HT Tests

[Robin Hufford]

Richard,
     Comments interspersed below.

Richard Brekne wrote:

> Robin Hufford wrote:
>
> > Hello Richard,
> >
> >      Thinking this,  then, if I am correct, you would probably see, absent any kind
> > of prompting, that the uninitiated auditors in your study would prefer the less
> > tense keys and demonstrate a lessened like for the more tense ones.  Perhaps.
>
> > Regards, Robin Hufford
>
> Hmm... If in general, unitiated auditors display a significant preference thus, and at
> the same time display a significant preference for temperaments with variance in key
> colour over Equal Temperament.....
>
> Should be relatively easy asscertain that much.
>
> On the otherhand... if such preferences can be established, then how is this of import
> nominally to advocate tuners, and of little real value to musicians, or for that mater
> listeners, unitiated or otherwise

I think it will be apparent that it is not of much importance as long as the mistuning of
the intervals is kept below some kind of limit.  The point that I make is that the
preference will tend, for the most part, if  not completely, in the direction of the more "
in tune" intervals, or keys,  as opposed to some kind of utility, occasionally advocated,
of the more "out of tune" intervals, or keys in which the tension, or "out of tuneness" has
some kind of intrinsic virtue, particularly as a way of contrast.  This I doubt.  The fact
of the auditors of your tests being unprompted and allowed independant commentary will show
this preference, if they, indeed, have it, but they must be led somehow to comment on which
keys and intervals of the piano, in non-ET, they like the best.  This, I think, must take
some subtlety of observation in order to avoid compromising the result.  Also, and the
point I have aimed at in the last several posts, I doubt that the "variance" of key color
over ET is the important point but, rather, think it likely that HT 's have some keys which
are more sonorous, or less out of tune, than ET,  and that there is likely to be a bias in
the direction of these keys.
Regards, Robin Hufford



>
> Seems to me that either a thing has significance or it does not. And of course not much
> of this seems to have been actively employed by more then a handfull of musicians, so
> how can we speak to the possiblities for musical creativity that have not been explored
> conciously ?
>
> Cheers
> RicB
>
> --
> Richard Brekne
> RPT, N.P.T.F.
> UiB, Bergen, Norway
> mailto:rbrekne@broadpark.no
> http://home.broadpark.no/~rbrekne/ricmain.html
>
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