On Sat, Oct 17, 2009 at 00:54, Kit Wolf <[email protected]> wrote: > > I'm interested to hear you talk about the trumpet here, as the sources > I've read on temperaments tend to focus on string and keyboard > instruments. It frustrated me that they didn't mention brass and woodwind > more often, but I have never been very clear in my own mind what I > expected them to say about them. In other words, I couldn't really > formulate a question, but I feel sure there must be an interesting answer! > > Take the situation where a valveless brass instrument that 'naturally' > produces notes in the harmonic series plays with an orchestra or keyboard > that is tuned to a different (but historically plausible) temperament: if > I understand you correctly, 'D' is one of the keys where the discrepancy > between the brass instruments and the other instruments is likely to be > minimised? Are there any other keys that work particularly well or > particularly badly, or are we able to lip everything enough that the > natural discrepancy doesn't really matter? Perhaps our ability to > hand-stop is the reason horns seem to be crooked in so many more keys than > trumpets? > > These are just examples of the ill-formed questions running through my > mind - I'd be interested to hear any comments about playing horns in the > days before equal temperament. >
After writing my comment and reading your reply and questions I started calculate and think more on the subject. I know, wrong order of doing things ;) I've looked up the intervals in Werckmeister and Valotti, popular temperaments for 18th century baroque, and the distances in cents come out like this: (I hope the table comes out alright ;) F: W V D: W V just equal G 198 196 E 198 196 204 200 A 390 392 F# 396 396 386 400 Bb 498 498 G 504 506 498 500 C 702 698 A 696 698 702 700 D 894 894 B 900 894 884 900 E 1092 1090 C# 1098 1098 1088 1100 So actually F comes out as slightly closer to the natural harmonic series, which maybe explains the "natural" or "peasant" affect associated with it. In retrospect and after calculating I have to rethink my statement and would have to conclude that other factors have to do with the (at least for me real) relative discomfort of playing in F. It is probably a culmination of the differences in the temperament and the tuning tendencies/problems of other instruments that make F so much harder to play in. The F on a baroque flute for instance is a notoriously bad note, and our sounding D (written A, normally played wide open and lipped up) will tend to be too flat relative to the D of the strings which is based on pure fifths. In these temepraments F lies a bit higher on the keyboard than in equal temperament and D slightly lower, so that could be a contributing factor as well. _______________________________________________ post: [email protected] unsubscribe or set options at https://pegasus.memphis.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
