Piano Tuner Shows Classical Repertoire Performed in Historical Tunings
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- Опубліковано 19 жов 2024
- Musical Excerpts and Demonstrations of Equal Temperament Classical Piano compositions performed in Well and Modified Meantone Temperaments.
Eben Goresko presents a Temperament Recital at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2000 where he demonstrates the utility and artfulness of tuning modern pianos in Well, Meantone and Pythagorean intonations to improve Beethoven, Chopin, Brahms, Schubert, Bach, Mozart and other so called "equal temperament" composers.
"now i'm going to play this in C# major, which is a very vibrant key" (vhs audio immediately distorts the pitch).
awesome practical demonstration of the differences between tunings, i love it.
How It Is possible?
@@wdhermann o
if u are not deaf u can hear the difference
18:40 "If we play musicx of the 18th and 19th century in equal temperament, it's like looking at a painting without the colour."
You have opened my eyes, mmmh my ears!
not the analogy i would have used, as a lack of color has beauty in its own right. seems to me more like a painting that has not only been desaturated, but also the colors that remain are now a slightly different hue. it may not be robbed of its original intent entirely, but it will never quite evoke the feelings that were intended, at least not precisely.
I wish the sound quality was better for a video like this. If a digital piano was made with a "tempered" mode I would be so happy.
+WetBadger many digital pianos do support this; in the Kawai CN35 (for example) you can choose between Equal, Pure, Pythagorean, Meantone, Werckmeister out of the box. You can also create your own temperament by manually adjusting the tuning of every semitone.
almost all digital pianos have temperament selection. Even my 18year old Yamaha Clavinova 820 has 8 temperament options
The temperament is noticeable to the trained ear, but the "wow and flutter" issues of the VHS make it less than pleasurable to listen to in my opinion.
+WetBadger I have the Roland HP508 and there is an option to retune the piano in different temperament or key with the touch of a button. Not a lot of them, but they exist if you look for them.
Buy a decent keyborad and Pianoteq (Win/Mac/Linux, €99).
I was a piano tuner and technician for 12 years and one thing was that I preferred more pure thirds. Turns out most people I tuned for appreciated this and would call me back once or twice a year. One thing that was hard to fix was the WOLF in the key of Ab or C#, but most people around here didn't really use those keys often. Personally, I like the wolf in Ab and think it has a mean and tenacious quality.
Damn it, this video sparked a real curiosity in me. Been down the rabbit hole for days now...
Chopin Funeral March in Bb minor sounded amazing in Meantone Temperament (8:50). If only I had 3-4 four pianos tuned perfectly in various temperaments to dink around on like this guy. This was a thrilling lecture/recital, wish I could have been there for it!
+Bethany Porter You could do it in software with a good hammer action midi controller I reckon.
I agree. That part was downright fantastic!
Personally I prefer it in well-tempered. To me well-tempered compromises just enough to not sound extreme but doesn't destroy the harmonious nature of the resonance.
Presumably he wasn't talking about quarter-comma meantone (once the common meantone), but a milder meantone -- fifth-comma or sixth-comma as recommended by some in the latter part of the Eighteenth Century. Using quarter-comma meantone on music in remote keys on an instrument with only 12 notes per octave would cause some much harsher dissonances than what was on this video.
yeah this is the thing, most of the people may think they do not hear the difference, but trust me after an hours concert, they will feel so different with the right tuning, that they could easily answer the question. This is why i believe it is important that we keep this in mind, before organizing concerts for people to enjoy. Thank you, Awesome video
If only the audio quality of this video was better. Nevertheless this is a great presentation and I really like the conclusion. :)
This explains why the second selection in Bach's "Well Tempered Klavier" which is in C# had rather fast playing intervals because he didn't want the impure, dissonant intervals to stand out(which happens in well termperament).
There are many repeating alternating notes that play the same intervals over and over again. To me it seems like he wanted to showcase them instead of hiding them.
Funny, but our piano is so out of tune here at home, that having an opinion of one temperament versus another is just a wild guess for me these days.
U need a keyboard also.
Clint Jones and a mouse.
@@380stroker ha.
Tune the piano.
Ditto! We tried to bring it up a semitone last year and now it's all over the place. Poor old thing couldn't take it...
This is very fascinating, and needs to be done in a more up to date recording .
I can't thank you enough for sharing this. I studied this very briefly in college and while I could hear the difference then, experience since has made this more meaningful to me, and you present it very masterfully here.
The dutune-effect is popular in electronic music... But the classical composers did the same trick hundreds of years ago by carefully selecting their meantone-temperament keys
That's why they wrote music in different keys. Every key had a different quality. With 12TET you can play in different keys and its going to sound pretty much the same.
