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Well vs. Equal Temperament (2000)

math.uwaterloo.ca

11–20 of 64 posts

Re: Well vs. Equal Temperament (2000)

#11
post #2

Does anyone have links to audio samples where these differences are prominent? In addition to comments, this video has a decent comparison using sawtooth tones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRlp-OH0OEA

Wendy Carlos released a 2nd version of her Bach Brandenberg Concertos that were done using period tuning on synthesizers including modulations. perhaps you can compare the two.

Re: Well vs. Equal Temperament (2000)

#12
post #8

Aside from temperament, I had my piano tuner claim to me that tuning pianos is actually more complicated than that. He said that the high end of the piano had to be tuned different from the low end, with some explanation like how the hammer strike bends the pitch of low vs high strings (I wish I could remember the specifics of what he said, but this was many years ago). I couldn't decide at the time if what he was sa…

I am certainly no expert either, but maybe your piano tuner was referring to the practice of "stretching" an octave:

The tuning described by the above beating plan provides a good approximation of equal temperament across the range of the temperament octave. If extended further, however, the actual tuning of the instrument becomes increasingly inaccurate because of inharmonicity, which causes harmonics to run slightly sharp, as increasingly higher tones in the harmonic series are reached. This problem is mitigated by "stretching" the octaves as one tunes above (and to an extent below) the temperament region. When octaves are stretched, they are tuned, not to the lowest coincidental overtone (second partial) of the note below, but to a higher one (often the 4th partial). This widens all intervals equally, thereby maintaining intervallic and tonal consistency.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_tuning#Stretch

Re: Well vs. Equal Temperament (2000)

#13
post #8

Aside from temperament, I had my piano tuner claim to me that tuning pianos is actually more complicated than that. He said that the high end of the piano had to be tuned different from the low end, with some explanation like how the hammer strike bends the pitch of low vs high strings (I wish I could remember the specifics of what he said, but this was many years ago). I couldn't decide at the time if what he was sa…

Traditionally (recent tradition), each note in the upper couple of octaves of a piano have been tuned slightly higher because it's supposed to sound better. Electronic pianos and other instruments don't seem to be tuned this way, so acoustic pianos are now being tuned this way less often.

Re: Well vs. Equal Temperament (2000)

#14
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went looking. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBt6APk21tU

Thank you. That is astounding. I wonder if there is any way to find music performed using original tunings. It sounds SO much better to me.

I know, it's amazing. Each example had my mouth agape.

For me, the closest analogy would be watching Japanese movies and TV shows being able to understand their original language as opposed to relying on subtitles or dubs; there's a whole dimension of nuance I was missing before I learned the language.

Re: Well vs. Equal Temperament (2000)

#16
post #2

Does anyone have links to audio samples where these differences are prominent? In addition to comments, this video has a decent comparison using sawtooth tones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRlp-OH0OEA

Wouldn't that be nice, rather than whining about numbers? It's an informative article, but the reality is that nobody cares . And I mean "nobody" in the approximate sense of 99.9% of music listeners. The reality is that our brains are more than happy to glue these nasty thirds to their hypothetical frequencies. Sure, they have a little roughness to them, but it's not a big deal, especially considering that most piano…

To make matters worse, or maybe better, most non keyboard instruments have no sensible temperament whatsoever. Even fretted instruments are a compromise.

Re: Well vs. Equal Temperament (2000)

#17
post #3

So this is interesting, I know a piano tuner who has tuned for countless famous artist. He was working on a project to record songs, like Beethoven, as someone would have heard it in his time.

Slightly off-topic, but because I love this topic so much: there is a wonderful documentary called Pianomania about a piano tuner ("piano technician", if you will) to the stars. The story centers around a good-natured piano tuner and his seemingly impossible task of translating the pianists' vaguely expressed desires into a well-tuned piano. As the movie illustrates, piano tuning is just as much about timbre as it is about pitch -- perhaps even more so!

As I discovered just now, the whole thing is available on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxEcifeMf08, only 1.5 hours, not 3 hours as the video incorrectly suggests].

Re: Well vs. Equal Temperament (2000)

#18
post #8

Aside from temperament, I had my piano tuner claim to me that tuning pianos is actually more complicated than that. He said that the high end of the piano had to be tuned different from the low end, with some explanation like how the hammer strike bends the pitch of low vs high strings (I wish I could remember the specifics of what he said, but this was many years ago). I couldn't decide at the time if what he was sa…

Yup. There's even a strange thing where as we get older, our perception of low tones changes so that music that sounds out of tune for an 18 year old sounds great to an 80 year old.
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