In a message dated 11/8/99 4:21:40 PM Pacific Standard Time, you write: << Even though we want a piano to be in tune, I think part of the "character" of a piano is when it is slightly out of tune. I think it adds a certain amount of warmth to the sound. And this is something that can never be duplicated electronically. >> This is the warmth that comes from a temperament that is not equal. Once the temperament has had every bit of tonal distinction removed from it, a quality that most people today look to as the state of perfection, it starts to resemble the sound you might expect from an electronic keyboard: totally lifeless and uninteresting. Curiously enough however, not all electronic keyboards can be expected to be perfect either. A friend of mine has one that actually has a good representation of a Well-Tempered Tuning. Just last week, I happened upon one in a music classroom and decided to see if the temperament was really equal. It wasn't. Although the inequality was slight, it was the backwards version of a Well-Tempered Tuning that has come to be called, "Reverse Well". It makes virtually all music sound somewhat unfocused, disoriented and uninteresting yet it seems to be a very commonly made error. I wonder why I am the only person who seems to notice this and also why virtually no one else seems to want to admit that it has ever been observed. I hear it virtually everywhere I go and on the majority of pianos that I test for temperament accuracy. Why would the technicians who set up the scale of an electronic keyboard deliberately create a backwards version of a Historical Temperament rather than a true ET or a true HT? If it was done in error, why was the error so consistent rather than being just at random? I have a good theory on why aural tuners make the error but how an electronic keyboard temperament could end up being so perfectly backwards is beyond my understanding. Bill Bremmer RPT Madison, Wisconsin
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