I am only a plonky beginner yet I can hear the difference- but actually I find the difference is in the FEELING of the listening. Historical temperaments can sound like 4D and are much more varied and emotive.
Yes! I also feel the multidimensional improvement in a non-equal temperament when well demonstrated.
He needs to explain a lot more as he switches from piano to piano exactly what he is doing and why, I'm lost as to which piano is which or why he is switching or what , exactly, he is demonstrating ( apart from equal and even temperament)
Not that this helps this particular excerpt, but this is part of a much longer lecture in which he does explain the different tuning that each piano is in, etc. It would have gotten quite repetitive if he would have kept going over that every 5 minutes of the lecture. Not saying I don't get your point, because you make an exceptionally valid point. Just explaining why it wasn't happening in this particular example. :)
That's what I was thinking, good demo but not helpful
Khasab exactly
I feel like I've never really heard this music before now! I always could grasp some "colour" or "brightness" to different keys, but it always felt incomplete. Both minor and major keys of F, B, and B-flat all had the same colour to me, but listening to Chopin's work in B-flat Minor is so clearly a muddy yellow powerful and distinct. Now it sounds correct and has qualities I didn't think could be there. I can almost detect a texture to it now.
You gotta respect a guy who can twiddle a piano between Just and Equal - and pretty much everything else in between ( mean-tone etc ) - with just a tuning leaver and his ear. Amazing demonstration, and yeup, I can hear the differences, amazing , it's quite real.
The best guide to understand difference between ET and Orchestral tuning
People call this crackpot, probably because that is what their college professors who never looked in the subject, told them. They spend 8 years and a hundred thousands dollars to be taught equal temperament, they are going to keep their mouth shut to hide the fact that they are fools paying fools. For all the so-called sense-certain empiricists out there, what else do you need as proof but to HEAR the damn difference in the quality of the temperaments and tunings?
I love how the video flickers and totally throws the pitch. Gotta love VHS. This is really helpful in my understanding of tuning. Thanks to Eben Goresko and the Philly Museum of Art! Also, I love the playing. The memorized playing is very emotional, and in tune, literally and figuratively, with the temperaments. It's crazy.
I'm curious what the best tunings to use are historically, depending on the keys of apiece, and also the instrumentation.
As Ross Duffin says, ET has ruined Harmony: this is a perfect demonstration! And this guy is not merely a piano tuner! He's a very good pianist.
finally a real showcase on properly tuned acoustic pianos and not digitally altered tunings done in post. i wish the audio quality was a little better but this was very interesting to listen to
Provide, what the composer intended... shows the Mona Lisa on a projector display :D lol wonderful video, thank you so much. We make due with what we can :D
Thanks you very much for this post, but can I find the full Demonstration anywhere? thanks.
I love this video. "Who would wanna play in a key like that anyways"? The swopping pianos (and stools) is so clever. If the Mafia were piano afficionados. Love it.
Thi was what I was looking for! spent the afternoon making calculations just to understand it, now I hear it and it sound better, regardless of lack of transposing. Thank you!
that difference in b-moll's is just mindblowing, i need to find a recording of the b-moll sonata in meantone temperment.
Anyone know of a good one? I feel like I've never heard real Chopim music, just some bad approximation.
Fascinating. Would be soooooo much better live, I'm sure we're losing half of it digitally :(
artisanrox yep, after it was recorded on VHS, then converted to digital and compressed on UA-cam a lot has been lost.
Eben, would you mind adding to the description of this video, a labeling of which piano is tuned to which temperament, left to right? There seem to be signs on the pianos but they are not visible in this filming.
This is fabulous. Thank you for posting this.
Damn you encoded sound quality, you make this so much more difficult!
Bach was a genius for this and many other reasons
thanks dude, I appreciate it.
Johann Sebastian Bach no problem man, when you gonna drop some new music?
Mr. Bach...Dude, I love your Ode to Coffee. You have to make something for coffee creamer, too. Maybe creme brulee.
I think he is retired.
So having any of the non-equal temperament tunning means that you can't just transpose any song as needed (if there's a singer, for example) without changing its intonation or mood? You are like "if you want this to sound as it should, I MUST play it in Bb".
well tempered fixes that problem but meantone temperament some keys are completely out of tune.
With well tempered it’s possible to transpose to any key signature, but each signature has its own special character and sound as opposed to equal temperament in which all keys have the same sound and feel to them
Amazing video! I am Truly happy to stumble across this today.
