Holly writes: << I thought the point of tuning a temperament via 4ths and 5ths was to make it easier to get to the contiguous M3s as a finished product - ? >> Greetings, I don't know if it is easier to "get" the thirds as a finished product, but we were taught to use 4ths and fifths with an ever-increasing number of checks as we went through the temperament. These included comparing thirds and sixths, adjacent thirds, 7-8-9-10 progression of 3rd-6th-6th-3rd. Cumulative error was stopped very quickly by not going beyond any check that didn't work out. The bias of either approach, ie, contiguous thirds vs. 4ths and fifths, favors either making a perfectly straight progression of thirds or totally consistant fifths. On small pianos, it is often not possible to have both, and the tuner must decide which is more important. In ET, the thirds are so out of tune to begin with, I don't remember a customer ever questioning them, but I have, on occasion, had a small scale that had a beating fifth when the thirds were lined up, and a customer picked it up. I remember retuning the fifth, letting the third beat 'out of order' and they were satisfied. I believe the perfect progression of thirds is something that we tuners pay far more attention to than the majority of pianists. Regards, Ed Foote RPT http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/well_tempered_piano.html <BR><BR><BR>**************************************<BR> Get a sneak peek of the all-new AOL at http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour</HTML>
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