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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
10
OuTTECHNICAL DE&TOIENT
CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM BRAID WHITE
TEMPERAMENTS
T am not going to talk about the artistic tem-
perament as exhibited by my readers or by
tuners as a class, though, goodness knows,
there would be a profitable theme for exposition
right here. Nor am I going to speak about
methods of tuning in temperament. I am going
to talk about the meaning of temperament in
general. The talk is to be general and abstract,
and this warning is hereby duly given by me,
the author, to all who may read; whereby they
shall not afterwards complain that they read
through the page under a misunderstanding and
in consequence were bored to extinction.
The researches of Helmholtz, Ellis, L,ecky
and other authorities have succeeded during the
past fifty years in laying bare much of the hid-
den history of middle-age music so that we are
able to learn many facts essential to an under-
standing thereof. Among these is the certainty
that the ancient Greek music consisted simply
of artificial series of musical tones, defined by
tuning the strings of a lyre or harp accordingly,
and used as the frame of the intoning or
cadenced speech in which the poets and actors
of Greek tragedy recited their verses. This kind
of music was, of curse, unisonal, having one
part only, for the Greeks recognized as musical
no combination of tones simultaneously
sounded, save only the octave, which is, of
course, only the unison inverted.
Now. upon this old Greek music was founded
the ecclesiastical singing set forth for the
Roman liturgy by Pope Gregory during the be-
ginning of the seventh century A. D., which
in substance has been retained for that liturgy
until this day. Here again the idea of different
voices moving simultaneously on different levels
of pitch, thus forming a combination of two or
more parts, was not originally thought of at all.
Now. it will readily be seen that so long as
music is sung in one part only there is no need
for any special system of temperament. The
word "temper" means, in fact, to tune, but by
common consent it has come to be used only
for such tuning systems as necessarily involve
compromises with purity of interval. Tempera-
ment, then, became necessary only when har-
mony arose from the cell of theory and emerged
into the daylight of practice. It is true that
this process of rising was long, slow and com-
plex. It is true that only to-day, with the over-
throw of all systematic foundation by the ultra-
modern composers, do we see the completion of
the process that began seven hundred years
ago. Still, from the moment that the first crude
experiment was made of tying together two
strings of voices, one singing a fifth above the
other, the possibility of some form of modi-
fication in tuning became a matter of immediate
practical importance. From the thirteenth to
the sixteenth century the slow evolution pro-
ceeded without any greater result than to bring
in the interval of the fourth and of the third,
while simultaneously waa discovered the great
rule of musical composition that voices must
move, not at one fixed distance apart, but in
series of relations involving any and all of the
existing fixed distances; in accordance, not with
mathematics, but with aesthetic demand.
Sixteenth century music is extremely dull,
tame and monotonous to modern ears, simply
because its harmonic resources are so small.
The music of Sebastian Bach and of his imme-
diate school does not indeed take us into realms
REPAIRS
of beauty and light, yet it is also true that the
counterpoint developed so wonderfully by that
great man had to give way before the advance
of harmonic invention, simply because the
aesthetic sense of mankind is progressive and
demands improvements constantly. Bach writes
whole pages without leaving the key in which
he started, though contrawise in other speci-
mens of his work, he anticipates the richest,
modern harmonies.
Now, it must be remembered that until the
sixteenth century, the progress of invention had
been very slow in all that pertained to musi-
cal instrument making. The necessity for a
musical instrument of more than unisonal power
was not, of course, apparent until harmony
had begun to develop. Hence the invention of
systems for tuning such instruments as the
clavichord (itself merely a development of the
monochord of Pythagoras, a stretched single
string with moveable bridge) proceeded parallel
with improvements in the making of the instru-
ment itself.
Almost any kind of a series of tones may be
called a scale if one is working only in one
part. It is when an attempt is made to combine
parts at intervals other than the simple octave
that the necessity for a well-rounded, aesthetic-
ally satisfying tone-series becomes obvious. The
development of the scale, therefore, may also be
said to have proceeded parallel with the de-
velopment of instruments for its elucidation.
