what's with the new temperaments?

[Ron Koval]

from ric m:
The implementation was not flawed.
<snip>
Yes they the tunings then were not as fine or close as today, but
that is not the point.  If you are truly interested in how ET was
tuned in  the 19th century you might be interested in the research
of Ellis, and the writings of Montal.  ---rm

Hmmmm, didn't we just say the same thing?  I thought that the tunings of the 
past might be seriously flawed if they weren't repeatable, and you agree 
that they were not as fine or close as today....... so how could the 
implentation of the tuning on the piano not be flawed?

I've learned to question pretty much everything, especially if it doesn't 
make sense to me.  Do I know if Ellis, or Montal accurately accomplished 
what they thought they were researching?  Do I know that Jorgensen 
accurately accomplished what he set out to do?  No!, and for me that really 
doesn't matter, because what I've done is look at the tuning trends of the 
record.  What do most of the tunings appear to change, which keys tend to be 
smoother, which keys tend to have more dissonence.  That's why I've been 
recommending tunings of THIS century, not the tuning of last century, or two 
centuries ago...

As to whether I'm interested in 19th century ET.... No, and I'm not 
interested in ET tuned with 12 tuning forks, or ET tuned with the first 
strobotuner, or ET with the first Korg, or monochord ETs, or........


When I started tuning, (a while ago) I remember thinking that if I could 
tighten up the margin of error, the tuning for sure would sound better and 
better.  While that may be true of pin technique, and unisons and octaves, I 
can't say that getting the temperament as close to ET as possible has 
brought an increase in musical expression.  For that, I believe a 
thoughtful, purposeful deviation from ET can be a  helpful journey.

Ron Koval


_________________________________________________________________
MSN 8 with e-mail virus protection service: 2 months FREE*  
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus