Harpsichord tuning: Well-Tempered Clavier - Bradley Lehman

[iluvspam6]

I need more information on this "nudge" concept. Does it go to eleven? Ever? Or do you have to adjust your nudge whether it be a European or African nudge? Does it work for banjo?

[thebpl]

@iluvspam6 The banjo has to really want to change.

[mattiabp]

i like your cat, dude :D

[TheNuncFluens]

So the way people have been playing it so far is wrong?

[thethreeamazingmen]

@TheNuncFluens no...just the tuning isnt 100%

[fgbowen]

Awesome.

[delameu]

wasnt the organ in arnstadt tuned to werckmeister temperament..?

[thebpl]

@delameu Do you have hard evidence of any particular temperament on the Arnstadt organ, Werckmeister or otherwise? I have not heard of any.

[delameu]

@thebpl i dont know thats just what i read from different sources

[giorgiopicker]

whatever you did , it sounds really good to me

tnx

[cuykryshna]

que lindo gato

[javierpe9103]

el sonido es mucho mas claro

[freezazoid]

2:23 ...nudge in which direction?

[DanSlime]

I love the wtc. This is cool - not everyone thinks about Bach in this aspect. Everyone has to tune their instrument ... even him. I was into the wtc before I understood temperaments. Now that I'm getting into tuning your video makes more sense. I noticed your site was mentioned on Tim Smith's site. I love his site too.

[pcma1970]

Amazing performances

[1401JSC]

Have you also guessed explanations of why the two "t" are autographically different, or the significance of the form of "D" with squiggles and two dots that make it look like a face, and "W"?

Did you read John Charles Francis' 2005 thesis "Das Wohltemperirte Clavier Pitch, Tuning and Temperament Design" where he attributes to the decorative curve an indication of temperament?

What about the sqiggle underneath "per" which is missing from your drawing?

[thebpl]

I answered all these on my web site (and in my original papers before that) in 2005 and 2006; see larips com

[1401JSC]

I have read the authoritative Early Music articles.

Quite a lot of researchers will go to great lengths to prove a theory. In this case, one can hardly disprove your speculation.

Bach did not leave us letters concerning his ideas about tuning. Or recordings.

But was Bach so original.

What about the John Bull Ut Re Mi Fa Sol La of the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book (page 183 of the Dover Edition)?

What's the point of applying your theory to an A=440 Hz keyboard?

[thebpl]

What about that marvelous Bull fantasia? I've been playing it for 25 years, most recently in a concert on the Goshen organ (playing it on the viola da gamba 8, making it sound like viol-consort music). I also discussed that piece quite a bit on TUNING-L, with regard to its enharmonic swaps and the way it drops a comma.

On your question about an A=440 keyboard, the pitch level is irrelevant: the temperament's shape is exactly the same, irrespective of anything in Hz. And, this video is at 440!

[cangjie12]

@thebpl Wouldn't it sound more authentic if you also tuned the keyboard to a lower pitch than A=440? (since Bach's A was lower)

[1401JSC]

Euh

- How much is a "nudge"?

- Is a nudge higher or lower?

[thebpl]

About 1/12th of a comma, and the direction depends which note you're working on. The nudge is in the direction that makes the 5th smaller than pure.

[FernandRaynaud]

Honorable Herr HochProfessor Lehman,

Regardless -- the squiggle story may be entertaining but -- your tuning is logical and is a better, more moderate, mousetrap. I love it. I had tried various compromises and yours is very usable.

Frankly I do it using my Korg OT-12 - set all white keys and Eb to Vallotti, but not B, then do the remaining +2, -2 and +4s. I haven't had a chance to make one yet, so a recipe for A=440 using the Korg's other presets for the non-Vallotti notes would be welcome.

[eolianwold]

"I iz sitting on your harpzikords listening to your Bachs"

But seriously, if you're supposed to turn the diagram upside down, shouldn't the "C" in the drawing come out right side up? Is there an explanation for the right 5 loops (viewing the squiggle right-side up as it is is in the document) having 3 turns and the left three having 2? A more honest interpretation would be that each 5th gets between 1 and 3 "nudges".

Perhaps the drawing at the bottom of the page is a lost cantata?

[iluvspam6]

Ah-h-h-h Bach. Brad, you rock! Double!

[susumu07]

AMAZING!

