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I will do that since I should have a new, "What the heck is Reverse Well?" article for my website anyway. I can leave the "heck" part out of the title just to make it less inflammatory if you think that would be wise.

I will tell you in advance that I believe the problem has to do with the typical tuning sequence used which I know has been a source of irritation for you. I fully understand where you come from on that but I also know what I have witnessed. So, try to keep an open mind about it.

I wonder if you can tell me when you consider consistent anecdotal evidence to change from being merely anecdotal to actual proof or at least evidence of a trend? I plan to research the definition of anecdotal evidence versus proof. It seems to me that from what I have heard, that drug companies consider a medication to be "effective" when anywhere above a 20% rate is achieved. It is "proven effective" if it only works one in five times.

So, how about at least 9 in 10 times? You know I have said that and I think I could prove it with statistics if I really wanted to. The very first piano I saw today was one of them. I called a local technician friend of mine just to say, "Here it is!" I only wish I could have made a recording of it just to show how reverse the reverse well really was.

For me, the single most distinguishing factor is when the key of C Major is the very worst sounding key of all. There it was! A C4-E4 M3 that beat so fast, that the beats were barely discernible. Yet the M3's B3-D#4 and C#4-F4 beat gently and the triads sounded sweet. That is not what would be expected if the piano had been tuned in a true ET!

If I wanted to take the time to do so, I could compile a list of numerical readings. I started doing that once for Pianotech when other technicians didn't believe me. After a couple dozen pianos, they said, "Enough already, we get your point!"

Sure, the first piano I had to tune today was out of tune due to seasonal conditions. It was a nice Mason & Hamlin grand used for music instruction. Any technician can tell if the last tuning was any good in spite of what humidity changes cause. If the previous temperament had really been equal, would it have somehow morphed into reverse well? Would my EBVT somehow morph the opposite way into quasi ET? I don't think so.

So, if you will take me seriously, I will create a new post concerning Reverse Well. I surely don't want to see that you challenge everything I say with disbelief and contradiction just for the sake of it. Let me know how you think I should approach it.

My comprehension must be lower than every body's...but the sense I get from all this appears to be yours is right and every body's is wrong..... and you have a large organization and an untold list of people who agree... [/quote]



I don't think it was meant the way you perceived it. I think he was responding to Peter Sumner's concern that beginners are not focusing enough on the basics before they move on to other techniques. I think they were in the process of resolving this ugly battle.

Hi Ron,

let me start by saying that I very much like your open-minded attitude and your curiousness. I also really appreciate your educational skills - I've watched your youtube videos, and I've learned a lot from them.

Hope I can give something in return by making the thumbnails - as well as the links the refer to - available here. This forum seems to have a limit of 10 pics per post, so I have to split it up into several posts.

All links are courtesy of Jason Kanter (www.rollingball.com).

WELL (1 of 3):

WELL (...cont'd, 2 of 3)

WELL (...cont'd, 3/3)

VICTORIAN WELL:

MODERN WELL (1 of 2):

MODERN WELL (cont'd, 2/2):



--- all above links courtesy of Jason Kanter at www.rollingball.com ---

Thanks pppat,

So here are graphs of Well and Reverse Well temperaments.



The effect of a Reverse Well temperament on the music composed for Well temperament is disastrous, it will destroy all the mood intended by the composer when choosing a key.

It would be like playing in F# Major Bach's Well Tempered Clavier Prelude N° 1 originally written in C major.

Ok I trust you - I like to have links for references but have no reason not to trust you.

But with All EDT I have used (practically all of them) , when I am listening I can't see the spinner,and I always have felt a delay betwenn what I had at hand with my ears and what the spinner was showing. In that case it have to do with the movement that is reproduced by the screen (at how many frames /second ?) or the delay needed by the circuitry.

I was really tracing that to a speed difference in our perceptions.
Those libks or reference should certainly help me there to make up my mind , certainly test have been done with a visual and an auditive signal comparative, then asking for a reflex (I recall having see a similar test but it was long time ago, the hand was way slower for a visual reflex than for an auditive one (something about driving a car I guess)

The main problem is that the moment of tone we have to work with while tuning unisons is not treated by the EDT fast enough, and as we take some kind of hearing rythhm while tuning for pitch we may well develop a tendancy to listen at the same speed when tuning unison (not backed up , just an idea) usually the hearing may switch to another mode for unisons.

I agree there is not a "huge problem" of visualization or hearing with EDT, those are only side effects, but they may give a less than optimum habit to a student if he is not well driven by a more advanced tuner.

Bill , may be you should consider buying a Zomm H2 or similar recording device that fit in the pocket. The you could give us samples of the infamous "reverse Well".

It is due to non tempering of the first 5ths, if I understand well. The same may happen here based on A's most probably then.

many beginning tuners have problems setting the size of the first octave, certainly. lack of stability will also lower the first plain wire more because they have less tension (similar loss of tension will give higher pitch change)

On cheap pianos or spinets with high iH(the ones that are more prone to be tuned by beginners) the high iH of this region push the ear to naturally stretch the fifths more.

