Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum EBVT - Ok, I'll come right out and say it

Ryan,

I commend you for have the courage to post your tuning here for everyone to see and to hear! It takes a lot of guts to post your tuning here. Again, I commend you for doing so and everyone else that has and does post them!

Indeed you did! You didn't indicate that the piano was recently tuned, so I was paying attention to the sound of the piano and not the tuning. Anyway, many of us have posted samples of our work, shortcomings and all. I think it's a healthy exercise.

Ryan,

I should have put a after my comment. I am relieved the piano on the recording hadn't just been tuned. And yes, there is a definite difference after each key change.

Hi Ryan,

I think it's great that you include the recorded examples of your work.

I would like to make a suggestion, however. This is a suggestion and not a criticism.

You have the examples tied to your professional web site. I have not encountered that before and think it is a very clever idea. Keep in mind that it is accessable to your customers and those searching for a tuner. Make sure that the examples are A-1 perfect. May I suggest a more controlled recording. "Old Time Religion" could have been rockin'. The pianist is well meaning, and quite adequate for the task, but.....

Do you have any clients who have a bit more mastery of the piano who would be willing to do a recording gig? Barter with a free tuning. Since it is on your site, and not just for this forum, it really needs to sparkle!

With all good intentions,

Thanks for the nice words, guys.

Marty, Putting recording on my site is only an idea I came up with a couple of weeks ago, so I have just started to make and collect recordings. I will be making some more and hopefully getting some more "flashy" songs. I mainly just posted that one to be able to link to it here as an example of hearing the difference between key signatures in EBVT. I admit, it was not the best tuning or version of the song. I like the idea though of the recordings being regular everyday people playing their pianos and not a perfect polished studio recording. I plan on posting the persons name to it as well. Here in my area, pretty much rural, where it seems everyone knows everyone else, or at least is their cousin, I believe it will help new customers to see the name of people they know, both on recordings as well as my testimonial page.

So, thanks for your comments, I appreciate them. My full time job is teaching teenagers to sing all day, so I am not easily offended. LOL!!!!

Hi Kees (long time no see... I've been pre-occupied with non-tuning stuff this last year )

If your temperament is kind of a shifted Lehman, it should be possible to tune it aurally, too, shouldn't it? Correct me if I'm wrong. I'd like to give it a shot aurally at some point.

"Me too" would be an understatement for me. It's nice to know however that if I'd lose my job or retire I know what I want to do then: become a real piano technician!

Of course.

It's a reversed Lehman, i.e., reading the loops as-is, assuming triple loops represent the narrowest fifths, double loops the moderately narrow fifths, and single loops pure fifths. Because the scribble (my icon), interpreted this way, does not close, there is one fifth that is not determined. I assume this to be the "joker", which you can use to sweep your tuning errors under, provided they are small enough. In my mathematical calculation of the resulting temperament I assume no junk under the carpet.

Aurally I tune it like this:

1) Tune F3A3 a touch wider than in a 1/6' meantone. This is about 4 bps. A little narrower (up to 0 bps!) or wider (up to 5 bps, haven't tried 6 yet) is fine. ( I don't believe an absolute temperament is specified.)

2) Tetrasect FA into 4th and 5ths according to Lehman/Bremmer method. This give you CGD. (Tune notes CGD such that FC CG GD and DA are equally "bad".)

3) Now tune E so that GD beats as AE (err on the faster beating AE side of course).

4) Tune B pure to E
Tune Bb pure to F
Tune Eb pure to Bb
Tune Ab pure to Eb

5)
Tune C# and F# so that C#G# F#C# and B F# are the same (they should be about off as in ET (1/13' instead of 1/12' actually, don't think this is an audible difference). THis is a trisection of the m3 G#B.

Done.

Kees

Thanks Kees, what you describe is exactly the way I was going to tune it - good to get this confirmation from you beforehand!

I will try this after the convention and see how I like it. I really like what I've heard of the Lehman, but I (as you yourself, from what I see) have a problem with the "color scheme" being shifted from what I would expect from a WT.

The other thing I will try is Bernhards Stopperstimmung -I have been planning that for a year but time hasn't permitted me to do any explorations at all.

Sorry... I just had to post this!!

Wow Ryan, you hit the nail on the head! It's so true, that I cannot add any more positives to it!

