[CAUT] Temperament:Harpsichord:Handel ?

[Fred Sturm]

Hi Dennis,
     In practice, I have found that the offsets work amazingly well  
and precisely. I recently tuned pianos for a couple of temperament  
lecture recitals (Stuart Isacoff in Albuquerque, then Los Alamos)  
doing 1/4 comma meantone and Valotti as well as ET. Beautifully pure  
M3s in the MT, lovely balance in the Valotti. The offsets are placed  
on top of an existing tuning that already accounts for inharmonicity  
(I use RCT, myself). So there really isn't an issue with inharmonic  
bumps (most of that is taken care of anyway, by virtue of which  
partials are being used to tune/generate number curves).
     With the harpsichord, there is next to no inharmonicity to deal  
with. 0.0 tunings work quite nicely. My own harpsichord tunings -  
those I derived by tuning a harpsichord and reading and recording the  
tuning, and those I generated using RCT - have numbers that don't  
exceed 4 cents at the outer ranges. I do prefer the wee bit of  
stretch, but a flat zero tuning will pass muster in many cases.
Regards,
Fred Sturm
University of New Mexico
fssturm@unm.edu



On Dec 2, 2005, at 9:18 AM, Dennis Johnson wrote:

> It has always been my understanding that those "lists" of  
> temperament offsets are purely calculations of paper tunings not  
> accounting for inharmonicity.  This would be the same as tuning  
> equal by setting every note at  0.00 on the machine.  I think there  
> have in some cases allowances been made to calculate with FAC  
> numbers, for example, but I don't use it myself.  My point being is  
> that's important to know the difference.   It wouldn't be  
> acceptable to tune an equal this way, and there's more at risk  
> here.....(IMO).  If a tuning labeled "equal" comes out  
> unsatisfactory then the tuner is responsible.  If a tuning labeled  
> "unequal" proves unsatisfactory, then usually it is the class of  
> unequal temperament that takes the brunt.  Touchy issue,  of  
> course, ....but maybe that is beginning to change now too.
>
> cheers-
>
> dennis johnson
> St. Olaf College
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