Pitch and Temperament

[jwalton22rg <je.walton@v...>]

I have been following the recent thread with much interest. Thank 
you to all who have contributed - I have learned a lot!

I have also been trying to relate my new found knowledge to our bells 
at Wooburn which, following tuning are a very nice equally tempered 
octave in E (659Hz).

However, I am intrigued as to how the bells would have been tuned as 
a ring previously, having been cast over a period of 200 years (1718-
1902). All bar one were cast in London (less than 30 miles as the 
crow flies), and of those six at Whitechapel. To my knowledge, none 
of the bells left Wooburn after being delivered.

My question, therefore, is this: How would the founder have blended 
his creation in with the rest of the peal?

One of the possible solutions that I can think of is that the founder 
(master tuner?) would have visited Wooburn and made some measurements 
using tuning forks. I can think of no other way in which data of 
sufficent accuracy could be conveyed to allow a reasonable result to 
have been achieved.

There certainly would have been some moving of the goal posts over 
the years - as an example, the tenor, re-cast in 1762, joined five 
earlier bells in the tower, only one of which now remains. As 
measured prior to tuning, it sounded 689Hz, rather closer to F(-24) 
than E(+76). Is this as a result of the bells it was originally 
designed to complement?

As an added twist, the final bell in the peal was cast in Dublin. I 
would imagine it is highly unlikely that Murphy or one of his 
colleagues came over (he obtained the work through the Irish brother 
in law of the local lord of the manor). Interestingly, I note that 
this bell is 14 cents sharp of the ideal for a bell tuned to the just 
temperament, in relation of the tenor, which makes it an exact fit on 
the equal temperament scale! Is this a co-incidence or was Murphy 
using equal temperament in 1869?

I look forward to having my theories upheld or, more likely, blown 
out of the water!

John