Temperament / Key Character / Tuning
Discussions - Part 7

Continue from Part 6

"Johann Sebastian Bach and Temperament" by Ibo Ortgies

Zachary Uram wrote (September 14, 2020):
https://www.academia.edu/12643340/Johann_Sebastian_Bach_and_Temperament?email_work_card=view-paper

Unequal Temperaments 4^th edition -----

Claudio Di Veroli wrote (September 8, 2017):
Our 3rd edition (2013) of the Unequal Temperaments eBook was Bray Baroque's best-seller ever, and we are committed to keep introducing improvements every few years. We have just launched our 4^th edition, which includes all the material we have been adding to our "Errata and Addenda" document, which will be always available for owners of the 3rd edition.

Full information about this book is provided in the Unequal Temperaments website: http://temper.braybaroque.ie/ , where a full detail of enhancements for the 4th edition can be read in http://temper.braybaroque.ie/new.html .

I wish to express my deep gratitude to the Medieval- and Renaissance-music scholar Margo Schulter, who provided quite a few valuable suggestions that have been incorporated into this edition. I have also to thank the tuning expert Paul Poletti for a clever suggestion about the tuning of some meantone variants.

"Johann Sebastian Bach and Temperament" by Ibo Ortgies

Zachary Uram wrote (September 14, 2020):
https://www.academia.edu/12643340/Johann_Sebastian_Bach_and_Temperament?email_work_card=view-paper

WELL TEMPERED / Temperament

Sara Manobla wrote (April 7, 2021):
I am a new member of BML - so let me briefly introduce myself. I have played the piano from age 7, and fell in love with Bach starting with the Anna Magdalena notebook. Wanting to play with other instrumentalists I took up the flute at age 15 and enjoyed playing chamber music and in amateur orchestras for many years, at an intermediate level. My working career was in broadcast journalism. Then at age 65, on retirement, I took up the cello. Playing the piano I had never given a thought to playing "in tune" or "out of tune": all I had to do was to call the piano tuner. But playing a string instrument opened up for me a whole new world of tuning and temperament. Open strings, octaves and fifths - no problem. But what about thirds and fifths and leading note sevenths? Perfect pitch and relative pitch? Equal temperament, well-temperament, mean temperament? And what was this pythagorean comma that I came across? After some serious arguments with my piano tuner I began googling and soon found Bradley Lehman and his work on Bach and the spiral image on the title page of the Well Tempered Clavichord. It seemed very reasonable and answered a lot of my questions. But was this the answer to my question about playing in tune with other instruments. It seemed that equal temperament would apply in essence only to an instrument played solo, or perhaps to an ensemble where all the instruments are tuned to the same temperament. There's no way a piano organ could be tuned anew each time in order to play a different piece of music, or with a different instrumentalist, or in a different key. Equal temperament was clearly the answer for modern performance. Bradley Lehman's insights are indeed thought provoking and helpful, but leave a lot of questions unanswered. Perhaps there is no one answer. Perhaps it's all a matter of compromise. Your thoughts!

William Fischer wrote (April 9, 2021):
[To Sara Manobla] Welcome to the group! I just joined recently myself.

First, the book recommendation, though I would not be surprised if someone else has already sent it to you:
Stuart Isacoff, Temperament: How Music Became a Battleground for the Great Minds of Western Civilization

My daughters gave me the book some years ago, and indeed it is good reading. But after reading it I have no urge to find out anything more about the subject, though maybe to improve my practical vocal skills.

As for the instruments we play: As a child I had a few years of piano lessons, but did not drink so deeply at that spring as you did. I plink around every now and then, and wish I were better at piano. But I am eternally thankful to Mrs. Kinney (RIP) for giving me the basics of notation, keyboard, and such, at an age early enough that they can be acquired without great pain. I value particularly a familiarity with treble clef.

If that seems an odd comment, let me explain. In fifth grade, back when public school music programs were stronger, I chose trombone as my instrument. Of course piano had given me bass clef, so I was ahead of the many other kids who could not read music at all. Familiarity with treble clef helped me in three ways:

1) If I wanted to play the melody on piano scores, but on my trombone, that was easy. In effect I was transposing, though for some time I did not even think about it - as indeed I was speaking in prose without knowing that until later.

