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I would not know what a "conventional amount of stretch" would be. Nor do I know what the difference would be between equal temperament and any given interval in any given non-equal temperament without more information. I also cannot tell whether a temperament is tuned correctly or incorrectly without more than one chord. I cannot tell what any sort of effect is supposed to be without knowing whether whatever it is I am supposed to be listening to is in the instrument or in the recording, nor whether it is an intended effect or a flaw in the instrument or in the recording.

Last week the pianist at the show enjoyed playing the top notes of the piano so much that at one point he made like he wanted to play above C8. How often has that happened to you?

BDB, that happens to piano players all the time. That's why we are complaining about sore right hands...

I guess you'll never get it then BDB.



Happens all the time, BDB.

No, I guess I will never get it, especially when there does not seem to be anything to get.

Well, it's up to the piano player then, isn't it?

I just tuned a couple of grands for exams - all of them in EBVT III, except for the one used for my ET/EBVTIII test in Alfredo's post.

Seems to me like you got it, Patrick. I am very much looking forward to meeting you in Las Vegas about a month from now. If you really want to take the tuning exam, I believe you are as ready as anyone could be to do so!

Thank you Bill, and likewise - It will be an honor to meet you IRL (as my kids abbreviate In Real Life ) Wouldn't be anywhere without your dedication to putting your findings down in writing.

I'm confident enough nowadays to have adapted a new approach - starting a month ago, I don't tune ET unless it's specifically asked for

It was suggested over in the Pianist Forum, to have an A-B test of the 2 temperaments, ET and EBVT III, using a player piano system in order to have the 2 songs virtually identical in interpretation.

I have been able to use 3 original .wav files for this. Here is the first selection. I have also posted this over in the Pianist Forum.

1.ET E.Reed Jazz Piano mp3 http://www.box.net/shared/r7m31kughz

2.ET E.Reed Jazz Piano .wav http://www.box.net/shared/sp2e1mo86e


1.EBVT III E.Reed Jazz Piano mp3 http://www.box.net/shared/pjlyfhc3g8

2.EBVT III E. Reed Jazz Piano .wav http://www.box.net/shared/izmurcf9el

What I hear there is an absolutely ugly tuning, a temptative to an ET wich thave no tone, ans sound close, mufled, almost dead musiclaly speaking. I trace it to abad listening to the singing quality of the intervals while tuning, or a method for setting the pin that allow the piano to drift.
whatever, it tones ugly.
.

Then a tuning with a nice opening of treble and other intervals, that automatically giove some aire and light in the tone.

To me it have not much to do with the justness, which is so so but with the partials relation that when mixing niçcely togethyer, add some sparkle.

In that sense=' the second tunings tone way better. it does not mean it is due to EBCT, unless the way the treble and bass are expended is considered part of the EBVT temperament.

But I dopnt want to argue.

I have no much inclination for those musicals in any case , I receibe enough thru the TV and you know where they come from...

Lets be it.

I have work

Best regads to all

No, of course it wouldn't have anything to do with EBVT... not as long as it sounds good, otherwise you would surely have blamed the temperament


Just for the record, "Everything happens to me" (played in this example) is not from a musical, it's a jazz standard written by Matt Dennis for Frank Sinatra w/ the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, 1941.

Lovely ballad, played by jazz artists all over the world (including Eric Reed), to this day and on. Much in the same way as 'the standard of standard tunes', Autumn Leaves ('Les feuilles mortes') - originating from France, made popular in the U.S.A. much due to Miles Davis' love for that song.

I consider the way the octaves are tuned to be just as important as the temperament. An ETD program can't tune the octaves correctly for any well temperament, not just the EBVT, in my opinion. The ETD program will work for a Meantone but not correctly for Well Temperament.

Can you expand on that Bill? I do not understand why that would be so. 4:1, 2;1, 4:2 and 6:3 octaves should not care about the temperament. I do see that you can't blindly throw 3:1 in the mix because of the unequal fifths.

Kees

It is because I tune double octaves and octave-fifths equal beating. Since the fifths are all of different sizes, a smooth stretch curve will not accomplish that.

I'm glad this came up again. I've been meaning to ask.

I understand that your octave method is appropriate for EBVT, EBVT III, ET, and other modern tunings.

Would the tuners of old routinely use the same method that you do to set octaves with any well temperament?

Thanks,
-Joe

I understand EBVT is designed for this, but if you'd apply this to Vallotti or WM3 for example the fifths would change size and you'd end up with a different temperament in the upper/lower octaves. Is that your intention? It may be a good thing, I'd like to think more about it.

Instruments of old had negligible inharmonicity and octaves were tuned beatless (2:1 = 4:2 = 6:3).

Kees

Thanks Kees!

Sorry, I laughed at this. How would older instruments have negligible inharmonicity? Were they made with perfect strings of near-zero diameter? Maybe I'm missing something here but this seems totally incorrect to me. Yes maybe some modern instruments are designed to have more inharmonicity... although I'm not sure why, but all pianos and harpsichords ever have bad inharmonicity, and so their tuners would have had to deal with it.
My guess is good tuners of old would have tried to tune octaves in such a way to produce a good sounding piano as a whole. Whether they would have quantified this octave in a particular way is difficult to tell.

I have instruments in my client base from the 1800’s that have plenty of poor mathematics in the scale.

I am glad I you find this amusing.

I was talking baroque harpsichord. Very thin strings, low tension makes low inharmonicity. iH is caused by bending stiffness. A hpschd string is like a hair compared to a piano string. The only reason piano strings have relatively high iH is because they are thick. They are thick because people want the piano to be loud. High iH is an unfortunate side-effect.

I tried to measure for you but the iH is too small to be measurable by tunelab.

Kees

The only reason that piano strings are a larger diameter than harpsichord strings is because people want the piano to have more volume?

If this was actually true then why didn’t they just install larger diameter strings in the harpsichord to begin with?

I will have to let the good folks who actually manufacture pianos know that they have been wasting their time all along……