Reverse Well (was Poetry? Get Real!!!)

Billbrpt@AOL.COM Billbrpt@AOL.COM
Fri, 9 Aug 2002 11:19:37 EDT


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In a message dated 8/9/02 9:25:05 AM Central Daylight Time, sckline@attbi.com 
(Susan Kline) writes:


> if people are aiming at Equal, and make a few
> little "mistakes", or slight inexactitudes, small enough that
> they aren't aware of them, WHY (she asked, incredulously)
> would one assume that these errors would line up perfectly,
> so that the keys progressed evenly but BACKWARDS? I mean,
> isn't it just as likely that they'd be random? They are
> small enough that someone earning a living tuning pianos
> isn't hearing them, even with whatever checks, etc., they
> are using.
> 
> Also, it seemed to me, when I first heard about Reverse Well,
> that if it happened at all, it would likely happen with
> a fourths-and-fifths tuning. But, I feel, most of us use
> something more sophisticated these days, so we just don't
> chase around the circle of fifths. So why would any small
> discrepancies from a scientifically "PERFECT" ET end up
> with a backwards slant?
> 
Really, this "Reverse Well" thing is nothing more than the product of 
confused thinking of a chronically disordered mind.  It's called the "Don 
Quixote Syndrome".  When a person like me just can't get his temperament 
equal, he, through daily frustration begins to see the world in a backwards 
slant.  He views everyone as doing what he, himself does, thereby shifting 
within his own pathetic mind, the consequences for his own errors and 
shortcomings to the rest of the world.

To the person who would just pull such a ridiculous idea as "Reverse Well" 
out of thin air, the whole rest of the world is marching out of step.  After 
all, no one else has ever thought of such a thing, no one else has ever 
written such a thing, therefore, quite obviously, it doesn't exist.

The plain fact is that ET is the standard of the piano industry and has been 
for well over a century.  There is a painfully obvious reason why Historical 
Temperaments are precisely that, historical.  Sure, not everyone gets their 
temperament completely equal all the time but really, we all are human after 
all.  But these small, occasional errors, do they really matter?  Of course 
not!  Do they ever really create a consistent trend?  Never!  Do they have 
any affect on the music?  None whatsoever!

So, you've been right all along Susan.  This List had a nice, peaceful dialog 
going where people talked about little problems that come up now and then and 
shared an occasional joke or anecdote.  Everyone accepted the standard way of 
tuning pianos as the best way that had been proven for longer than any of us 
have lived to be the best and could never be improved upon.

Then, I came along, ruined and disrupted everything for no other purpose than 
to call attention to myself, crying out for help but refusing to take it when 
offered. You all tried, in vain, over and over to get me to see reality and 
to have PTG remove me permanently from this list and even be kicked out of 
PTG for causing this awful rift and controversy.  But PTG, fearing the threat 
of a lawsuit or something was just too afraid to really try to do anything 
about it.  Such are the shortcomings of living in a pluralist democracy.  You 
are forced to live side by side with some of the kookiest nut cases and can't 
really do anything about it.

So, have no fear or worry, Susan, no one who tunes pianos ever does do any 
such thing as tune a backwards version of a Well Tempered Tuning, it's just 
too crazy of a notion to ever be true.  Some people have even gone to the 
trouble of trying to find out if what I have been spewing forth on a daily 
basis might actually be true.  To date, there has never been one shred of 
evidence to support it!  No one, anywhere has ever come across an example of 
it. 

It just has to be that I see and hear things in this backwards way and 
tragically force it upon my customers and have made my colleagues aware of it 
in the most notoriously unethical and uncivil ways, like one of these 
anarchists at a world economic conference: purely destructive, offering no 
redeeming contribution, creating only chaos, dismay and utter disgust, 
negating any positive progress which could have occurred.

So, the thing to do whenever you see any reference to or even hint about 
Reverse Well is to just hit that delete key.  Sooner or later, people will 
all come to the determination that everything I have ever said is pure 
Baloney and if I am consistently ignored in my crazed rantings, I'll 
eventually stop posting and hopefully seek treatment for my tragic disorder.

Bill Bremmer RPT
Madison, Wisconsin
 <A HREF="http://www.billbremmer.com/">Click here: -=w w w . b i l l b r e m m e r . c o m =-</A> 

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