2) Some of my friends who had chosen trumpet had trouble with notation and fingerings. So I could help them, though later - see next point - I had to re-adjust myself.

3) After a few years of trombone I accepted the band director’s invitation to switch to baritone horn. You may or may not be aware that baritone horn (and euphonium, but not tuba) music often comes in a bass clef version (to suit those coming to the instrument from trombone and its bass clef) and in a treble clef version (to suit those coming to the instrument, as a valved horn, from the valved trumpet). I chose to become a bass-clef baritone player, which meant that I had to convert my fingers and neural pathways and whatever from trumpet fingering, in B-flat, to C fingering. That happened as I kept wiggling my fingers for many hours in the back seat of our family car on a long trip to somewhere.

It’s great to be able to switch bass and treble clefs when I play my horn and any other tooter that comes into my hands, like a recorder. No doubt you know many flute players who do not read bass clef - and I doubt they have any need to, although some male flute players may know bass clef because they sing bass.

But I do encounter a certain problem here: When I read treble clef to play my horn along with, say, a piano, I just play those notes automatically. When I read a treble-clef part that is written for baritone horn, I have to transpose it down a full step. I can do that down to the level of quarter notes at moderate tempos, but beyond that it is a struggle.

You possibly know that some notes for euphonium (and, less often, trombone) are written in tenor clef. Here I get close to my limit! And every now and then we are handed a sax part where we have to read X clef and add a certain number of sharps / flats. OK with tonal music, to a certain extent, but otherwise a true pain.

Now back to temperament: As my children got into music I developed much compassion for beginning string teachers. Kids who take up keyed or valved instruments will get fairly near the pitch (though valve players may hit very wrong notes if their emboucheres are set wrongly). But a kid on a fiddle, even with fairly close finger position, will still often be painfully out of pitch - never mind temperament! Since I began as a trombone player, I belonged to the same group of hit-or-miss tonalists.

Only much later did I realize that musicians who play keyed/valved/fretted instruments also have to make slight adjustments for pitch. Not to mention the issue of temperament itself, or the much deeper cultural matters of microtonal music or “bended” notes in various styles. When I sing Schubert’s Ave Maria I have to be careful - White though I am - not to do a blues third in the penultimate lines. Since I know little of jazz and even less of blues, I have no idea why that is.

Probably much mothan you wanted to hear in response to your “about me” message, but still,

Welcome!

Our Bach Bach Cantata Choir will perform in Leipzig in June of 2022, postponed from 2020. We were also there in 2018.

Sara Manobla wrote (April 10, 2021):
[To William Fischer] This message is primarily one of thanks to Bill Fischer for his reply to my posting, and a follow-up to the many points he makes. (Bill- why is your message not up here for the group to read???) I think our paths have led us to a similar interest and love of JSB.

1. I have made a note of Isacoff's book that you recommend. Also your book on Bach and Etymology "When God Sang German" looks v. interesting. Language and music are what interest me. Will try to get hold of both books.

2. Like you I am eternally grateful to my teachers, and to my parents who provided everything needed to introduce a child to music - teachers, instruments and unswerving encouragement. As a child I learnt the language of music, how to communicate, how to share, how to read - to sight-read, read scores - with ease. However reading did not help me to memorise or to improvise, these being cognitive skills requiring different approaches.

3. CLEFS My experience differs from yours: no problems with piano, flute, singing in choir. The challenge came when I took up cello and needed to read the tenor clef for higher passages. But this is not a real problem, simply demands practice. Players of clarinet, trumpet, horn, euphonium beware of those clefs, those Bflat instruments!

4. I love your description of "wiggling fingers in the back of the car to learn the fingering and how to convert my fingers and neural pathways". I also "practiced" the piano when ill in bed and with no access to the piano. And still do it on occasion.