The world of tuning is fascinating. What he is trying to show is you cannot have pure tuning in all keys one will be pure but others will sound off. The maths is complicated but basically equal temperament is an imperfect compromise to allow one to play in many keys without "off" notes or wolf tones as they are known. Look up the Pythagoran Comma.
If you also can't hear any difference it's probably because the audioquality is terrible.
Robert Månsson The tape artifacts are clearly distinguishable and quite localised. The frequency relationships between strings are mostly unaffected, so you should be able to hear the differences he was trying to demonstrate.
"What's better than quality? Equality!"
Sure it is very clear, Thank you so much.
Just finished reading the book 'Temperament' Interesting history on this topic.
Jesus Christ, what a difference when he A/B'd the two pianos. I am only just now dipping my toes in the shallow end of tuning and temperament systems, but already I am wondering if there is a way to make my guitar and piano sound more harmonious for playing predominantly modal Celtic music. Appreciate any ideas! Thanks to the OP.
Pure gold
Ha, the best part of this video is that the intonation is digitally warped.
Phil Noll analog warping, not digital. It’s tape.
...and yet the fundamental concepts are still applicable and discernible.
simple ratio intervals makes much more harmonious resonance
this is amazing
If Bach and Mozart were using a more Just tuning what does this say about how we hear their music vs. what they meant to be heard.
Nathaniel Bass I don't know. Lets make this the top comment so everyone can see it.
Good question.
It means we're hearing nonsense compared to what we should be.
there is a video on internnet between mozart tune in 440 in 430 and 415 ( wich i think whas original) that 415 made the piece 100times more wauw much more body and warmth
Kristus är vår Frälsare, Halleluja but the order final comment was about us hearing them as the composers did so mentioning that their old C was at 415 is still a relevant comment.
great video
He's not playing in Just Temperament. He's playing in several "standard", pre-Equal, pre-Just Temperament tunings.
great. I hope to play
My electrical piano has Kirnberger III, which Bachs disciple mentioned only in a letter. According to the youtube examples I have heard, K III is better than Kirnberger II described in his book "Kunst des reinen Tonsatzes." Still it retains the different character to the 24 scales, a thing that Kirnberger (& his teacher JS bach) considered very important.
If I don't watch the screen I can imagine it's Joe Pesci explaining all this stuff to me.
Jpof I guess that was why no one was laughing at all anytime as they perhaps they were afraid he was going to say "do you find me amusing ?? Am I here to amuse you ??"
Jpof Why?
Brian Cho Lol I don't understand
@@No-pm4ss see ua-cam.com/video/E84VqqCPI7w/v-deo.html
Not a music major, but I could sit through several of this guy's classes with continued interest. Great lecture! Thanks for posting. I was listening to the different temperaments, and thinking things about them that he explains in more detail here. Good stuff for the musically interested "layman". Thx for posting.
ON reflection, it sounds to me as if inaccuracy in tuning can actually be utilized, as in many of the pieces he demonstrates to ENHANCE the musical experience. I would think, as an engineer, if I understand the musical/mathematical part of this correctly, you could easily real time fully and absolutely either perfectly tune each chord (and octave) of a piece with a tuning map, chord by chord, or just an algo, or just as easily pick any temperament at any specific time for, or during, a piece on an electronic keyboard. You could access it MIDI, or just pre-mapped onto the piece as selected beforehand. Would be interesting to see this tried. Sounds like a job for that Dream Theater keyboardist, kinda right up his alley. Maybe I'll go suggest it on one of his vids. ;-)
I prefer meantone over equal temperament.
Interesting presentation. Where's the Pythagorean intonation?
The Video Camera DOES NOT like the MEAN tuned upright to the left of the Steinway. WOW keeps garbling, wow / flutter the sound!!
and here I was thinking I was truly totally tone deaf, turns out I am not (completely at least). What a difference :o
Very interesting.
Hi! Which Good Temperament is the Grand tuned to? And the upright? I'd have thought you were demonstrating Meantone on the upright but it's much too pleasant in C# to be Meantone. I use at least 7 perfect fifths for my concert tunings giving very harmonious thirds in F C and G and allowing colours to develop beyond two and three accidentals. You've probably heard the Barabino performances of the 2nd Sonata?
“why those specific colors on the sheet music?”. there’s always, ALWAYS some grad student who is trying to seem like they are looking deeply into everything when in reality they’re just trying to appear smarter than they actually are. the guy probably just had a yellow highlighter handy at the time 😂
440hz and 432hz are just reference tones. Equal and meantone temperaments are based on how much spacing there is between each note. Compare the funeral march played in well-temperament at 5:50 and then played in meantone temperament 8:15. He also compares what the opening chords sound like in meantone, well-temperament, and then equal temperament at 7:29.
