After the twelve semitones of one octave have been thus tuned, the other lower or higher notes are tuned by octaves. This is the operation of the old method of tuning, whose perfect hopelessness of obtaining a satisfactory result shall now be shown."

The tuner would watch the metronome pendulum until precisely four beats fit. That's at least the idea, idk how well it caught on.

Thanks for the other materials!

...still waiting for how the piano was tuned by eye.

Here are a couple of papers you might find interesting. 

https://escholarship.mcgill.ca/concern/theses/k930c094p -you have to download this one

The politics of musical standardization in nineteenth-century France and Britain can be read online here:

https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10141595/1/Gillin_French-Anglo%20pitch%20article_Past%20and%20Present.pdf

I search Google Play Books, an incredible collection of books. You can also highlight and hit translate for books in other languages. The translation feature seems to have come a long way.

Hello,

I've taken a deep dive into temperament and temperament history. Veroli's e-book has been incredible as well as others. But to get an authentic sense of historic tuning practice, I really like downloading tuning manuals from the 18th-19th century and reading their descriptions. One that particularly caught my eye as of late was an essay published in English from German in 1853 based on Scheibler's work a couple decades earlier. It's seems particularly relevant when we still weigh the benefits and drawbacks of tuning by eye and/or by ear. It reads:

"A much quicker and more acute judge of small differences than the ear, is, however, the eye, and by calling into assistance the aid of this organ, and making it, as it were, a superintendent of the former, Mr. H. Scheibler was enabled to obtain the great desideratum of a perfectly equalized temperament, and to benefit the musical world by an invention which is as beautiful as it is ingenious, and as simple as it is complete."

Scheiber was not a musician by trade, but a silk maker. Apparently he liked to tinker with numbers and using the calculated frequencies of mathematically perfect ET, he tuned tuning forks so that they would beat 4 bps when the pitch was correct, counting beats precisely with a metronome. 

At this point in history, tuning instructions were nearly all in 4ths, 5ths and octaves and nearly always a very imprecise method of tempering fifths compared to today's standard. The essay mentions this in making an argument for this superior method of tuning by eye as he saw it:

"Before Mr. Scheibler's invention no such means existed by which even a tolerable equality of temperament could be obtained. In theory, and upon paper, the requisites of such a temperament were indeed known long ago; the precise number of vibrations for each semitone had been correctly calculated, and the necessary deviations from the mathematical scale pointed out. But when it came to practice - when a musical instrument had actually to be tuned - then all the calculations of the theorists proved so much worthless rubbish, because practice knew of no other means or criterion to regulate the pitch of the different sounds and their ratios to each other, than the ear. The practical proceeding, which was and is still adopted by those who know no better, is this: As the intervals of the Fifth and Fourth are those which the ear measures most easily, and in which it detects an impurity of attunement sooner than in any other, these are chosen as the media - either one of the two alone, or both together - through which all the other intervals (except the octave) are to be obtained by deduction. For if a series of twelve ascending Fifths or descending Fourths be attuned according to their ratios, such series will nominally include all the twelve semitones of the octave , and finally lead to the octave of the sound with which the series commenced ; thus…"

He then includes a series of 4ths/5ths as a normal way of attempting to aurally tune ET, and then concludes:

"After the twelve semitones of one octave have been thus tuned, the other lower or higher notes are tuned by octaves. This is the operation of the old method of tuning, whose perfect hopelessness of obtaining a satisfactory result shall now be shown."

I have a pdf of Scheibler's book (1838) that I got from a German library, if anyone is interested. It's a big file 18MB (saving as reduced file in Acrobat didn't reduce the size), but I could give you a dropbox link. I doubt it had much of a significant impact on the tuning trade :-)

The tuner would watch the metronome pendulum until precisely four beats fit. That's at least the idea, idk how well it caught on.

Thanks for the other materials!

...still waiting for how the piano was tuned by eye.

Here are a couple of papers you might find interesting. 

https://escholarship.mcgill.ca/concern/theses/k930c094p -you have to download this one

The politics of musical standardization in nineteenth-century France and Britain can be read online here:

https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10141595/1/Gillin_French-Anglo%20pitch%20article_Past%20and%20Present.pdf

I search Google Play Books, an incredible collection of books. You can also highlight and hit translate for books in other languages. The translation feature seems to have come a long way.