5. Now to temperament and tuning - my big issue ever since I joined the ranks of string players. We don't have all those transposition problems that face wind/brass players, but finding the right place for your finger on a cello string that is a metre in length is no easy matter. And I guess it's the same for the trombonist. We are (as you say) hit-or-miss tonalists.

6, I was hoping Bradley Lehman would respond to my question about temperament. I wrote "It seems that temperament tuning would apply in essence only to an instrument played solo, or perhaps to an ensemble where all the instruments are tuned to the same temperament (say a string quartet). There's no way a piano or organ can be tuned anew every time a different work is played, or accompanies a different instrument or a work in a different key. What is the answer for an orchestra?" Brad, if you read this I'd love to have you thoughts on temperament and ensemble playing.

7. I do hope your and your choir get to perform in Leipzig in 2022. But who knows what will be next year. I had the joy of hearing John Eliot Gardner conduct the Monteverdi Singers performing the St. John Passion, in the Thomaskirche , in 2013. Unforgettable. I think the John Passion even surpasses the Matthew Passion. I sang (in the choir) the Matthew Passion when I was at school in England. I adored the music - of course - but paid little attention to the words. Hearing the JP in Leipzig in 2022, was a different experience, as was a recent performance of the MP in Jerusalem, where I now live. I don't know German, so I follow the text in English and Hebrew translations. The drama and the power of these works is overwhelming. Having just now marked Holocaust Memorial day in Israel, listening to a Bach passion was quite disturbing.

Great talking to you Bill. And we haven't yet got round to discussing temperament in detail, or bent notes, or blues, microtonal music, or other cultural matters. Still lots to mull over.

Greetings and all good wishes

William L. Hoffman wrote (April 12, 2021):
I regret that Bill Fischer's posting is not on at bach@groups.io. It is possible that Bill replied directly to Sara Manobla in which case he should resend his reply to bach@groups.io.

William Rowland (Ludwig) wrote (April 13, 2021):
Tuning. This as you discovered a very controversial subject especially when it comes to Bach and Baroque music. We tune today at the standard A=440 or slightly higher for some orchestras. The chief conflict here is between tunings for orchestra, organ and Harpsichord. Harpsichord fianactics like to try to claim that Bariaue tunings were a half step (g#) was the absolute tuning stardard In Bach's day. However. The pipe tunings (that depend on pipe length) do not support this but show that tunings of all the Organs Back played were either A=440 or very close to A40. There is a reason for Harpichord tuning @G#415. This us that tunings at G#=415 @ 425 result in less likely of strings breaking which when it happens is like a major disaster. This is one not only HSS to reinstall new replacement xstrings but then one HSS to revoice the new Strings to match the voicing of the old string stop. Thus if the string is an 8' lute if you. Not get match the voicing of the original lute stop you might get a sound that sound nothing like a lute 8' stop. Unlike a piano where in you can slapped in new strings and not have to worry much about voicings. The Harpsichord has much more in common with the organ than the piano.

William Fischer wrote (April 13, 2021):
William L. Hoffman is indeed correct: I sent my first reply to Sara Manobla’s newcomer self-introduction because I thought I was telling her about my own personal development as a very amateur musician whose first instrument, after basic piano, was trombone. Like unfretted stringed instruments, the trombone is difficult for beginners to pitch accurately - even aside from issues of temperament. I should have realized that Bach-lovers might well be interested in just about any mention of temperament.

Below is my first message to Sara. It’s really not that much about temperament, and some may find my other remarks jejune, so read it or not as you prefer.

In a separate posting, since Aryeh Oron probably prefers to keep separate topics in separate threads, I am going to send a survey my eldest daughter sent me about musicology and digital humanities. Aside from its value as a broad-ranging survey, it includes links to a project to research and then replicate the original acoustics of the Thomaskirche, and also a link to a similar project involving Hagia Sophia. The survey itself offers much information about the range of work that is underway and about some of the core resources and publications in the field.

Regards to all / Herzliche Grüße an alle!

The Keyboard Temperament of J. S. Bach: Article | Music Examples | Feedback: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
Discussions of Temperament / Key Character / Tuning: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Meantone