HT program

[Billbrpt@AOL.COM]

In a message dated 10/15/00 8:19:06 AM Central Daylight Time, 
istuner@islandia.is (Kristinn Leifsson) writes:

<< Hi Bill
 
 I CRAVE to see your evil tuning.  Come on, do you really expect your 
 "Equal-Beating Victorian Temperament" to survive its creator if you keep 
 going about things like you are, the negative way?  As I understand it, and 
 I have even been told so in private e-mails, you´re really good at what you 
 do.  You thereby have the basis for making something out of your invention.
 You have built something that you truly and honestly believe has great 
 quality to it, and you have the technical capability of showing it.
 I tell you what.  You agree to come over here to the seminar and present 
 your EBVT and perhaps I´ll agree to present the oh so highly diversified 
 LWKT. :) >>

Sorry to have confused you with my own style of humor which, admittedly, few 
people get.  I wasn't so sure you weren't joking, yourself.  One of my pet 
peeves is acronyms which aren't explained.  I have no idea what LWKT stands 
for.

As for me presenting the EBVT, be careful of what you wish for.  I designed 
my own temperament and octave combination about 9 years ago because my search 
for a temperament that I could really be satisfied and comfortable with did 
not exist.  I did, however, find license to create my own from Owen 
Jorgensen's book, section 73 where it showed that 18th Century tuners 
frequently took patterns which were in use at the time and adjusted them to 
suit their own personal taste.

Being an experienced piano technician all of my adult life and musician since 
childhood, I believed I had a good sense for what the "contemporary ear" 
could and would accept.  While most tuners thought only in terms of ET, I 
recognized long ago that most, particularly aural tuners, were only capable 
of an approximation at best and very often produced a blatantly unequal 
temperament.  It is not uncommon to find someone's attempt at ET having a 
combination of pure 5ths and tempered 5ths, tempered enough to have a 2-3 
beat per second "wow-wow-wow" to them.  The 3rds can also range from pure or 
nearly pure to the sourest sounding, 40 cent wide nightmare you have ever 
heard but all claimed to be and *believed* firmly to be ET.

Unfortunately, it is a difficult task to point this out to someone.  It 
"attacks" their very foundation of personal security.  Although it does no 
necessarily have to nor is it intended to, it often means to such a person 
that "everything they always believed is now wrong".  As you can imagine, 
this most often creates a highly defensive posture.

The EBVT is designed to work within the tolerance that most people have for 
irregularity within the temperament but to focus that irregularity upon the 
Cycle of 5ths, thus giving the temperament the kind of "color" that a typical 
Well-Tempered Tuning of the 19th Century would have had.

Additionally, the Equal-Beating (EB) phenomenon is used to make the 
temperament amazingly easy to tune by ear and get accurate easily and every 
time.  EB also creates an acoustical "trick", a canceling out effect which 
makes triads at the top of the Cycle of 5ths sound purer than they really are 
in a musical context.  Since the 3rds at the top of the Cycle of 5ths are 
only moderate, rather than being pure or nearly pure, the inevitable 
harshness of too wide (and sour sounding) 3rds at the bottom of the Cycle is 
avoided.

This unique temperament scheme is coupled with an equally unique EB octave 
tuning system which is also easily done by ear with the kind of consistency 
usually only expected from an electronic tuner.  It uses the piano's own 
inharmonicity and limitations imposed by tempering to create the kind of 
octaves that produce amazing, ear-opening clarity and the most uncanny, 
pleasing resonance from the piano you have ever heard.

Any kind of music that is normally played on a piano tuned in ET can be 
played on a piano tuned in the EBVT.  If a side by side comparison is made of 
a piano tuned in the usual way and the EBVT, most people seem to be somehow 
drawn to the sound created by the EBVT.  They find it pleasing, captivating, 
interesting and universally palatable and will most often prefer it over the 
usual ET.  This has been my experience for all of these years and it was 
confirmed both at the Convention in Providence and at a Chicago Chapter 
meeting last year. 

In both cases, the Golden Hammer Award winning and most highly esteemed aural 
tuning technician of all, Virgil Smith RPT was the person presenting the 
piano tuned in ET.  Even though Virgil had always expressed dislike of 
anything but ET in the past, at these events, even he was impressed with what 
I had done.

So, from this accounting, you might be thinking that this is something you 
would really want to learn about but there is always a down side to 
everything.  There will always be those who do not want to hear, read about 
or even acknowledge the existence of anything but ET.  As far as they are 
concerned, any HT demonstration only proves why ET is the only way to tune a 
piano.

Even though I was asked to present this at the last Convention, I decided not 
to for several reasons.  For starters, I had an opportunity to participate in 
a musical event elsewhere which to me was much more gratifying than going to 
the Convention to face the scowl and contempt that I knew would be awaiting 
me there.  Even though there were many people who wrote of their interest and 
have since then requested information, by my estimation, for every one that 
wanted to hear what I had to offer, there were and still are at least 3 who 
don't even want to see it on the schedule.  Furthermore, there would not have 
been the opportunity to hear it in performance and even if there had been, 
that in itself may have created unprecedented turmoil.

Not that I didn't expect any of this but I am often accused of many things 
and attacked on many fronts.  Even to express this will and has lead any 
number of people to "psychoanalyze" me, sometimes complete with a diagnosis 
and prescription.  Let's see...thinks of himself or his accomplishments as 
more important than they really are...feels persecuted...exhibits antisocial 
behavior...avoids social contact...frequently attacks others without 
provocation...etc....  I have people writing anonymous notes to me all the 
time suggestion that my "medication" needs to be adjusted.

Believe me, it's all very amusing to me but nothing that hasn't happened to 
anyone else who has ever tried to come up with something unique and which 
doesn't seem to follow other's "unwritten rules".

Ed Foote answered your question and actually gave a good answer, the kind 
that most HT advocates would offer:  Thomas Young #1 and maybe a Meantone for 
contrast.  Many, many times I have been told, "Play safe, don't "shock" them. 
 Be humble or the confidence you have in yourself and your abilities may be 
seen as arrogance."  If you are giving this seminar at a university, this is 
what is expected, something out of a book, something *historically* 
documented, polite and understated.  I, on the other hand, will do none of 
that and thus am immediately vulnerable to the "who do you think you are?" 
kind of cross examination.

So, the choice is yours.  Do what Ed Foote says and prove to everyone that 
yes, the piano can make some, well...interesting sounds, ahem...if tuned in 
one of the myriad of available bizarre alternatives (but we'll continue to 
use ET, thank you),  or ask me to show you what I know how to do.  I would 
not at all be surprised if the "wisdom" of the university faculty would want 
to hear what's in the books over what some kook of doubtful sanity from the 
Capital City of kookiness, Madison, Wisconsin has to offer.

E-mail me with the details of your event if you are interested.  I don't know 
when it is and chances are, it may conflict with rehearsal and performance 
dates which are firm and under contract on my calendar.  In any case, I am 
flattered by your interest.

Bill Bremmer RPT
Madison, Wisconsin