[paulchiuk]

Bradley is a great teacher and scholar and I am immensely grateful to him for making his research so widely available and relatively easy for the layman to understand, Aurally more and more people are becoming convinced that Bradley has the right tuning temperament - I am too (nearly). I'm not an academic, but as a free thinker aware of the disputations about the famous 'squiggle' I had a fresh untrained look at it and I noticed something that all the professors seem to have missed! Next comment

[LutenistDeMari]

Ignore that rather strange comment about stops and starts in your playing. The demonstration was succinct and clear, the playing at the start and finish immensly enjoyable. The system you've discovered/developed sounds fantastic. My gratitude for your hard work!

[ObDaDa]

veRy inteResTinG

i'M sO GLaD yoU'aLL uNdersTanD thiS...

i'Ve aLwaYs LoVeD thE seeMingLy siMpLe

YeT so PerfectLy HarmoNious & CompLeX MelodieS oF Bach.

KeeP oN TrucKin'.....

G_D iS GooD.

[Geronimo1913]

Oh yeah, I love your kitty that stuck around for most of the video. :D Looks a bit like my Nicolai. :D

[jlaurson]

(s)he's there for the entire video. you can still see her tail sticking out into the screen. :-)

[Geronimo1913]

Thanks for your video! I was just discussing tuning and tempering with a fellow music student. I'll be sure to show your video to him since you explain it a bit better than me. :P

[cobhcftr28]

Wow! This is absolutely fascinating and is a subject in which I'm intensely interested, being a Bach devotee as well as a current Masters student in piano performance at Indiana University. Thank you for this wonderful video!

[her0esfan]

WOW, that is the 1st time I have heard the difference between the single and double nudges and the pure! What a great demosntration!

[larrydooley]

This was a very fascinating video. I'm reading a book at the moment called "How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony" which discusses a lot of different tuning systems and it was interesting to see someone tune a keyboard differently and then to hear part of the Well-Tempered Clavier performed with this tuning.

[ruskispion]

Interesting video however there were a few too many stops and starts which interupts the flow and passion of the music.

[thebpl]

I'm curious: "Too many stops and starts" in what, the B major music at the end? If anything, I thought (in retrospect) that I played the C major prelude a bit too strictly for this recording, not bending it as much as I do some other times. Flexible tempo is a vital part of playing the harpsichord, IMO, since the instrument can't do note-to-note dynamic contrasts. And when I feel "passionate" about certain melodic bits or phrase endings, I bend the tempo and give them the extra time they need.

[ruskispion]

Yes that's a good thing to do when you feel the music you should slow it down but not remove the flow of the music otherwise it is as if you don't know what your doing. No offence intended, i thought the video was very interesting.

[joekav8]

Did Bach invent well tempering? Is "ordinaire" the same as mean tempering? Thanks for these great videos!

[thebpl]

Good questions. I have a page about that over at larips com. Pick "theory" from the menu at the top right, and then "ordinary" or "extraordinary" from the list there.

In short: "ordinaire" is a practice of starting from regularly spaced (or "mean") naturals, and then stretching the sharps a little sharper and the flats a little flatter as compromises. They come close to meeting somewhere in the middle, depending how much stretching is done.

[adriathan1994]

i think that you tuned it one semitone down or im wrong?

[thebpl]

No, this recording by me is at A=440.

Peter Watchorn's excellent set of book 1 is at A=415, and Richard Egarr's is at A=392. Both of them use this temperament, too.

[Esteelauders]

I agree I think the C-major scale is too boring sometimes.

btw, loved the song even more at the end. (felt closer to bach lol):D

[pianoclarinet89]

lol i luv ur cat

[pianoclarinet89]

when im older im going to make a digital player harpsichord with no tuning involved

[dolofonos]

The digital really is the most practical instrument. Ideally, one would own both a digital and an acoustic. The real problem with an electric harpsichord, however, is availability and authenticity. Roland has not made their digital harpsichord available on both matters of production and finance. If the outrageous price is not bad enough, it also features piano keys rather than that of a harpsichord (the latest model, the earlier are simply too hard to find though they are truer in design).

[clubsandwedge]

What a beautiful lifestyle, not to dwell into pedantry too much but I'm guessing you're a very intelligent guy.

[rafalis2]

the cat performance was also great!! I like around 4:40

[EmdrGreg]

Thanks, Bradley. Did you uncover the meaning of the squiggle? That is amazing detective work.