Hello,

I've taken a deep dive into temperament and temperament history. Veroli's e-book has been incredible as well as others. But to get an authentic sense of historic tuning practice, I really like downloading tuning manuals from the 18th-19th century and reading their descriptions. One that particularly caught my eye as of late was an essay published in English from German in 1853 based on Scheibler's work a couple decades earlier. It's seems particularly relevant when we still weigh the benefits and drawbacks of tuning by eye and/or by ear. It reads:

"A much quicker and more acute judge of small differences than the ear, is, however, the eye, and by calling into assistance the aid of this organ, and making it, as it were, a superintendent of the former, Mr. H. Scheibler was enabled to obtain the great desideratum of a perfectly equalized temperament, and to benefit the musical world by an invention which is as beautiful as it is ingenious, and as simple as it is complete."

Scheiber was not a musician by trade, but a silk maker. Apparently he liked to tinker with numbers and using the calculated frequencies of mathematically perfect ET, he tuned tuning forks so that they would beat 4 bps when the pitch was correct, counting beats precisely with a metronome. 

At this point in history, tuning instructions were nearly all in 4ths, 5ths and octaves and nearly always a very imprecise method of tempering fifths compared to today's standard. The essay mentions this in making an argument for this superior method of tuning by eye as he saw it:

"Before Mr. Scheibler's invention no such means existed by which even a tolerable equality of temperament could be obtained. In theory, and upon paper, the requisites of such a temperament were indeed known long ago; the precise number of vibrations for each semitone had been correctly calculated, and the necessary deviations from the mathematical scale pointed out. But when it came to practice - when a musical instrument had actually to be tuned - then all the calculations of the theorists proved so much worthless rubbish, because practice knew of no other means or criterion to regulate the pitch of the different sounds and their ratios to each other, than the ear. The practical proceeding, which was and is still adopted by those who know no better, is this: As the intervals of the Fifth and Fourth are those which the ear measures most easily, and in which it detects an impurity of attunement sooner than in any other, these are chosen as the media - either one of the two alone, or both together - through which all the other intervals (except the octave) are to be obtained by deduction. For if a series of twelve ascending Fifths or descending Fourths be attuned according to their ratios, such series will nominally include all the twelve semitones of the octave , and finally lead to the octave of the sound with which the series commenced ; thus…"

He then includes a series of 4ths/5ths as a normal way of attempting to aurally tune ET, and then concludes:

"After the twelve semitones of one octave have been thus tuned, the other lower or higher notes are tuned by octaves. This is the operation of the old method of tuning, whose perfect hopelessness of obtaining a satisfactory result shall now be shown."

Thanks Fred, I would be interested in the file. 

It seems like this could have been a useful method for precise ET with early instruments with very little inharmonicity and a stronger fundamental (on pianofortes in particular, not harpsichords so much), but it's interesting that this method turns up right as pianos are beginning to be strung with more tension. I'm sure by the 1840s and 50s pianos tuned this way just wouldn't sound very good.

I have a pdf of Scheibler's book (1838) that I got from a German library, if anyone is interested. It's a big file 18MB (saving as reduced file in Acrobat didn't reduce the size), but I could give you a dropbox link. I doubt it had much of a significant impact on the tuning trade :-)

The tuner would watch the metronome pendulum until precisely four beats fit. That's at least the idea, idk how well it caught on.

Thanks for the other materials!

...still waiting for how the piano was tuned by eye.

Here are a couple of papers you might find interesting. 

https://escholarship.mcgill.ca/concern/theses/k930c094p -you have to download this one

The politics of musical standardization in nineteenth-century France and Britain can be read online here:

https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10141595/1/Gillin_French-Anglo%20pitch%20article_Past%20and%20Present.pdf

I search Google Play Books, an incredible collection of books. You can also highlight and hit translate for books in other languages. The translation feature seems to have come a long way.

Hello,

I've taken a deep dive into temperament and temperament history. Veroli's e-book has been incredible as well as others. But to get an authentic sense of historic tuning practice, I really like downloading tuning manuals from the 18th-19th century and reading their descriptions. One that particularly caught my eye as of late was an essay published in English from German in 1853 based on Scheibler's work a couple decades earlier. It's seems particularly relevant when we still weigh the benefits and drawbacks of tuning by eye and/or by ear. It reads:

"A much quicker and more acute judge of small differences than the ear, is, however, the eye, and by calling into assistance the aid of this organ, and making it, as it were, a superintendent of the former, Mr. H. Scheibler was enabled to obtain the great desideratum of a perfectly equalized temperament, and to benefit the musical world by an invention which is as beautiful as it is ingenious, and as simple as it is complete."

Scheiber was not a musician by trade, but a silk maker. Apparently he liked to tinker with numbers and using the calculated frequencies of mathematically perfect ET, he tuned tuning forks so that they would beat 4 bps when the pitch was correct, counting beats precisely with a metronome. 

