[Harp-L] more temperment

[Jonathan Ross <jross38@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Vern asked:

"Is it true that ET is used whenever the same instrument is used to  
play in different keys because JT in one key isn't JT in others?"


As Tim pointed out, the question is one of what the instrument is  
capable of.  If we are to assume most fixed-pitch instruments, then  
the majority today are tuned to 12TET.  However, there are many other  
non-equal temperments which could be used instead of a pure Just  
Intonation (or something similarly austere such as the various mean- 
tone tunings) and even other numbers of equal temperment (such as  
19TET, which fits Western theory better than 12TET in many ways).   
While these temperments are better for certain keys than others, most  
are intended to be useable in all keys.


Slim asks:

"Harmonica content: I'm trying to imagine what a physical-modeled bass
harmonica would sound like with gigantic reeds... ;-)"


Like any physically modeled synthesizer--interesting for itself.   
However, I've tuned free reeds in the 32' range which are truly  
enormous, and they basically sounded like any other free reed, just  
louder.

Bob Laughlin writes:

"I am not a piano tuner, but took three semesters of piano tuning and
regulation at a local community college. We were taught that the  
piano was
tuned Justly until the time of Beethoven, at which time they began  
tuning
the piano in equal temperament, to avoid the "wolf tone" that  
resulted from
certain keys being played, ones that the piano was not intended to  
play in."


Then you were taught very badly.  From before Bach's time most  
keyboard instruments were tuned to a variation of mean-tone, which is  
not a pure system but rather a form of temperment.  During the late  
Baroque period (Bach's era and slightly before) many systems of  
tempering the octave were tried (Werkmeister, etc...) which tried to  
spread the wolf tones out more evenly across the range and thus be  
better suited to the increasingly chromatic music which was being  
played.  12TET was one of the systems then being advanced, but  
certainly not the only one and probably not the most prominent one.   
By Beethoven's time we still see these various temperments in use,  
and the debate over what was best was still quite unresolved.  This  
is best seen by the primary fixed-pitch instrument of the time, and  
the one hardest to change: the organ.  Here 12TET didn't really  
become the norm until well into the 18th century (1840's or so in the  
US and probably France, with at least one prominent English firm  
still using meantone as late as the 1870's--the English having a well  
deserved reputation for conservativism).  This was in response to the  
highly chromatic music of the Romantic period, where weighting of  
keys was not at all wanted.

The discussion of piano tuning is interesting.  I can only talk about  
how my company tunes organs, as others do differently.  We tend to  
set the middle octave using an electronic tuner, and then we clean it  
up.  By this I mean we check the fourths and fifths of each note of  
the middle octave and adjust their beats so as to be more regular  
than tuning to the electronic tuner usually allows for (for various  
reasons--the human ear is a better judge than a mathematical program,  
IMO).  We then go up and down in octaves from the middle, again  
checking fourths and fifths as well.  This is for 12TET, of course.   
When tuning to something else we use the system of checks which make  
sense for that temperment (ie, if the first four fifths are beatless,  
we tune and check those, etc...).





 ()()    JR "Bulldogge" Ross
()  ()   & Snuffy, too:)
`----'