more on this temperament thing...

[David Ilvedson]

Ed,

In the following you write about how this group finds an HT SUPERIOR to ET
and then how ET has 
contributed to the decline of civilization and then at the end you wonder
why ET tuners get defensive?  
Actually, I was laughing when I read that...;-]   I haven't, in my limited
experience with HT, liked the sound.  
I also have to look at the practical aspect of tuning and retuning for a
customer.  Do you offer HT tunings for free?  
If they don't like it do you come back and retune with something else for
free?  Because HT is readily available with 
my SAT III, I am able to use it...no one seems interested here and frankly
thats fine with me.  I do have a life other 
than pianos...how about you?

David I.


>The instructors at the Nashville Jazz Workshop have now adopted the
>Coleman 11 and/or Young temperaments as superior to what they had before. 
>As far as the "majority" goes,  so far I am seeing the majority around 
>here prefer my unequal tuning to my equal one.  Eventually,  I believe we 
>will see ET for what it is, a 20th century phenomenom that is necessary
>for 20th century music.  A one-size-fits-all intonation.  I think the
Western 
>musical world got blinded by science.   
>Some would hold ET responsible for the gradual decline in the piano's 
>place of supremacy,(as compared to where it was in 1910, say).  I don't
>know 
>about that, but it doesn't seem to have helped!  Even more radical people 
>would hold ET responsible for music's degeneration into rock and roll,
>(which 
>to me is act in the number of techs that are now using a wide variety of 
>temperaments.  In 1976, there was no mention of this stuff in the
>literature 
>that I know of, even though Murray Barbour's writings had been available 
>since the 1950's.   The last 10 or 15 years has seen a tremendous blow to 
>ET's hedgemony, and there are no signs that the trend is abating.  So, the

>modern tech has the choice of staying with the status quo or exploring new

>fields.  There is nobody to make us do one or the other, it is strictly an

>individual choice. 
>  It does seem that the ET-only and the HT-only groups get mighty
>defensive 
>when confronted with the alternatives.  I wonder why?  Are the only happy 
>techs the ones that use them all?  
>Regards, 
>Ed Foote