Comparison of ancient keyed instruments shows
that the modern chromatic scale is indeed a
comparatively late development, not fully ac-
cepted indeed until musicians had taken the
latest and greatest step in tuning systems; in
the invention of equal temperament during the
age of Sebastian Bach.
It is scarcely necessary at this time to repeat
the explanations so often made on this page
regarding necessity for temperament in tuning
the modern diatonic-chromatic scale. In
"Theory and Practice of Pianoforte Building"
the facts are fully set forth, as they have been
in previous issues of The Review. Suffice it to
say that the aesthetic demands of mankind
having been responsible for the development
of the diatonic-chromatic scale, it became evi-
dent that as soon as any attempt is made to
write music in two or more parts, the intervals
thus produced simultaneously do not sound well,
that in fact some of the more often used and
most useful intervals sound intolerably out of
tune with each other, if the scales are tuned
with due regard to purity of melodic succession.
Now, it will be understood that the revolu-
tionary step of arbitrarily annulling all the dif-
ferences of relation between the steps in scale,
and the substitution, therefor, of a series of
twelve equi-distant semitones, did not come as
a flash of inspiration to anybody, easy and logi-
cal as it seems to us to-day. In truth, the history
of systems of temperament shows that invention
ran parallel with the progress of harmonic
science and that only as new intervals were
brought forward, counterpoint became more
complex and more and more daring experiments
were made in the use of dissonances, did the in-
genuity of musicians (who were then their own
tuners) provide the necessary means for utter-
ing the requirements of the art in practical
form. For many years, indeed, for three hun-
dred years at least, the so-called mean-tone tem-
perament held the boards, however, and it must
be confessed that the ingenuity and science dis-
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played in the development of this system are
worthy the highest praise. The only defect of
mean-tone—though indeed that one is serious—
is its incapability of tolerable tuning in more
than six major and three minor keys, save by
the addition of Mats and sharps extra to the
original twelve keys. Such an addition could,
of course, be made by the process of splitting
the sharps, making each half do duty as a sep-
arate key. But this in turn involves acquiring
2. new system of fingering, whilst also the me-
chanical difficulties of connecting up such a
keyboard with the piano action, and its influence
upon the construction of the piano would be far
greater than at first might be supposed. Even
thus, however, one would only gain live extra
keys and unless all the white keys were also
split, complete capacity for playing in all keys
would still be out of reach. The organ, of
course, presents few of these mechanical dif-
ficulties and organs have been made in some
instances with split sharps; Handel's Foundling
Hospital Organ in London being one of these,
until it was re-tuned throughout in equal tem-
perament.
Of course, the beauty of mean-tone tuning is
in its smooth thirds. The old tuners, specimens
of whose work might have been seen up till
thirty years ago in England and perhaps also
in the New England States, used a circle of
l'fths and octaves, making the fifths uniformly
Cat; and they were satisfied if the chords they
obtained gave reasonably smooth thirds. But
mean-tone tuning is just as difficult to do well
by aural estimation as would be the equal tem-
perament of to-day.
Still, it is always interesting, if nothing else,
to make experiments for the purpose of dis-
covering just what the old tuning sounded like.
Some time ago I published in this department an
article on the mean-tone temperament, giving
directions for tuning it and the names of some
pieces that might be played in it upon the ordi-
nary twelve to the octave key-board. Of course,
there are only six major and three minor keys
available with twelve keys to the octave. By
tuning a circle of fifths and octaves, the latter
being, of course, true and the former uniformly
flat by about three audible beats per second,
this, or something very like it, as may be de-
cided by estimation of ear, will give a fair repro-
duction of good mean-tone tuning; and any
reader who will try it and then play some simple
old airs in the keys of C, G, B flat or F, will
find the effect in every way as charming as it is
unusual.
Communications for this department should be
addressed to William Braid White, care Music
Trade Review, 373 Fourth avenue, New York
City.
FAUST SCHOOL OF TUNING
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pairing, alto Regulating, Voicing, Varnishing and Polishing
This formerly was the tuning department of the New
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head of the department for 20 years previous to its di»
continuance.
Courses in mathematical piano scale construction and
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Pupils have daily practise in Checkering & Sons' factory.
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