I’m posting in late afternoon. I have a had a relaxed day spending a lot of time with Eileen. I practiced a couple of hours at Hope Church. I talked to Martin about temperaments yesterday and have resolved to learn them since he spoke of equal temperament with disdain and has developed his own tuning system derived partly from the work of Herbert Anton Kellner.

Martin said he was a “numerologist.” I found some good info here. The writer of this article is understandably skeptical about the numerology but says he likes the tuning. Martin said that Kellner studied all of the keys of Bach’s music before developing a mean tone temperament which he felt would work well with all of Bach’s music (meaning especially the different keys).

I learned something already. That “Wohltemperierte” in the title ‘Das Wohltemperierte Klavier’ (‘The Well-tempered Keyboard’) by Bach doesn’t mean temperament in the sense of “well tempered.” Apparently the term at the time for this was ‘Gleich-Schwebende Temperatur.’ link to source of this info

I have been thinking about mean tone temperament and it has occurred to me that it might be easier to learn to tune this way then the way I used to try to tune my harpsichord. I am hopeful to try to learn more from Martin about this subject and do some reading and research about it myself.

Eileen and I had a nice chat with Marcus, Martin Pasi’s woodworker (I don’t know his last name and couldn’t find it online).

There are three men in Pasi’s shop. (above Grant, Marcus and Martin Pasi). Marcus says that they produce pipes with three men more quickly than either Fritz’s shop or Taylor and Boody.

Both of the other shops have three or four times the people working. Marcus is obviously a determined high quality worker.

He talked to me at length just about the music rack. It is birdseye maple which he said was difficult to work with. He scraped and sanded this piece until it is beautiful all by itself.

He is also a Death Metal fan. As we were leaving he told me that there was a Death Metal band from Holland called Within Temptation which he admires and told me I would probably like them as well. I said, “From Holland? Holland, Michigan?” He said yes. I asked if they were a “Christian” Death Metal band. Marcus laughed. We clarified that they were not a Christian Death Metal band and were Dutch not American (different Holland).

Here’s a taste.

I love learning about new music. I’m still figuring this band out. They make me think of some so-called prog rock bands from the nineties.