(careful, it is about temperaments)

[Ric Brekne]

Please show me the "evidence".  

David Love
davidlovepianos@comcast.net <mailto:davidlovepianos@comcast.net> 



Seems to me you've had several items tossed out at you already.   What 
evidence there is, is in the form of such things as were discussed and 
written at the time and handed down to us. And of that it seems quite 
clear that nearly all that was written fell into two catagories. On the 
one had there were those who espoused the colour of keys when tuned to 
non ET. There is a myriad of this stuff really.  On the other hand, 
there were those who espoused the uniformnimnity of ET apparently for 
two reasons... the challenge of accomplishing it, and its tonal 
portability.  The now at least 2 centuries of arguing the pros and cons 
of ET seem to always fall into those two basic camps.  How could there 
ever be an argument in the first place unless there were proponents for 
non ET. And what possible reason could they have for being against ET 
unless it was because of the tonalities available by avoiding it ?  And 
that being so... what should stimulate us to beleive that composers 
didnt give a hoot  and were totally unaffected by both the tonalites and 
the disscussions at hand ?

I'll leave all the music theory analysis to those of you who wish to 
delve into that world for evidences.  For me it seems pretty clear cut.  
ET was /is a matter of convenience and one of those mountains to climb 
that we humans so love to ascend.  HT's were full of key colours that 
not only could be exploited... but humans being what they are.. were 
exploited.  After all... we use what is at hand.

Just my view...

Cheers
RicB