Why did Rauno Keltanen stop recording?

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tuulen
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Re: Why did Rauno Keltanen stop recording?

Post by tuulen » Mon Nov 01, 2010 7:20 pm

sammy wrote:...Tuulen: if you look at what I was actually asking, you might notice I was not after a theoretical explanation, or validation of any theory, but an opinion based on what you hear... but don't worry I will give up now. Forget it...
A comparison between JI and ET becomes a comparison between apples and oranges, two different things. Yes, they both represent music, but from two very different musical perspectives, and that difference is very difficult to explain.

The Baroque is the last major Western musical era to use JI, although choral singing and folk music often continue to use JI, too. Otherwise, ET has dominated Western music for well more than two hundred years, and so finding examples of JI to listen to is far less common these days, except on the Internet!

JI is really, really, really easy to understand, the most natural of music. In fact, it is so easy to understand that by the time you come to like JI and then go to the "properly" tuned piano test you will ask yourself, "What is wrong with this piano?" "Why does it sound wrong?"

Yet, it is the "proper" tuning of the piano which allows so much modern music to happen. Without "proper" piano tuning the Classical era could not have existed, and no orchestral music since then could have existed, either.

So, each of those two systems of tuning have their place.



Re: Why did Rauno Keltanen stop recording?

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sammy
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Re: Why did Rauno Keltanen stop recording?

Post by sammy » Mon Nov 01, 2010 8:24 pm

AldenG, I've sent an email to Fuga (since I failed to go there after all last week)... let's see what they say about Keltanen... and whether they manage to find out something about those recordings.

tuulen
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Re: Why did Rauno Keltanen stop recording?

Post by tuulen » Mon Nov 01, 2010 10:36 pm

sammy wrote:...Still, I wonder if you could give some recommendations of "real" Baroque music that you mentioned - recorded albums, I mean. What albums are your favourites?
The point is Just Intonation, of pure harmonics, which includes the Baroque era, too, but right there in Finland you have the group known as Loituma, performed by music students from Sibelius Academy, and let me recommend their album, In The Moonlight.

AldenG
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Re: Why did Rauno Keltanen stop recording?

Post by AldenG » Tue Nov 02, 2010 3:10 am

Thanks Sammy, it'll be interesting to hear what you hear back.
As he persisted, I was obliged to tootle him gently at first and then, seeing no improvement, to trumpet him vigorously with my horn.

sammy
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Re: Why did Rauno Keltanen stop recording?

Post by sammy » Tue Nov 02, 2010 10:12 am

tuulen wrote:right there in Finland you have the group known as Loituma, performed by music students from Sibelius Academy, and let me recommend their album, In The Moonlight.
I am aware of the group, but must admit the style of music they sing is not quite my cup of tea. (Read: it certainly is not something I'd listen to at home.) As far as Finnish vocal groups go, Lumen Valo is much more interesting IMO when it comes to repertoire.

tuulen
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Re: Why did Rauno Keltanen stop recording?

Post by tuulen » Wed Nov 03, 2010 1:15 am

sammy wrote:...As far as Finnish vocal groups go, Lumen Valo is much more interesting IMO when it comes to repertoire.
Aha, and I thank you! It is always good to find something new like that, new to me.


tuulen
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Re: Why did Rauno Keltanen stop recording?

Post by tuulen » Fri Nov 05, 2010 8:11 pm

Although that article focuses on Equal Temperament, it does mention Just Intonation, too, beginning on page 243 of that article.

Kiitos, jmakinen!
Last edited by tuulen on Sat Nov 06, 2010 6:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.

AldenG
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Re: Why did Rauno Keltanen stop recording?

Post by AldenG » Fri Nov 05, 2010 10:59 pm

I believe that P.D.Q. Bach may have prescribed INjust temperament for a number of pieces...
As he persisted, I was obliged to tootle him gently at first and then, seeing no improvement, to trumpet him vigorously with my horn.

sammy
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Re: Why did Rauno Keltanen stop recording?

Post by sammy » Sat Nov 06, 2010 2:02 pm

For one last time, the question I've been asking.

You who can hear the difference: since you find JI tuning more "right" or "harmonically perfect" to your ears, do you personally find it somehow unpleasant (tuning-wise) to listen to music that includes an ET piano - for example. some Brahms piano quartet?

Hint: it's a simple yes or no question about how you personally experience music.

AldenG
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Re: Why did Rauno Keltanen stop recording?

Post by AldenG » Sat Nov 06, 2010 6:09 pm

No. I find it merely different.

I have some Brandenburgs on ancient instruments that have distinctive intonation -- possibly just, but possibly just quirky. In particular the thirds in the trumpets are noticeably flatter. I tend to prefer those recordings, but is it merely the intonation? It might as easily be the smaller ensemble or the less powerful instruments and their distinctive tone qualities. It doesn't keep me from liking the bigger, more modern recordings but I do keep returning to the appeal of the smaller.