Awefuh Awef so the first piano is well temperment? the (550) one
Here the topic is temperaments ..that is the intervals between notes..... But what about pitch is A 440 hrtz ? What was the reference in the old days? Pipeorgans were tuned from A 396 to A 665 ( approx).So what is dark and bright?
resultant64 pianos were tuned all over the place back then ofc harpsicord things like 415 hz french even lower some higher
@@winstonvkoot 415 Hz looks like Ab.
Which one is just, meantone, equal, well tempered, meantone modified .. ? I am so confused
It sounds like there is some tape warping during some of the arpgeggios he is playing. Is that an artifact from the recording or is that actually occurring when he plays those chords?
Definitely artefact- It doesn't help get the point across does it?! Ha!
It sounds really cool, though!
Yea thats the tape. 18 years of guitar and 7 odd paying attention to intervals (damn you frets!) and I can begin to hear the difference. the thing to listen for is the throbbing sound as the waveforms cross over each other. If you are tuning a guitar you can listen to them in order to tune the strings with each other. The throbbing/wobble sound slowsdown as they get closer together and disappears entirely when you get it spot on. In the perfectly in tune 18th century tuning there is no wobble for 2 of the 3 thirds. Its pureness is astounding when he switches back to the modern tuning. I guess the solution would be to have 12 pianos and only play two of the three thirds... :P I wonder if the ratio of Pi has anything to do with why you cannot have all three perfectly in tune. I bet its Pi or some other kind of golden ratio those cheeky bastards pop up everywhere! Seeing as I need a topic for my dissertation, this seems both interesting and first worthy. If anyone can point me in the direction of some good sources on the topic I would be very grateful :) Enjoy the beautiful immersion that is music. Peace and love
I don't think it has anything to do with Pi...
This is very distracting and counterproductive in an exercise like this.
Was someone crying at 5:20?
Some musicians use music to listen to the tunings. I use the tuning to listen to the music. Looking for the "perfect" tuning makes no difference if the music is bland. If the music is good, however, you can hear it on an out of tune piano recorded on 3rd generation cassette, and it will be good.
That said, I *only* hear Merzbow on meantone temperament.
Wow, you're amazing.
Well, tuning is a huge element when thinking about what kind of effects it gives to music and how it sounds. Also, music that uses certain intervals that requires certain accuracy must be played in what they were supposed to be played in. I think tuning and music isn't a seperate thing at all. The intervals at a more small level can be considered as small changes or "tunings", but the music that is composed in 31EDO for example, and composed in such tuning system for a reason isn't simply bad because it sounds like it's missing something in 12EDO.
Also to add, music based on certain tunings as well to distinguish the nuances of different intervals can exist as a legitimate form of music as well.
Nobody considers that people may have been instinctively seeking a workable compromise with REAL notes. Though they might not have expressed it in these terms. Then about the first world war we became desensitised enough to not even realise that this could be an issue - so chopping the octave up into 12 all slightly out of tune fragments suddenly for the first time in history, made perfect sense.
What I mean by real notes is ones that occur in the harmonic series . The pre-occupation with pure thirds does not necessarily speak against this since pure thirds would be invoking real notes naturally and are one of the main intervals.If we talk of "acceptable compromise" we have already ASSUMED the key justification for equal temperament - that the 12 tone division of the scale of eight main notes is a truer music than one based as fully as possible on partials or overtones.-That the primacy of the scale trumps the physical nature of the universe , specifically sound.Otherwise we would not tolerate every note being slightly out of tune.
If we have the absolute quality imparted by non-equal temperaments we also have key colours being something in addition to a change within a purely relative pitch-scheme. Certainly Beethoven. Mozart, Schubert I think(?) all thought of keys having different qualities in themselves. I find the idea of a journey through different keys being signalised by the very intervals within the key fascinating and a source of possible enormous enrichment . Then you have a homeing to certain purer easier sounding keys . This does not rule out modulation but gives it an expressive dimension lacking in equal temperament where everything sounds the same .
Slyvan...As I understand it, there is ALWAYS compromise in tuning. The real question is do you want to have purer keys at the expense of some "wolf", or totally unusable keys, or are you willing to accept minimum imperfection throughout. I do agree with much of your take on original temperaments evoking MUCH different meaning and feeling, and feel that maybe playing in the temperament written for makes sense, where applicable. Not too easy for the poor oboeist, though, for example...he needs a different, or radically modified instrument to do it. On the keyboard, no problem. Actually, I don't know, as an engineer, why on an electronic keyboard you couldn't REAL TIME process every chord played, and either ACCURATELY tune it up, OR put it into any temperament error you wanted to evoke whatever you wished. Seems like a no-op, with a midi-switch or just a pre-programmed map overlay onto your playing of a specific piece. Cheers!