Once again, I had nothing to do whatsoever with what looks to me like a promotional graphic. I have strictly avoided the mention of the name of the temperament I developed in most of my recent posts. I never put put my own name as a label of any kind on what I do. I don't "sell" my material to anyone. I have suggested people explore virtually any non-equal temperament. Ironically however, the best "advertising" I have ever profited from has been by those who say that what I do would not work, could not work and should not be tried. So to that, I say, keep it coming. You are doing me a favor from which you will never profit but I will.

See to me, a C major triad in ET just sounds ghastly. I find that more of a "wolf" than anything I hear in EBVT. "In tune" is definitely subjective, as someone else correctly pointed out.

OK so tune your C major triad perfectly. It will sounds great.

Next play a C major scale. It won't sound good. In particular the E is lower than any singer would intonate.

So melody and harmony are have different requirements. In medieval times there was only melody and Pythagorean tuning ruled. This is still true in all non-western musics. And ET is an excellent approximation of Pythagorean temperament.

Harmony changes everything and now we care about intervals, mainly M3. Why? Because in ET P5 is almost perfect but M3 is awful. Look up the beat rates.

How to balance melodic and harmonic demands with just 12 keys is an art. ET is the mean of all those arts over all keys, but taking into account that keys are treated differently by all composers except the Viennese atonal school, the average should presumably be weighted taking into account common use, and this leads to WT.

Pro tuners resist because it requires them to expand their skill set. It is very comforting to learn to tune ET and then pretend there is no need to learn more and just tune.

Kees

This is what I have suspected for a while, now, after hashing through some of these contentious threads...

And from a practical point of view they are probably right.

They can fly in Bill Bremmer if they really want EBVT3, or me if they want Bach13 (as has happened on one occasion).

Kees

[edit]: Can they fly in Kamin, too? (You are too witty for me, Kees! ) [/edit]

So... Practically speaking? Chuch Belknap managed to tune a very pleasant, recognizable EBVT III aurally, recently, and proved it. Jerry Groot, Patrick Wingren and Inlanding (Glen) tuned it, too, and proved it. Grandpianoman continues to tune fine EBVT III with an ETD, and Roy Peters did it that way, too.

Personally, I like open-minded tuners who, if I would happen to say, "I'd like to try Bach13 this time," would say, "Sure thing! Coming right up!"

--Andy

Kees, I agree that in ET, 3rds are awful. We are used to it. We're used to awful. I love smooth, musical 3rds. I also love clean 5ths. I know we can't have both and still expect to be able to play western music, but my ear pulls me toward those musical 3rds.

Just yesterday, Bill wrote that the sound of ET major keys is the same as A Major in a WT. So, if ET M3s are awful, do you find that A major in EBVT-III sounds "awful" too? And if it does, what about those remote keys? They are even less "smooth and musical" than A Major. By that measure, E Major should actually sound gruesome, B Major horrific, and F# major should be a right-down ghastly emetic.

Again, I ask:

How is it that busy M3s are called "spicy" when they form part of a WT, but even 14 cent M3s are called "awful" when they form part of ET?

On the other hand, if A Major sounds fine in EBVT-III, pray tell, why do you call it "awful" in ET?

If A major sounds fine in EBVT-III, then by Bill's words it is just as fine in ET. And again by Bill's words: seeing that all keys sound like A major in ET, I conclude that ET sounds fine!

(I've never seen anyone avoid A Major in a WT just because it has that "awful ET sound".)

I just like smooth 3rds. In a WT at least many of the keys are significantly smoother, leading me to hear a more musical sound overall.

This could be the defining difference that determines a persons "innate" bias towards what temperament sound turns them on.

Over the years I've noticed great variablity between individual musician', attraction to, and/or tolerance of sounds based on and defined by fifths, and octaves, as opposed to sounds defined more by thirds.

Although there might be a glitch in this theory, as though impressionists like Debussy use lush piles of thirds, I still prefer to hear his music with the even acceptably quiet fifth of ET. On the other hand, though his music piles up the thirds, the thirds are not used in common practice harmonic constructions, based on the cycle of fifths, leading one tonal region to the next...they are more static, "eastern", and don't necessarily leed you anywhere tonally... they are just lush sounds.

Just thinkin' out loud

Jim Ialeggio