Beat Rates in music

[Richard Brekne]

Hi folks

I know this subject has come up relative to the use of
historical temperaments before, but I am curious about how
the amount of stretch in an ET tuning can be / is conciously
employed as a part of the music played.

I think is generally aggreed upon the the more stretch in
general there is, the more tense the general sound of the
tuning is. Clearly a Moonlight Sonata played on a fine
instrument tuned with a lot of stretch imployed based on a
wide 6:3 temperament octave is going to sound different then
the same piece played on the same instrument where the
temperment and stretch are very compressed. Perhaps it is
possible to colour a musical piece through the general
tenseness of the tuning ?

I wonder also if anyone uses this technique as a voicing
tool. I find that the more tense (stretched) the instrument
is, the more is takes on a hard like character, and the more
compressed the tuning the more roundlike and mellow the
instrument sounds.

I get the feeling most tuners learn one style of stretch and
rarely change that. How many of you place any value on the
the ability to adjust stretch in relation to the two above
criteria, even when your own basic taste for stretch is at
odds with these ?

Thanks for your thoughts.

RicB