Temperament Arguments

[David Love]

I think you're getting a little defensive.  I said that arguing about which
one is superior is a meaningless waste of time.  I am happy to discuss the
merits of HT's.  I tune them for some of my customers and I don't get into
diatribes about which is better in spite of the conclusions you might have
drawn about my personal preferences.  I certainly wouldn't argue against the
validity of the approach.  I find them interesting.  Complexity alone
doesn't impress me.  There is much that is complex that takes a back seat to
that which is simple.  It seems that some of the proponents of HT's are
trying to find objective criteria which they can use to win a winless
argument.  The criteria are subjective.  And again, let's not lose track of
the genesis of this discussion (I would like to think it is still a
discussion), which was whether or not HT's are necessary to provide color in
the process of modulation.  The fundamental premise of many of the HT's is
that the farther one moves away from the key of C in the circle of fifths,
the more tension, activity, dissonance (you fill in the word that describes
it best for you), will you find.  My only point was that this may not always
be a desirable thing and I tried to give several examples from the
literature.  But moreover, my point was that temperament is a phenomenon of
the piano and doesn't even exist outside of that particular instrument.  So
arguing compositional benefits based on the fixed limitations and choices
that must be made in the tuning of the piano seems be a very narrow view.
As I tried to point out, there are times when you would be better served, by
your own theory, by a WT that has the far end of the circle of fifths (F#)
as the most sonorous key.  That suggests that the choice of the structure of
WT's either happened to suit the music of the time, when more pieces were
written in keys with fewer sharps and flats, or because there wasn't yet any
other system of tuning that could accommodate those types of adventures.
The interesting thing along these lines is that I don't see that many
composers (and I do tune for many composers) asking for HT's.  Perhaps they
haven't had there eyes opened yet and just don't know about them.  Yet many
of these individuals are knowledgeable in this area and many have very
highly developed ears.  If you are looking for objective criteria, perhaps
that does say something.

David Love

----- Original Message -----
From: <A440A@AOL.COM>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: October 31, 2001 7:51 PM
Subject: Re: Temperament Arguments


> Greetings,
> David writes:
> << But to try and argue the superiority of WT over ET and that WT has
>
> more color and therefore is more interesting, musical, dynamic,
>
> multi-dimensional, etc., is a meaningless waste of time.>>
>
>    We are now back to the question of "meaning".  There is an omission in
> the above, and that  is "to me".  It is a meaningless waste of time to
*you*
> because there is no message that is being received by *you*.
>    It is a fact that a WT is more complex than ET, there are a greater
number
> of harmonic values in an unequal temperament,(some of them have 6
different
> sizes of thirds!).  The added complexity certainly creates a more complex
> harmonic arrangement of the sonata.  This is physical fact.  If the more
> complex sonic result has no meaning for you, that is a personal viewpoint,
> not a universal value.
>    I also wonder, if it is a meaningless waste of time, why have you even
> bothered to respond to the thread?  If it is truly meaningless, you
certainly
> won't waste the time to respond to this.
> Regards,
> Ed Foote RPT
>
>