Meantone Temperament and Other Historical Tuning Systems, Part 2

MEANTONE TEMPERAMENT AND OTHER HISTORICAL TUNING SYSTEMS, PART 2 / What is a well temperament? How are well temperaments different from meantone temperament and equal temperament and when and why were they used. Watch this video if you want to find out the answer to all of these questions!
In this video I show you what part of J.S. Bach’s Fugue in C# Minor (from Book 1 of the Well-Tempered Clavier) sounds like in quarter-comma meantone temperament, as well as in Werckmeister III temperament. I also play the chromatic section of Michelangelo Rossi’s “Toccata Settima” in a well temperament (Werckmeister III) so you can compare it to what the piece sounds like in meantone temperament.
Come explore with me just how different all these different temperaments sound and why they work (or don’t) for certain music!
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Note: Some of the links below are affiliate links, which means that I’ll earn a small commission if you purchase the books I mention after clicking on the link.
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TEMPERAMENT RESOURCES:
Carey Beebe Harpsichords’ Temperament FAQ and temperaments library:
www.hpschd.nu/...
“Tuning and Temperament: A Historical Survey” by J. Murray Barbour
amzn.to/30Y8GNE
“How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony (and Why You Should Care)” by Ross W. Duffin
amzn.to/3lGGzdW
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DR. ALICE CHUAQUI BALDWIN. For more about me, check out my website:
www.alicebaldw...
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Connect with me on social:
Instagram: / achuaquibaldwin
Facebook: / achuaquibaldwin
Twitter: / achuaquibaldwin
/ @harpsichord
www.alicebaldw...
#Harpsichord #Meantone #WellTemperament

[@harpsichord]

The subject of historical temperaments and tuning systems is super complex and often confusing, so let me know any and all questions you have about well temperaments and meantone temperaments and I’ll try to clarify things!

[@jul3249]

One thing I always wondered: What keys were "available" in meantone? Does the temperament have a root? What about other tuning systems? Maybe my question should actually be: what major chords could you play that wouldn't sound out of tune?

[@bryanmellado2874]

The ET known since 1500? That's new for me. I wish there were more recordings of baroque music using other temperaments than ET is really nice to the ear

[@erikolsen1333]

I’ve been trying to understand the history of violin temperament 🎻 and other strings. On the pedagogical institutions that were erected. I know that Leopold Motzart and contemporaries barley mentioned temperaments other than ‘to be tuned slightly sharp of the piano?’ Could you illuminate this topic for us?

[@yjbmwsc]

My god, Rossi sounds so tamed with the well-temperament!

[@47voet]

I have just started reading Ross Duffin's "How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony" and wanted to find some examples of the things he was discussing. Your two videos on Temperament are excellent. Thank you so much. Your explanations and examples are very helpful.

[@harpsichord]

Thank you so very much! I’m so glad that you found my videos to be both clear and helpful!

[@philipstapert3517]

Great book! I thought he did an excellent job of explaining both the theoretical and the historical aspects of temperament.

[@nikitanugent7165]

I also found this video as a result of that book. While it makes some compelling arguments, I found that the explanations of what meantone temperament is to be lacking (at least for someone without a strong musical background). I really enjoyed this video, thanks! It makes much more sense to me now.

[@martinssalmanis966]

5:21,6:10

[@alexcitron5159]

Really a great explanation of tunings in baroque. I took acoustics in graduate school, and I don't think he explained it as well. As a pianist, it's more of a theoretical idea, but as I appreciate the baroque more and more, things like tuning do spice it up. At Oberlin College they had a mean tone organ, so that may have been my first exposure. I look forward to watching more of you content. Alex from Lee, MA

[@gerardvila4685]

Very clear and didactic, thanks! For what it is worth: I am only an intermediate level player, but I built my own clavichord from a kit in 2007 (the kit only cost 900€ and we had a very aggressive and piano-intolerant neighbour). It is similar to models used around 1690, with 4 octaves, and diatonically fretted, eg E and E flat are on the same string and cannot be played simultaneously, and the interval between them can itself tuned by bending the tangents to right or to left (NB most clavichords don't allow this - there are limits of course, if there is too much difference you just have to take out the tangent and put it back in a different position). I originally tuned it to Werkmeister III as I saw this temperament as giving the most "bang for the buck" for playing both JS Bach and music from other periods. But after a few years I got frustrated by an instrument with only 4 octaves & I got a bigger unfretted 5-octave clavichord (2 strings per key), the kind CPE Bach or Mozart might have played, tuned in Valotti (which these worthies might also have used). Anyway, the point I wanted to make was, for years I had been wondering what it would be like to play in quarter comma mean tone, so I re-tuned the small fretted clavichord by bending its tangents as explained - but although the thirds are gorgeous, I was basically disappointed because, while the fifths in Werckmeister III are lovely and pure, in meantone they are worse than in equal temperament! The other thing is, the more clavichords (or harpsichords) you own, the more strings there are to go out of tune on the slightest provocation :-(

[@harpsichord]

Thank you for your kind words! And what interesting experiences with clavichords! That's an instrument I'd actually like to spend more time with myself.