Hence the interest for ladder of M3ds as a foundation, of course, using a larger span for tempering also helps by using more intervals in a more moderate iH zone, to better temper the whole zone.

I've find it very instructive to use a 2 octaves temperament with ladder of 3ds, because it shows pretty well where are the effects of iH and what they push you to (when you have nicely progressive thirds and you discover that the 5th behavior is changing thru the break.

Bill:

I see you and me as a pair of old alley cats sometimes, which is perfectly OK, except when we keep the neighborhood up at night with our yowling. If nothing else, we could try to practice civility in a Reverse Well Topic.

The drug effectiveness analogy seems to be a good one. If the “Quackmatic” drug company says that their experience shows that one of their products is effective, wouldn’t you want to know if an independent testing facility agrees? Especially if you have doubts because the drug they are promoting is for an illness that nobody else mentions.

So you say there is a prevalence of a certain tuning error, but I do not hear about this from others. But we can really just leave that aside and look at how a certain sequence causes a certain error. If it is as you say (which is anecdotal, and cannot be proven to be untrue) there should be a cause and effect that we can look at.

So, yes, can you please start a new Topic that shows what the sequence is that tuners use to create a Reverse Well Temperament? It would probably be best to remain objective and not mention that you think it sounds awful (it may sound wonderful to others). You know like Joe Friday, “Just the Facts, Ma’am.”

Thank you very much for that Raphael. I did not know there was a reverse well graph on Jason Kanter's website. It is interesting that the one you show came from 1808.

There are any number of technicians who say that they have from time to time tuned one non-ET or another, just for themselves and sometimes even a client but they inevitably returned to ET. All well and good. If someone wants to try an experiment, maybe they should try the reverse well that you posted. Just enter the figures from the graph in the "temperament" page of the ETD and tune the piano to that. Now try any piece in any key but keep a barf bag handy because you will need it!

Now, the EBVT III is a very mild WT. None of the deviations from ET are very large and that is what permits it to be used for any and all music. Anyone can create a rather typical reverse-well model by simply taking the correction figures for the EBVT and transposing them either up or down 1/2 step.

Instead of the intended enhancement of all music, what you would get is a kind of confused, out of focus harmony. Where you would expect harmoniousness, you would get a slightly harsh edge (like I heard from the piano at the church in Los Angeles at Christmas time). Where you expect energy, power and boldness, you would get a lifeless sound.

It could still be perceived as more or less "equal" as the EBVT III usually is. Even piano technicians often say they really can't tell what the difference is when they hear music played in the EBVT III but they usually also say the piano does sound good. Only when they play intervals the way they would to test for ET do they clearly hear that the EBVT III is different.

So, a "reverse EBVT III", if you will, would simply present a state of mild confusion. You wouldn't be able to distinguish one key very well from the other. That is what happens with most reverse well tunings and the reason they go unrecognized for what they are. They are not really ET and they don't really help the music sound better but they are usually not so bad as to completely destroy the music. If the unisons and octaves sound good, the pianist and listeners simply accept the sound as the usual.

From what I have observed, many people, all over North America and perhaps all over the world have become accustomed to the sound of a mild reverse well and have never known anything but that. The absolute reverse image of a well temperament of course is never deliberately constructed. The temperament is more likely to just be "kind of, sort of, pretty even" but the beat rates of the M3s in C, F and G are always the fastest and those of F#, B and D-flat are always the slowest.

[quote=Kamin][quote=Emmery]



In this respect, two people with reasonably good vision will still see and interpret a spinner on an ETD pretty well the same way and will get similar results. It does not pass through ears that filter what is being heard before processing. But with All EDT I have used (practically all of them) , when I am listening I can't see the spinner,and I always have felt a delay between what I had at hand with my ears and what the spinner was showing. In that case it have to do with the movement that is reproduced by the screen (at how many frames /second ?) or the delay needed by the circuitry.[quote]



That is one advantage to the LED display that the SAT uses.
I prefer the Verituner calculations but I use the SAT for pitch raises, partly because the lights are perceived by the brain as quickly as the sound is, without the delay like the LCD and its much faster. I love both devices for different reasons.

I would be excited to see an invention like an LED Cube. A very small box with nothing but a circular LED light display and a Blue Tooth for connecting to any of the other ETD's.

This is what I understand from what I read:

Most of the (or many) times, Bill, you realize that a tuner has not tuned ET, when he/she was meant to, so being expected by the customer. Instead of ET, some Revers Well happened to be tuned.

I Ask:

1) Leave piano and seasonal reasons aside, what do you think the cause may be? The school? The tuner's way?

