Harpsichord tuning: 17th-Century regular...morphed to Bach's

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thebpl
August 30, 2007

A normal 17th-Century harpsichord temperament is heard first: regular "1/6 comma meantone". A folk tune (Twinkle, twinkle, little star / A-B-C-D-E-F-G / Ah, vous dirais-je, Maman / Morgen kommt ...

A normal 17th-Century harpsichord temperament is heard first: regular "1/6 comma meantone".

A folk tune (Twinkle, twinkle, little star / A-B-C-D-E-F-G / Ah, vous dirais-je, Maman / Morgen kommt der Weihnachtsmann...) is played in the four keys of D, B, A-flat, and F major. Two of these scales are excellent, and two of them are terrible.

The sarabande from Bach's B minor French Suite illustrates the behavior of this minor key: problems with the too-sharp D#, A#, and E# as they occur in the music. Those notes are too sharp because they were tuned for their more common use as Eb, Bb, and F...and in this style of tuning, the correct spelling of the note names matters that much.

Then, the harpsichord is retuned by moving six of the 12 notes in each octave. The adjustments are based on a drawing that Bach put on his title page of the "Well-Tempered Clavier"...which I take as his method of adjusting that normal tuning into something more flexible and beautiful.

The notes C, D, E, F, G, and A of the C major scale are retained as they were, and the other six notes F#, G#, A#, B, C#, D# (from the B major or F# major scales) are retuned.

The same compositions are then played again, to compare the change in harmonic and melodic quality.

The regular "1/6 comma meantone" system used here is also known as the 55-tet, or simply the "common" tuning described by 18th century writers: Tosi, Sauveur, Telemann, et al. Enharmonic notes such as D# and Eb are one comma apart. Within a whole tone, such as D-E, the D# is at 4/9ths of the distance, and the Eb is at 5/9ths. Only one of the two notes can be on the keyboard...or a compromise can be reached, picking some intermediate pitch that can serve (roughly) as either the D# or the Eb.

This is what the Bach (as interpreted by Lehman) modification then does: it keeps the notes F, C, G, D, A, and E at their usual positions for that system, but it alters B and the five accidentals to carefully controlled intermediate positions where they can serve more smoothly with additional note-names. The F#, C#, and G# are each raised part of the way toward Gb, Db, and Ab. The Bb and Eb are lowered part of the way toward A# and D#.

Full detail about this is at http://www.larips.com
and especially at the article "Bach's Art of Temperament":
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bpl/la...

This hands-on demonstration: 2007, Bradley Lehman at home. Flemish-style harpsichord built by Anne Acker. Folk song arrangement: Bradley Lehman, 2007.

Also check my other YouTube videos for examples of music played with this tuning: harpsichord and organ. Various full-length CDs are available, played by me and others variously on harpsichords, organs, and fortepianos.
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bpl/la...

Category: Music

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music johann sebastian bach harpsichord tuning temperament tempering clavecin cembalo well tempered clavier meantone 55

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grzegorz19plonka (5 months ago) Show Hide

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Cool tuning

yyjchou (8 months ago) Show Hide

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Thanks for putting this video up! You helped me greatly here: "...Bach (...) modification ... keeps the notes F, C, G, D, A, and E at their usual positions... alters B and the five accidentals to carefully controlled intermediate positions where they can serve more smoothly with additional note-names......" My first harpsichord teacher taught me that verbally but I forgot the details as I didn't have a harpsichord until about 13 years later after that lesson.

edcerc (10 months ago) Show Hide

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i kind of like the more disonant keys sometimes. It gives it a unique sound

pureaKero (1 year ago) Show Hide

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Thanks for this post! I have a quiz on tuning and temperament tomorrow in melody and counterpoint and this video really helped me out!

NemgoHart (1 year ago) Show Hide

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i so want to learn to play the harpsichord its my favorite sounding instrument

titighghghg (1 year ago) Show Hide

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thebpl : little question i wanna replace my piano with a harpsichord..

for me it seems like you're tuning the instrument for every piece?? is it what you're supposed to do ??

that's too much time consuming ..

thebpl (1 year ago) Show Hide

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I fear you've missed one of the main points of this video (and my broader research, see the "larips" web site), which is:

Having made the demonstrated modifications off the old system, you can leave the instrument set up this way to play anything. It wipes out the limitations of the older systems, and facilitates music in all keys/scales.

I usually leave this harpsichord tuned this way almost all the time, unless I'm seriously working on much earlier repertoire (from, say, 1630 or before).

titighghghg (1 year ago) Show Hide

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I had missed the point!

thank you.. it helped me to understand..

if I just wanna play some baroque..Bach/Rameau/Couperin/ Scarlatti no need to do this ?

thanks

Watermark0n (8 months ago) Show Hide

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Equal temperament is fine for playing Baroque music. If you want to be uber-authentic you can tune it to meantone, but it's not truly necessary.

adrwLe (1 year ago) Show Hide

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thank you =)

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Harpsichord tuning: 17th-Century regular...morphed to Bach's

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