oops

[Billbrpt]

In a message dated 98-03-12 11:26:51 EST, you write:

<< I thought that was what you meant by "Mean" Tone when temperaments were the
 "discussion" earlier.  See what assumptions we make with e-mail!  I was
 wrong.
 Lance Lafargue, RPT >>

This is, as I see it, the greatest problem there is when talking about
temperament:  putting a label on it.  Who would ever want anything other than
the nice, normal, universally accepted, ET?  Who would ever want any "MEAN"
tones on their piano?

My principal criticism of White is that in his entire chapter on "Mean-Tone"
(sic), it is obvious that he knows very little about the subject at all.  For
starters, which of these terribly "mean tones" is he even talking about?  What
happened to all of the Modified Meantone Temperaments?  What happened to all
of the great range of WT's?  What happened to the Victorian Temperaments?
What happened to the Quasi-Equal Temperaments?

White's book pits his ET ideal against one foe only, the (presumably) 1/4
Syntonic Meantone Temperament.  He allows for absolutely nothing in between.
His position therefore could be viewed as fanatical.  He wants all music past,
present and future to be atonal.  He wants to "destroy"  (his own choice of
word) the inherent key color of all past music.  All this to permit "complete
freedom" of modulation.

Doesn't this sound a bit like the way some of the social architechts of his
time planned to give us all "freedom" by stripping us of our individuality, by
ignoring past social structures and focusing on the one which just wouldn't
work and by imposing upon us a system that we would, in time, accept while
firmly believing that all systems of the past are inferior, not even worth
understanding?

Why does virtually every book on music repeat this error?

Your headline, "oops" is ironically and powerfully succint, Lance.  

Bill Bremmer RPT
Madison, Wisconsin