At this point in history, tuning instructions were nearly all in 4ths, 5ths and octaves and nearly always a very imprecise method of tempering fifths compared to today's standard. The essay mentions this in making an argument for this superior method of tuning by eye as he saw it:

"Before Mr. Scheibler's invention no such means existed by which even a tolerable equality of temperament could be obtained. In theory, and upon paper, the requisites of such a temperament were indeed known long ago; the precise number of vibrations for each semitone had been correctly calculated, and the necessary deviations from the mathematical scale pointed out. But when it came to practice - when a musical instrument had actually to be tuned - then all the calculations of the theorists proved so much worthless rubbish, because practice knew of no other means or criterion to regulate the pitch of the different sounds and their ratios to each other, than the ear. The practical proceeding, which was and is still adopted by those who know no better, is this: As the intervals of the Fifth and Fourth are those which the ear measures most easily, and in which it detects an impurity of attunement sooner than in any other, these are chosen as the media - either one of the two alone, or both together - through which all the other intervals (except the octave) are to be obtained by deduction. For if a series of twelve ascending Fifths or descending Fourths be attuned according to their ratios, such series will nominally include all the twelve semitones of the octave , and finally lead to the octave of the sound with which the series commenced ; thus…"

He then includes a series of 4ths/5ths as a normal way of attempting to aurally tune ET, and then concludes:

"After the twelve semitones of one octave have been thus tuned, the other lower or higher notes are tuned by octaves. This is the operation of the old method of tuning, whose perfect hopelessness of obtaining a satisfactory result shall now be shown."

Thanks Fred, I would be interested in the file. 

It seems like this could have been a useful method for precise ET with early instruments with very little inharmonicity and a stronger fundamental (on pianofortes in particular, not harpsichords so much), but it's interesting that this method turns up right as pianos are beginning to be strung with more tension. I'm sure by the 1840s and 50s pianos tuned this way just wouldn't sound very good.

I have a pdf of Scheibler's book (1838) that I got from a German library, if anyone is interested. It's a big file 18MB (saving as reduced file in Acrobat didn't reduce the size), but I could give you a dropbox link. I doubt it had much of a significant impact on the tuning trade :-)

The tuner would watch the metronome pendulum until precisely four beats fit. That's at least the idea, idk how well it caught on.

Thanks for the other materials!

...still waiting for how the piano was tuned by eye.

Here are a couple of papers you might find interesting. 

https://escholarship.mcgill.ca/concern/theses/k930c094p -you have to download this one

The politics of musical standardization in nineteenth-century France and Britain can be read online here:

https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10141595/1/Gillin_French-Anglo%20pitch%20article_Past%20and%20Present.pdf

I search Google Play Books, an incredible collection of books. You can also highlight and hit translate for books in other languages. The translation feature seems to have come a long way.

Hello,

I've taken a deep dive into temperament and temperament history. Veroli's e-book has been incredible as well as others. But to get an authentic sense of historic tuning practice, I really like downloading tuning manuals from the 18th-19th century and reading their descriptions. One that particularly caught my eye as of late was an essay published in English from German in 1853 based on Scheibler's work a couple decades earlier. It's seems particularly relevant when we still weigh the benefits and drawbacks of tuning by eye and/or by ear. It reads:

"A much quicker and more acute judge of small differences than the ear, is, however, the eye, and by calling into assistance the aid of this organ, and making it, as it were, a superintendent of the former, Mr. H. Scheibler was enabled to obtain the great desideratum of a perfectly equalized temperament, and to benefit the musical world by an invention which is as beautiful as it is ingenious, and as simple as it is complete."

Scheiber was not a musician by trade, but a silk maker. Apparently he liked to tinker with numbers and using the calculated frequencies of mathematically perfect ET, he tuned tuning forks so that they would beat 4 bps when the pitch was correct, counting beats precisely with a metronome. 

At this point in history, tuning instructions were nearly all in 4ths, 5ths and octaves and nearly always a very imprecise method of tempering fifths compared to today's standard. The essay mentions this in making an argument for this superior method of tuning by eye as he saw it:

"Before Mr. Scheibler's invention no such means existed by which even a tolerable equality of temperament could be obtained. In theory, and upon paper, the requisites of such a temperament were indeed known long ago; the precise number of vibrations for each semitone had been correctly calculated, and the necessary deviations from the mathematical scale pointed out. But when it came to practice - when a musical instrument had actually to be tuned - then all the calculations of the theorists proved so much worthless rubbish, because practice knew of no other means or criterion to regulate the pitch of the different sounds and their ratios to each other, than the ear. The practical proceeding, which was and is still adopted by those who know no better, is this: As the intervals of the Fifth and Fourth are those which the ear measures most easily, and in which it detects an impurity of attunement sooner than in any other, these are chosen as the media - either one of the two alone, or both together - through which all the other intervals (except the octave) are to be obtained by deduction. For if a series of twelve ascending Fifths or descending Fourths be attuned according to their ratios, such series will nominally include all the twelve semitones of the octave , and finally lead to the octave of the sound with which the series commenced ; thus…"

He then includes a series of 4ths/5ths as a normal way of attempting to aurally tune ET, and then concludes:

"After the twelve semitones of one octave have been thus tuned, the other lower or higher notes are tuned by octaves. This is the operation of the old method of tuning, whose perfect hopelessness of obtaining a satisfactory result shall now be shown."