You Bill are promoting and hoping to spread EBVT. Yet, I'm not sure about what is motivating you. Yes, I have an idea, but I can not really clear it up. Maybe you can help me with some breaf and simple feedback:

2) Are you doing this because you think EBVT is easy to tune, or easyer than ET?
3) Are you doing this because you think EBVT sounds better than true ET?
4) Do you think ET, when true ET, produces a sterile sound?
5) Do you think ET, when true ET, produces non-interesting harmony?
6) When you met Stopper, did you compare your EBVT tuning with Stopper's ETD or aural tuning? Did you mature a personal preference?
7) Do you think ETD tuning of EBVT would result in better overall sound than ETD tuning of true ET?
8) Considering the loss of "in tuning", caused by playing and all other factors, have you got any clue, from tests or experience, about EBVT's decay, compared with true ET's decay?

Best regards, a.c.

.

It looks as if the "reverse well tempering" is approximately a well tempering transposed down a half a step. If a well tempering is desirable, then this would be a desirable tempering for a singer who routinely transposes that way.

That is the crux of the both the advantage and the problem with unequal temperaments. They are not the same for all keys. Sometimes you want a key that sounds worse to sound better.

I look at my job as if it were to provide a gesso base for a painter. The painting might look better if it were not white, but it might look worse, too. That decision should not be up to me: it is up to the painter.

If I try to recall what I've heard as a piano player before I started tuning, and combine that with what I've learned after (much due to great help from all of you at this forum!), I have a theory...

I think Bill's idea of reverse well is to be taken seriously, because the ramifications of that kind of temperament - in combination with dutyfully following the theory of ET - has very unpleasant side effects. I have to admit that I also have found myself guilty as charged several times... This is what I feel that happens:

• Something - be it a wide F3-F4 to begin with, or favoring 5ths in the sequence, results in a wider than desired C4-E4 third.
  
  
• The ET mantra - "beat rates should progress" - forces the tuner to make C#4-F4 and G#3-F4 beat faster than their neighboring intervals a half step below (C4-E4, G#3-F4). What to do? raise F4.
  
  
• From there and on, there is no return. The ascending thirds will be very wide. Yes, you can say that this is a personal choice of stretch, but IMHO it sounds like crap. I really don't like that sound inside the harmonically important C3-C5 range.
  
  
• String players might adjust, but horn players get really mad. Especially trombone players, who have to force the very top of their register higher than anybody really would wish to hear
  
  
• I do not agree that ET would be some neutral status quo that would guarantee pianos to stay acceptable longer than UT-tuned pianos. This tweaked 4th octave is very sensitive to pitch changes due to outer factors. I've heard this many times - a week later the already too wide 3rds will often have raised even more, making the whole upper section of the most important harmonical range practically unusable.

I will start carrying my Zoom H4 with me, and when I encounter this kind of tuning, I'll post it here. Personally I'd like to LISTEN more in this forum!

There is really no need for a highly raised musical bar, this is one of the few forums where you aren't evaluated from your piano playing skills (thank you God )

Neither do the recordings have to be of above average quality. Todays digital possibilities makes it possible for us all to make decent recordings that very easily reveals temperament, stretch aso. There are several sites that will provide web space for posting, and linking to here.

So why not use the opportunity? "A 5 Mb sound file says more than a 1000 words..."

Hello, this was realy unclear to me, I made some search and find different places where reaction test have been made , here they state that the ear is twice as fast as the eye , the stimuli is treated twice as fast.
Here is the link :
http://www.springerlink.com/content/x513110157253135/

If new information have been find that say the opposite, and you have some references I like to read that as well.

That said I am of the auditive kind, (and kinesthetic) and not much of the visual kind so my case is may be different, but when tuning my ears are faster than my eyes which is evidence I guess.


Sorry if this is off topic, I wish I could move my posting on another thread it is another subject (EDT, sight and hearing)

if then, the fourth G#3 C#4 and above are too large and beat too much you have a mistake yet lower and it is not that difficult to check that before going farther.
Yes a beginner will tend to let the high end of the temperament beat too fast, as I stated yet the lower third is in a more pronounced iH zone on some pianos, and the thirds there are easely too slow (hence the mistake on the opposite).

Even the basic EDT tuning can provide too fast acceleration of thirds in that region because it compute based on iH (I dont know how to explain that but it happens)

If the tuner even the 3ds ladder by ear he will often have a very slightly slower progression at the beginning of the treble. the speed change is very little between the 2 ways but I have seen it. The edt reconcilitates the speed a little higher so to avoid too large double octave in octave 5.

But one can change the model used (VT100 )if he does not please him.

I agree with you about the recordings, I tune very little those days because I have large repairs going on. But I am expecting a recording for tomorrow.

Bye !

Why would an adjustment of F4 make the G#3-C#4 too wide? It's the 3rd (C#4-F4), the 6th (G#3-F4), and the 4th (C4-F4) that suffer.


With all due respect, Isaac, and without placing people over here onto any beginner-intermediate-advanced-pro scale, I can say that I've experienced this phenomenon myself, as well as heard it many times from 'pro tuners'.


Could you be more specific about your definition of 'the beginning of the treble'?