[@wilsonMelo6]

I love your videos. I have learned a lot about temperments. Thank you.

[@harpsichord]

Thank you so much! I'm so glad my video has been helpful for you!

[@cdan708]

Thank you so much for such good content and your clear explanation! Wish you the best in music!

[@cl9826]

Were these temperaments were set up around C major and basically just left there? I mean for instance if I'm trying out werckmeister iii on my digital piano should I change it to the key of the song for every song or just leave it on C all the time?

[@vsicurella]

I love that you used "spicy" as a descriptor :D

[@alexandranicole5659]

I love your videos on this subject! They were much more informative and well done than any of the many others I’ve watched about historical temperaments. I would however like to know more about the temperaments used by Mozart and Beethoven in particular. Any information you would have on the temperaments that they may have used would be greatly appreciated!

[@watsonjimclip2778]

Excellent video, explaining a lot of things I never understood. I have a synthesizer with excellent harpsichord samples, and think I programmed it in Valloti a long time ago. But this is something I have been wondering about for a long time: How would it sound if a modern piano was tuned in something like Werkmeister III? And what sort of tuning aide could someone use to do it accurately? I have never been good at setting equal temperament by ear, much less any other temperament!

[@unequally-tempered]

I tune modern pianos in a Well Temperament and you'll find my recordings searching for instance for "Composer" "Unequal Temperament". Werckmeister III is hideous in Ab major and too strong for pianos. kzbin.info/www/bejne/qJfUmX9tisZ1abs is a nice recent recording

[@lincethomas2365]

Awesome video !

[@martinh1277]

In the Baroque, they had the one word tempered with two meanings. They had a tuning machine, which was a monochord. They calculated and marked the tempered positions for the bridge. Then they took the tempered tones. There is an existing harpsichord with a built in monochord. The other method was tempering by ear. A pythagoräan 5th was a too large interval. They looked for a too small, but defined interval. This is the 5th, you can hear, it is too small. Then they tuned these intervals one after the other. Maybe they needed more from the one kind. The result was a tuning, that worked like tempered. This sounded better than the tempered tuning from the monochord. This tuning did not have to be written down, because it was so easy as I write it. For this reason you will not find it in the archives, but you can find peaces in a lot of keys.

[@yehudayannay]

you are doing a terrific job!

[@reinpost]

I just found your videos ... what a treasure! Lately I've been practicing some pieces in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book and wondering what temperaments were applied to them. I've seen advice to just use meantone for everything, but sometimes I feel the main fifths should be better. If you have anything to share on virginal music and how to perform it, I'd love to see and hear it!

[@Machodave2020]

Interesting... I'm convinced to subscribe after watching both parts 1 & 2. These videos are interesting to me as a Violinist, violist, and cellist. Even though you're videos are centered around a fixed-tuning instrument (a one-keyboard harpsichord) and not free-range tuning instrument (like a violin, viola, cello, recorder, ect.), I can still get useful information from the videos. Don't worry that you only have about 350 subs, you'll blow up eventually like this other channel that also occasionally talks about other tunings (Sarah Jeffery), who reached 100k not too long ago. Edit: I meant 317, but since I just subscribed, it's 318.

[@Darkvibration]

Excellent explanation. Thanks!

[@harpsichord]

Thanks!

[@numbr6]

Do you subscribe to the theory that drawn on the cover of WTC Book 1 are the "Bach Swirls", possibly a graphical description of the tuning / temperament intended to play this work? I've heard that theory floated before, but I've not seen anyone (on KZbin) try to tune an instrument using the "Bach Swirls" as a temperament tuning guide.

[@robbes7rh]

Call me bland, call me a dullard, but I thought the Rossi toccata sounded delightful played in the well-tempered tuning. I do like spicy intervals. I listen to traditional Persian Santoor music, I enjoy Spanish Flamenco singing, I like Arabic classical music. But when it comes to western tonal music, a smooth transition through keys fits with my sensibilities and expectations. I’m also thinking about the sensibilities of the general population who are listening to this music. I want them to enjoy what they hear. I fear challenging the uninitiated with too much spice will leave some feeling like the performer didn’t bother to tune his instrument properly.

[@RockStarOscarStern634]

There are True Temperment Guitars which use this system, basically an improved version of 12tet.

[@philipstapert3517]

I love 1/4 comma meantone. In a well-temperament I think I'd tolerate some pretty spicy intervals if it means I also get some sweet resolutions to pure major thirds. Are there well-temperaments that retain at least a few pure major thirds?

[@philipstapert3517]

I just answered my own question by looking up your link to Beebe's temperament library.

[@cannadineboxill-harris2983]

Hello Alice, why couldn't you Try Remaking A Daddy Grand Piano by putting on 88 Tuning Forks like what you did on an Upright Piano, Please do the Same Thing on a Daddy Grand Piano For Most of us KZbinrs, It will be a much Better Idea For us so we can Try and See and Hear Pianos with 88 Tuning Forks inside Thank You.

