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Festival of Temperaments

Skip Becker, RPT in action making a "colorful tuning"
(Click on the picture for a better view - 130k).

Sunday morning will be a special treat at the 1998 Providence PTG Convention. For the fist time, Skip Becker and his troupe of musical tuners will present the "Temperament Festival".

First off will be a presentation of Historical Temperaments, a brief history of tuning, and some nifty demonstrations including aural musical temperament construction (Karen Hudson-Brown), the overtone series. Next, an innovative demonstration of the principles of Harmony ala Larry Crabb and a barbershop quartet. Paul Bailey and Bill Bremer will each be presenting temperaments of their own devise. We'll also be listening to extant recordings of ensembles with Historical tunings on the piano (there's always that question of does it go with other instruments?), and David Lamoreaux will share his studio experiences.

And we're having a competition, in which the audience will be able to vote their temperamental preferences. All in all, we're planning on using five pianos (that is to say five temperaments). Owen Jorgensen will discuss what to listen for, and during the course of the sessions we'll have two preliminary heats of three pianos each, followed by the big "temp-off" finale (heat winners).

Of course, this is an overly ambitious project--but then condensing the World of Musical Tuning into two 1.5 hour sessions is impossible to begin with. That particular ten gallons of milk just won't fit into two quarts. But rest assured, we'll be presenting nothing but the cream.

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