With this fading video recording, I can't really tell the difference in the tuning temperaments.
Can I work as a guitar tuner?
My conclusion: our ears aren't pianos, which have some resonance that isn't in our ears. The composers wrote their music for piano resonances.
Amaziinggggg
The Audio quality of this video gives a bit too much harmonics to each tuning
The good thing about playing a hurdy-gurdy is that you will never ever reach "perfect" equal-tuning.
Always sounding organic and alive.
He sounds a bit like Joe Pesci if you shut your eyes.
+Chris Benton He does.
Would somebody please explain why we use equal temperament now? Is it because of how complex compositions became in terms of increasing chromaticism?
Dear Alter..have you verified your claim and if so spell it out for all to hear in GREAT DETAIL.
What claim are you referring to? The claim that computer can retune instantly or the claim you can't really tell the difference between digital and acoustic pianos?
enough to get the dog howling!
Could you please tell me the versions of meantone and well temperaments used on those pianos? I have been experimenting with quarter comma meantone but that one is not the same. And I have Young Well temp on my digital piano, but is he using something like Werckmeister III or something like that.... Please help me out.
But the concert pitch was not A4= 440Hz in those ancient times.
As as guitar player hearing a piano player in different temperaments, I can't not hear the differences when it comes to the notes I'm used to hearing come out.
because it was compensated to a properly tune keyboard or piano
Interesting, but the material is poorly presented. Maybe it is because the video is out of the context of the initial presentation, but we need additionnal information regarding the respective temperement of each keyboard in relation to the harmonic series and the equal 12 tone temperament.
Why do the notes occasionally sound like someone glided their hands along the string as the note was playing, such as at 9:13? How can a hammer hitting the string in a instantaneous moment produce a gliding sound like that?
That sound is caused by the tape this video was recorded on suddenly changing speed, which is called “warping”. It is a technical error of the tape recording or tape playback machine. So if you were listening to this in person you would not hear that sound.
I liked the sound of 8:50 piece
I hear it bro
cosa volevi dimostrare, come suoni male Bach su strumenti diversi cannandolo anche mezzo tono sopra?
The 'Short Temperment' also existed. but that didn't last long. JK
They kicked me out of the tuner's for my short temperment.
oron61 lmao
I would think that it is possible to adjust the temperament to anything you want through the use of digital signal processing. The guitar is a notoriously out of tune instrument. But I have one that contains digital signal processing electronics which allows it to produce pitches that are perfectly in tune (in equal temperament). It seems to me that it is just a matter of programming to put it into any temperament one would desire. I fully expect this to be implemented and the techniques used to be expanded to the piano and indeed any instrument we would want to apply it to.
Can someone explain how a key can have more of one quality than another? If the distances between all notes are the same it shouldn't make a difference which key it's in or how you've transposed it.
You are wrong. They are not the same and they cannot be tuned mathematical perfect in all keys. Its the art
Ah but you see, the distances between semitones are _not_ all the same when tuned in perfect _harmony_ for a specific key. That is why keys far away from the tonic key sound out of tune.
Anyone know what the middle piano with the open lid is tuned to?
Like a name rather than “tuned to 3rds”
does anyone know the first piano temperment he plays?
Does he really have prelude in C?
So can anyone tell me which is which for the five pianos from the left to the right..lol
There is a computer program that will let you change this with a good mike but you have to be pretty knowledgeable to mess with a piano's insides. You might be able to tune with $40 worth of stuff, but what do you do if you find a couple of broken strings or run into some loose tuning pegs.
I wish more people were aware of this. Once you listen to a lot of pure temperaments, equal temperament sounds awful!
Life is too short.
What is "The New Tuning" on the right?
Carmelo Santini Dear Carmelo, the Equal- Beating Prinz Well Temperament of 1808 is the "New Tuning"
Thank you, do you know where I can find more info demonstrated so well on this? I might want to use this in songwriting.
Can someone please tell me what is the first melody he plays?
it's bach's prelude no1 from well tempered clavier,
The tunings do seem to be more individually emotional.
VHS bad tape make all keys sound out of tune though.
What does he say exactly between 9:36 - 9:44 ???
7:41 Nokia ringtone! Classic
Equal temperament makes Chopin possible.