[@Lucius_Chiaraviglio]

I get saying sharps and flats between note pairs are not enharmonic in systems not having 12 notes per octave, including systems in which you have helices of fifths instead of circles of fifths and have chosen 12 of the notes to put on the keyboard, but for 12 note well temperaments, which do close the circle of fifths, wouldn't you want to say that those sharps and flats between note pairs are enharmonic, since they have been chosen to be usable for thirds and fifths in either direction?

[@steakholder2119]

I had no idea all this exists ! I thought all tuning means one and the same thing

[@mr.z9609]

How do double accidentals factor into all this stuff? The WTC is full of double accidentals (ie, the Fx in the C# fugue). Is the pitch difference between Fx and G the same as the pitch difference between F# and Gb? And how would that be expressed on a baroque instrument?

[@AnonymousBN]

This is awesome. I'm curious how other instruments and singers adapted to playing with keyboards tuned in different systems. Did they just hear it or was that something musicians were trained to deal with?

[@AnonymousBN]

For anyone else who wondered this, there is a fantastic explanation in Ross Duffin's book How Equal-Temperament Ruined Harmony. Recommend read

[@gerardvila4685]

Can't give you the source (I don't play violin) but I remember reading about intonation on the violin - they learn to play one way when it's just strings together (or winds) and a different way when there is a piano around, because then they have to adapt the "out of tune" intervals of Equal Temperament coming from the piano. Pianists can ignore this subject, but not piano tuners.

[@electric7487]

@@gerardvila4685 As a long-time pianist, I have to say that piano is one of the most restrictive instruments to learn on if you're just starting to learn music since it only teaches you 12-tone equal temperament. A large number of Western musicians these days literally have never heard of any tuning other than 12-tone equal temperament, which is especially true if you go into non-classical genres like pop, rock, and contemporary worship. I'd even say most people are actually quite deficient in their knowledge of music theory and musical skills, such as how tuning works, what commas are, what the harmonic series is, what just intonation is, and the historical and cultural context of tuning itself. 12-TET is, like most things we take for granted today, actually a very recent discovery that took a lot of iterations to reach; the Chinese managed to mathematically solve it at the end of the 16th century, and it has only become the predominant tuning system in Western music from the early 19th century onwards. While I don't want to make music seem like something only accessible to a select few group of people, I also understand that these are important things to learn. I desperately want to get together with a few friends of mine and make some recordings of certain pop and worship songs in 19- or 31-tone equal temperament. I like these tunings (especially 31) since they're both meantone tunings like 12-TET is, the number of notes is still manageable, and the difference between the way they sound vs. 12-TET is still big enough to make a noticeable difference. 43-TET, as 1/5-comma meantone, is very nice in my opinion, but even many trained musicians in the non-classical world would struggle to tell the difference between that and 12-EDO and consider the number of notes prohibitive at this level. 43 is further complicated by the fact that you would need exotic accidentals (sharp-ups, sharp-downs, natural-ups, natural-downs, flat-ups, and flat-downs) to notate everything, whereas 19 can be notated entirely with standard accidentals and 31 can be notated with quarter-tone accidentals in the same way 24-TET can. The reason I explore alternative tunings is because I love how the seemingly tiny differences in the way they tune notes and intervals can make a very noticeabl difference in the mood that a particular song gives off.

[@gerardvila4685]

@@electric7487 One idea I've never seen discussed, but which should be quite simple to do, would be to add a set of "transposing" keys or pedals to a digital keyboard. In the same way as a classical harp, which is basically diatonic, is converted into a chromatic instrument by a set of pedals (each pedal adds a sharp or a flat to one note of the diatonic scale), you could define 12 non-ET tunings - for instance "Just Intonation C", “Just Intonation C#", "Just Intonation D", etc, and switch between them on the fly, while still playing the keyboard in exactly the same way as usual. This would reproduce what a singer or string or wind player tends to do, more or less consciously, when the music modulates from one key to another. (Perhaps modern musicians don't do this, having listened to ET pianos their whole lives, but I'm guessing they must have done so when mean-tone tuning was standard.)

[@shohtime]

Yeah

[@martinh1277]

To calculate Equal Temperament, you need not so much mathematical ability, but quite a lot of time. You begin with a number, 392Hz or even 100 and start. The result will be the frequencies of Equal Tempered, a bunch of numbers on a paper. How did they make a tuning out of this?

[@Anonymous-df8it]

They probably played the chromatic scale to see if it sounds equidistant.

[@martinh1277]

@@Anonymous-df8it This works fine for lutes and Basse de Viols. They didn't listen, they did see and the result was all right.

[@martinh1277]

Organs can not be temperated. Imagine, you have a C. The 4th overtone is an harmonic e. Simultaneously you hear a tempered e. This does not sound nice. Up to now there is no good organ tuning. The best is from Klaiss, but it is his secret.