Well Temperaments

[Jim Coleman, Sr.]

Hi Jerry:

You asked for a plan of attack in tuning the octave in Historical 
Temperaments. You still can use the M3rd-10th-17th tests. They just won't
progress evenly as in equal temperament. Bill Bremmer takes advantage of 
the opportunity to spread out the 5ths which are narrowed more than 
usual in Equal Temperament. Perhaps he will jump in a give some suggestions
about how to go about this.

Jim Coleman, Sr.

PS I would appreciate the figures you have worked out in text form. If you
have that already worked out, it is easy to send in the body of an email
message rather than sending it as an attachment. I found that many people
do not have the ability to receive attachments. I ended up sending my
stuff in the body as regular ascii text.   JWC.



On Sat, 20 Mar 1999, Jerry Hunt wrote:

> A couple of months ago, I checked out from the library Owen Jorgenson’s
> book on tuning historical temperaments by ear. I converted several of
> the well temperaments into a more "modern" format, i.e. similar to the
> type of ET bearing plans that appear in the Journal. I finally got
> around to trying the Thomas Young Temperament No. 2 tonight. It seemed
> to work out pretty well (no pun intended) - the intervals that were
> supposed to be pure sounded pure and the tempered intervals seemed to
> follow the expected progressions.
> 
> Now for the question (and this may or be not be a stupid question??):
> after setting the temperament, what is the best plan of attack for
> tuning the octaves? The normal 3rd-10th tests etc. that are used in ET
> obviously don’t apply.  I would appreciate any tips.
> 
> If anyone is interested in a copy of the bearing plans that I have, send
> me an e-mail. I have them in an Excel 95 spreadsheet, but could also
> send them as a text file. The temperaments that I have are:
> 
> Theoretically Correct Aron-Neidhardt Ditonic Comma Well Temperament
> in the Acoustic Tonality of C Major
> 
> The Equal-Beating Andreas Werckmeister "Correct Temperament No. 1"
> Well Temperament in the Acoustic Tonality of C and F Major
> 
> Theoretically Correct Andreas Werckmeister "Correct Temperament No. 1"
> Well Temperament in the Acoustic Tonality of C and F Major
> 
> Equal-Beating Thomas Young Temperament No. 2
> Well Temperament in the Acoustic Tonality of C Major
> 
> Theoretically Correct Thomas Young Temperament No. 2
> Well Temperament in the Acoustic Tonality of C Major
> 
> Equal Beating 1/4 Ditonic Comma Well Temperament
> in the Acoustic Tonality of C Major
> 
> Theoretically Correct 1/4 Ditonic Comma Well Temperament
> in the Acoustic Tonality of C Major
> 
> -- 
> Jerry Hunt
> Dallas, TX
>