Pianotech

Just wanted to post a positive review of Kent Swafford's Pure Twelfth tuning. I saw a mention of it here in Pianotech a few months back, and gave it a shot, and I am so pleased with the results! In particular, to me I love how the bass smooths out to a silky-smoothness (in most pianos), and the bass-tenor beak is smoothed over so well! I tuned a relatively new Yamaha GB1, and that was the best I'd ever heard that model sound. Again, the bass and break were simply wonderful! Recently, I tuned a Baldwin model B with it (for those unfamiliar, the B was Baldwin's attempt in the 1990s to domestically produce a small, inexpensive grand--yes, it's pretty poor). Again, it made the instrument sound better than I thought was possible. I even tried it on a Lester spinet - and yes, it too, had a smoother bass, and actually sounded better. I read Kent's article about it in the 2018 Journa, and he definitely shines a lot of light on temperament tuning and octave stretching.

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Robert Sluss
Lake City FL
(386) 752-1888
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Robert, you probably got no response so far on your post since your earlier post in October on the same topic elicited loads of interesting and educational comments. I personally will stick with the industry standard of 12-TET based on the octave (or 12-EDO).

I'm used to the clarity of pure octaves and all the associated aural tuning tests, and being able to demonstrate the octaves to my customers (or spotting certain types of errors that I might have made from "a mile away"!). Tuners that use 19-TET based on the twelfth can't do that, but they do point to the "uniquely pleasant sound" that you summarize in equivalent words.

With the Journal publication of Kent's articles on 19-TET based on the 12^th, I wonder if the PTG tuning exam might eventually offer the option of using it. An aural tuning version might be a little imprecise since the octave has to be stretched, but the visual version using an ETD would be right-on.

Regards, Norman.

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Norman Brickman
Potomac Piano Service
Potomac, Maryland
potomacpiano@verizon.net
https://potomacpiano.com
(301) 983.9321
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Original Message:
Sent: 11-27-2022 15:51
From: Robert Sluss
Subject: Swafford pure twelfth tuning

Just wanted to post a positive review of Kent Swafford's Pure Twelfth tuning. I saw a mention of it here in Pianotech a few months back, and gave it a shot, and I am so pleased with the results! In particular, to me I love how the bass smooths out to a silky-smoothness (in most pianos), and the bass-tenor beak is smoothed over so well! I tuned a relatively new Yamaha GB1, and that was the best I'd ever heard that model sound. Again, the bass and break were simply wonderful! Recently, I tuned a Baldwin model B with it (for those unfamiliar, the B was Baldwin's attempt in the 1990s to domestically produce a small, inexpensive grand--yes, it's pretty poor). Again, it made the instrument sound better than I thought was possible. I even tried it on a Lester spinet - and yes, it too, had a smoother bass, and actually sounded better. I read Kent's article about it in the 2018 Journa, and he definitely shines a lot of light on temperament tuning and octave stretching.

------------------------------
Robert Sluss
Lake City FL
(386) 752-1888
------------------------------