Meantone, my personal adventure

[Billbrpt@AOL.COM]

In a message dated 3/19/99 4:00:36 PM Central Standard Time,
remoody@easnet.net writes:

<< Hmm I have an idea that some pop style female singers would fall in love
 with Meantone.  I bet a few Jazz players would really dig flat fifths in
 modern pure fifths temp.  Now if 12 5ths need to be narrow by 2 cents....
 would that give pure fifths in an octave stretched 3.77 cents?  Why not
 make it 4?  The fourths should be ok if it were 12th root of 2.x  ?
 
 Ric Means Well
  >>

I am so happy to see that you have come to this realization.  It seems that
not very long ago at all I saw you write that you could not imagine Jazz in
anything but ET.  I have, in fact heard Jazz in quite a number of
temperaments.  It really works quite well in any one you might care to choose
today.  Each one gives the *piano* more of a distinction than it does the
music.

It is kind of like listening to different musicians express the same music.
If they are all good musicians, they will each play the music correctly and
appropriately but there will still be an individual character in each
performance.  The different temperaments provide a different "color" to the
"voice" the piano has.  So, even 1/4 Comma Meantone may be used for Jazz and
Blues (Rock & Roll too) and I have heard it done plenty of times.  It can
really put some "Funk" into the music that no other temperament can because of
the Wolf.

  This is an example of using the Wolf as a musical force when it is usually
considered unusable, musically.  The 1/7 Comma Meantone is often used as a
substitute for a Well-Temperament because the very slight Wolf it has actually
becomes a very powerful musical force.  It is especially effective in Romantic
literature such as Brahms, Chopin, Schumann, Schubert, Debussy, etc. where
they wrote their most powerfully emotional passages in the key of Ab.

Sincerely,
Bill Bremmer RPT
Madison, Wisconsin