Thanks, Fred, received! Using it to tune the organ definitely could make sense, the 1853 translation's title page says "Tuning Pianofortes and Organs by the Metronome." I'm assuming by the 1850s the use of these forks did not sound great on the piano, especially as it got higher. A very interesting piece of history for sure.

Thanks Fred, I would be interested in the file. 

It seems like this could have been a useful method for precise ET with early instruments with very little inharmonicity and a stronger fundamental (on pianofortes in particular, not harpsichords so much), but it's interesting that this method turns up right as pianos are beginning to be strung with more tension. I'm sure by the 1840s and 50s pianos tuned this way just wouldn't sound very good.

I have a pdf of Scheibler's book (1838) that I got from a German library, if anyone is interested. It's a big file 18MB (saving as reduced file in Acrobat didn't reduce the size), but I could give you a dropbox link. I doubt it had much of a significant impact on the tuning trade :-)

The tuner would watch the metronome pendulum until precisely four beats fit. That's at least the idea, idk how well it caught on.

Thanks for the other materials!

...still waiting for how the piano was tuned by eye.

Here are a couple of papers you might find interesting. 

https://escholarship.mcgill.ca/concern/theses/k930c094p -you have to download this one

The politics of musical standardization in nineteenth-century France and Britain can be read online here:

https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10141595/1/Gillin_French-Anglo%20pitch%20article_Past%20and%20Present.pdf

I search Google Play Books, an incredible collection of books. You can also highlight and hit translate for books in other languages. The translation feature seems to have come a long way.

Hello,

I've taken a deep dive into temperament and temperament history. Veroli's e-book has been incredible as well as others. But to get an authentic sense of historic tuning practice, I really like downloading tuning manuals from the 18th-19th century and reading their descriptions. One that particularly caught my eye as of late was an essay published in English from German in 1853 based on Scheibler's work a couple decades earlier. It's seems particularly relevant when we still weigh the benefits and drawbacks of tuning by eye and/or by ear. It reads:

"A much quicker and more acute judge of small differences than the ear, is, however, the eye, and by calling into assistance the aid of this organ, and making it, as it were, a superintendent of the former, Mr. H. Scheibler was enabled to obtain the great desideratum of a perfectly equalized temperament, and to benefit the musical world by an invention which is as beautiful as it is ingenious, and as simple as it is complete."

Scheiber was not a musician by trade, but a silk maker. Apparently he liked to tinker with numbers and using the calculated frequencies of mathematically perfect ET, he tuned tuning forks so that they would beat 4 bps when the pitch was correct, counting beats precisely with a metronome. 

At this point in history, tuning instructions were nearly all in 4ths, 5ths and octaves and nearly always a very imprecise method of tempering fifths compared to today's standard. The essay mentions this in making an argument for this superior method of tuning by eye as he saw it:

"Before Mr. Scheibler's invention no such means existed by which even a tolerable equality of temperament could be obtained. In theory, and upon paper, the requisites of such a temperament were indeed known long ago; the precise number of vibrations for each semitone had been correctly calculated, and the necessary deviations from the mathematical scale pointed out. But when it came to practice - when a musical instrument had actually to be tuned - then all the calculations of the theorists proved so much worthless rubbish, because practice knew of no other means or criterion to regulate the pitch of the different sounds and their ratios to each other, than the ear. The practical proceeding, which was and is still adopted by those who know no better, is this: As the intervals of the Fifth and Fourth are those which the ear measures most easily, and in which it detects an impurity of attunement sooner than in any other, these are chosen as the media - either one of the two alone, or both together - through which all the other intervals (except the octave) are to be obtained by deduction. For if a series of twelve ascending Fifths or descending Fourths be attuned according to their ratios, such series will nominally include all the twelve semitones of the octave , and finally lead to the octave of the sound with which the series commenced ; thus…"

He then includes a series of 4ths/5ths as a normal way of attempting to aurally tune ET, and then concludes:

"After the twelve semitones of one octave have been thus tuned, the other lower or higher notes are tuned by octaves. This is the operation of the old method of tuning, whose perfect hopelessness of obtaining a satisfactory result shall now be shown."