For piano trios, my frame of comparison would likely be the andante movement of Beethoven's Archduke trio. Of course I've never heard it in anything but ET, but in ET it sounds like harmonic perfection. I don't mean scientific perfection, I mean aesthetic perfection. D major is a great key for it. I don't have perfect pitch but it would sound a little different, though still beautiful, in other keys. A higher setting would "shimmer" a bit more, a lower setting a bit less. By shimmer I mean the amount of harmonic beating. Of course the ear can't pick out individual beats with so many piano tones at once, but it can perceive them as differences of brilliance. Sunlight reflecting on water on a wind-still day has almost no shimmer. On a day with light breezes the shimmer is less than on a day with stiff breezes. The quantity of light is the same but the amount of "static motion" in those different situations is different.

There are subjective reasons the 2nd movement of Beethoven's Pathetique sonata was written in A-flat major and not D major. It has more mellowness and less brilliance than the Archduke andante. In earlier tuning systems, the differences in character between different keys had to have been much greater, but they persist even in equal temperament. Some of it is tradition and some of it is physics and some of it is psychology. The mental aspect is best seen in the differences in how musicians perceive the keys of G-flat versus F-sharp (sonically as good as identical in terms of physics), and also the keys of D-flat versus C-sharp. That latter difference is harder to come at since D-flat is almost always major and C-sharp is almost always minor. Some would say that D-flat major has two "relative minor" keys: the traditional B-flat minor and secondarily C-sharp minor. At least that is how Chopin treated them.

I think subjective intonation -- playing in tune by reflex -- is about removing distractions. On simple intervals like octaves and fifths, that means getting the beats out. On sweeter intervals like thirds and sixths there is a lot of latitude to choose a level of "brightness" (sharpness from pythagorean tuning, I suppose) that feels suitable. On complex chords or two-tone intervals that want to resolve, the individual players' ears simply choose a level of beating/dissonance/shimmer that "feels balanced." A little sharper just doesn't sound quite as "right" and a little flatter doesn't, either. Even singers singing a whole-tone apart easily zero in on an interval that sounds right. Most likely they'll be singing just a shade too far apart, mathematically, because that is what feels most like a second, subjectively. It's not the distance they're fine-tuning by, it's the dissonance.

I think it would be quite interesting to turn a pitch analyzer on duettists who claim to be playing in "just intonation." Undoubtedly they are doing something out of the ordinary, but is it mathematically just? Or injust? Musicians singing or playing pitch-flexible instruments together continually adapt for the best-sounding intervals. When playing together with a keyboard, they adjust differently but they're still doing the same thing. They're not going for certain mathematically-prescribed pitches, they're just trying to make each moment sound its best. I suspect that with pitch-flexible ensembles, playing in "just intonation" is little more than a set of gimmicks like playing flatter-than-modern thirds and sixths and that in other respects, it would not stand up to mathematical scrutiny. And for a physicist with the correct equipment, that would actually not be difficult (though probably tedious) to test.

Adherence to one mathematical model or another can easily be viewed as a kind of niche fetishism. Different pieces, in part reflecting their periods, will have a tuning, or more than one, that feels most appropriate in a given moment. But I think that to dislike one tuning, one must make a choice to override sentiment with a kind of "morality" and that an indoctrination period is required to complete the transformation.
Last edited by AldenG on Sat Nov 06, 2010 7:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
As he persisted, I was obliged to tootle him gently at first and then, seeing no improvement, to trumpet him vigorously with my horn.

AldenG
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Re: Why did Rauno Keltanen stop recording?

Post by AldenG » Sat Nov 06, 2010 7:14 pm

Are lissome women more beautiful or wholesome than Rafaelesque ones? Or is it the other way around?

(Uh-oh, whole other tangent beginning in this thread...)

I think the whole just-versus-equal question comes down to the ability to appreciate each thing on its own terms, for its own merits. To dislike one, to be unable to enjoy music played in it, seems doctrinaire.
As he persisted, I was obliged to tootle him gently at first and then, seeing no improvement, to trumpet him vigorously with my horn.

tuulen
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Re: Why did Rauno Keltanen stop recording?

Post by tuulen » Sat Nov 06, 2010 7:23 pm

sammy wrote:For one last time, the question I've been asking.

You who can hear the difference: since you find JI tuning more "right" or "harmonically perfect" to your ears, do you personally find it somehow unpleasant (tuning-wise) to listen to music that includes an ET piano - for example. some Brahms piano quartet?

