Question: What's the difference?

[Wimblees@AOL.COM]

In a message dated 11/9/99 1:09:53 AM !!!First Boot!!!, Bill Bremmer writes:

<< in a message dated 11/8/99 4:21:40 PM Pacific Standard Time, Willem wrote:
 
 << 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. 

Thanks, Bill for pointing this out. Like everyone else, I never bothered to 
test the temperament of an electric keyboard.  But now that you have brought 
it to our attention, maybe we can all learn from this. Aren't you proud of 
yourself now?

 
 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.

My theory is that the technician made an error. But he made the error in one 
octave, which he then added to the other octaves. He then used the same 
computer program to program all the other keyboards. And if one computer 
technician did it wrong once, then all the others copied him. Am I right? I 
am sure you will correct me if I am not.

Willem