tuning…

[madeline-davis–2]

Now this was an odd place to find it, but on the violinist discussion forum, I found talk of tempered tuning, and different types, Lehman, Kirnberger III, etc (…for pianos and harpsichords). That is, different from ET(equal-temperament tuning). Several people were saying how they thought it naturally sounded better on these keyboard instruments, improving the sound of music from Bach(supposedly it was supposed to have come from one of his students) to jazz. Anyone have any experience with this method of tuning on harp, or does it sound as novel to you as it does to me? Here’s the link to the discussion (the post was originally quite different, so if you scroll down to the last half dozen responses you should get that part of the discussion) http://www.violinist.com/discussion/response.cfm?ID=24615

[Sylvia]

I was told by my teacher never to tune to a piano or the harp would be out of tune with itself.

[robert-hanson]

Madeline. Tuning in the different temperaments are fun to do and give a different “color” to the compositions. Korg has an electroniic tuner that can allow you to tune to several of these temperaments and there is also an APP for this. During J. Bach’s time in his travels depending on where he was their were three popular temperaments that different organs were tuned in different rejions. Bach just had to deal with the difference.YouTube has several entries explaining the different temperaments. One YouTube posting plays a Bach composition in the three temperaments used during his life time so you can hear the difference. Some think its a subtle difference while some scullers will argue that it is quite pronounced. Sylvia, your harp teacher is dead wrong and it is just a myth that shouldn’t be past on.

[carl-swanson]

The problem with using one of these other tunings on the harp is that it’s not just a matter of tuning the harp(in C flat) to another tuning. You would also have to have a technician regulate the whole harp in this other tuning. If you don’t do that, then at best you’d have only one of the three pitches that each string can produce in that tuning, while the other two pitches would be in equal temperament. Also, changing the harp to another tuning is not just a matter of retuning the whole harp once to that tuning. The strings are initially going to want to go back to where they were. So you’d have to retune the harp several times over several days to the new tuning until it settled in. That’s really the only way you are going to accurately hear what a different tuning sounds like on a harp.

[jessica-wolff]

Heck, I’m happy to get the whole shebang in equal temperament.

[Sylvia]

I’ve been tuning with a strobe for decades now, whatever temperament that is. My teacher meant do not go to a piano and tune note for note, if that’s any clearer. He has, bless his heart, long since passed away. BTW, he was a student of Salzedo, so I assume that Salzedo passed the info on to him.

[robert-hanson]

Hi Sylvia.Your explanation is clearer. If someone had super ears and all the time in the world they could tune to the piano and the mathematics would prove it out that the harp would sound fine. However, a normal harpist trying to tune to a piano note for note by ear would have to many miner human variations and the harp would definitely end up sounding out of tune.
Hi Carl. Haven’t seen or had dinner/lunch with you in a long time along with William and Pamela.There are a group of harpist in the Bay Area that like to fool around with different temperaments (Cheryl and others) but they are doing it on ancient style harps to get the sound of the historic period so they don’t have to worry about harp technicians. Of course I know you already know this but it might be interesting info for others.

[Sylvia]

….because the octaves are stretched on the piano. (to continue his explanation). If we stretch our octaves…. They would be in tune with the piano, but the harp will be out of tune with itself. These guys were back in the days of the tuning fork (probably no one here knows what that is). By the time I came along, my teacher had a strobe tuner.

[carl-swanson]

It’s interesting how stretching the octaves(lower octaves tuned lower, higher octaves tuned higher) can change the resonance of a piano. I don’t know if the same thing could happen on the harp. Years ago, a piano technician friend of mine lent me a drop-dead gorgeous 1904 Steinway with a Louis XV case in Carpathian Elm. It had a gorgeous sound. About a year after I got it, I had another technician tune it. When he was done, it sounded in tune, but wasn’t nearly as resonant. When my friend came for a visit, I told him about this. He played a couple of chords on the piano and said “He didn’t stretch the octaves.” My friend then retuned the piano, and once again it had that beautiful resonant sound. I don’t know if tuning machines have that built into them or not.

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