Hint: it's a simple yes or no question about how you personally experience music.
There is no simple yes or no answer to your question. Just Intonation is harmonically pure, and so JI produces music which is a pleasure to listen to. Yet, those same harmonics limit what can be done with JI music. For instance, a melody using JI can begin in a tonic key (or in the correct term a tonic mode), and then that melody can change to a nearby key, say, from the Key of D to the Key of G and the results of that change are quite satisfying, but changing that same melody to a distant key, say, the Key of Ab, produces bad results, quite "sour" to the ear. Anyway, that was the limit of music for the first several hundred years that we are aware of, as historically recorded. Then, to eliminate such a restriction, a compromise to the tuning of an octave was eventually adopted, known as Equal Temperament, and then a vastly expanded range of music could be produced, where changing from an ET tonic key to any other ET key produced "equally" good results, which JI cannot do. So, each system of tuning has its place, JI for its sweetness and ET for its flexibility.

The Baroque era was the last major JI era, and the next era, the Classical era, was the first ET era. And, during the Classical era the music of the Baroque era was known as antique music, or old fashioned music. There is some truth to that, too, because ET based music has now been the dominant form of music for about the past two hundred and fifty years, so there simply must be something good about it!

Each has their place, and I like both of them.

tuulen
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Re: Why did Rauno Keltanen stop recording?

Post by tuulen » Sat Nov 06, 2010 10:25 pm

AldenG wrote:...I have some Brandenburgs on ancient instruments that have distinctive intonation -- possibly just, but possibly just quirky. In particular the thirds in the trumpets are noticeably flatter. I tend to prefer those recordings, but is it merely the intonation? It might as easily be the smaller ensemble or the less powerful instruments and their distinctive tone qualities. It doesn't keep me from liking the bigger, more modern recordings but I do keep returning to the appeal of the smaller.
Bach's Brandenburg concertos of the late Baroque era are delightful! All six of those concertos were originally performed in Just Intonation, but it also was Bach who put the finishing touches on Equal Temperament, and therein lies an interesting story.

Baroque music began later in the Renaissance era. During the Renaissance there were exactly two social classes of people, including a small minority who owned virtually everything and a much larger majority who owned virtually nothing, and so when the Baroque era became established its main purpose was to provide music to those who could afford it, to the class of wealth. Because there were relatively few who could afford such music there was no need for large orchestras, and the existing Just Intonation system of tuning worked wonderfully well for the small ensembles required, as chamber music performed by maybe a few or by maybe several instruments altogether.

Yet, along with the Renaissance came the beginning of an economic "middle" class, generally a merchant class, and the new middle class was able to afford music, too. The Renaissance ended long before music's Classical era, but the emergence of Equal Temperament allowed for the creation of orchestras, which in turn could fill a large concert hall with music, much larger than any private chamber, and that allowed music to become more affordable to the masses because many tickets could then be sold in order to fill a large concert hall to capacity.

sammy
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Re: Why did Rauno Keltanen stop recording?

Post by sammy » Sun Nov 07, 2010 3:26 pm

Q: does ET tuning sound unpleasant at all to you?
AldenG wrote:No. I find it merely different.
Hooray, with well-polished brass knobs on!

This was what I was asking about, many messages ago. A personal opinion and an answer to my question. Thanks! :thumbsup:
I think the whole just-versus-equal question comes down to the ability to appreciate each thing on its own terms, for its own merits. To dislike one, to be unable to enjoy music played in it, seems doctrinaire.
I quite agree, and this is precisely why I was making that question in the first place.
tuulen wrote:Each has their place, and I like both of them.
Ok I take this to mean that you do not find Equal Temperament music in any way "unpleasant" either, so thank you for answering too. (You can't seriously maintain, though, that answering simply "yes" or "no" to this unpleasantness question would be too complicated - see how AldenG managed to do it :wink: )

All that stuff about JI and ET being different, all that harmonic theory thingy, the music history issues, the strengths and limitations of the tuning systems, that is something I (more or less) already knew and agreed on. Wasn't it sort of obvious...? There's no reason whatever to prepare a written thesis on those issues again and again :wink: The only thing I did and could not know myself, and which you guys could answer, was whether you personally experience ET somehow aesthetically inferior or unpleasant; after all, you can hear the subtle differences more readily than me I'd presume.

As said - It's actually quite likely that I also somehow "detect" the differences, but not on a conscious level - or so definitely that I could put my finger, or should I say my ear, on the matter and say "here it is". Some Terry Riley's piano music in JI definitely has a specific "klang" to it, but then again it's also a tad dull IMO. Harp of New Albion for example. Perhaps also some of my Brandenburg Concerto recordings on "original instruments" would make some interesting "tuning spotter" listening fodder to you, but to me the theoretical academia behind the reasons why it sounds different holds no real appeal, I just "enjoy music".

Anyway, enough blabber. To sum it up - I'm glad to know that being able to hear and differentiate between such subtle intonation differences does not affect your ability to equally truly enjoy "ET music" (although I might be tempted to deduce it might have and adverse effect on certain reading comprehension skills :twisted: )

If, say, the Fauré Barcarolles would have sounded awfully skewed to your ears, and unpleasant to listen to, I could only have offered you my condolences!
Last edited by sammy on Sun Nov 07, 2010 4:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.


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