[CAUT] ET vs UET

[David Ilvedson]

So is the point, we all tune Un-Equal Temperments?   

David Ilvedson, RPT
Pacifica, CA  94044

----- Original message ----------------------------------------
From: "Laurence Libin" <lelibin at optonline.net>
To: caut at ptg.org
Received: 4/20/2010 3:23:10 PM
Subject: Re: [CAUT] ET vs UET


>Fred's qualifiers "reasonable" and "fairly refined" get to the crux. To my thinking ET 
>is a very precise condition, not a spectrum, and any approximation therefore isn't 
>ET. Like, you can't be a little bit pregnant; either you are or you aren't (well, not 
>you, Fred). Referring way back in this discussion, I reiterate my opinion that ET is an 
>ideal (like any other precise system) often compromised unintentionally or 
>deliberately in practice, and I believe this has always been true. Whether or how 
>much the deviations matter in music performance is something else again.

>Inching forward a bit, I'd suggest that we tolerate hearing violin or voice and piano 
>together, or piano and orchestra, even though they're not usually strictly in tune 
>with one another, because either we pretty quickly disregard the dissonance or we 
>don't perceive it--or, in some styles of music we even enjoy it. Nevertheless, there's 
>something to be said for hearing Classical chamber music, at least, performed with 
>pianos that sound less harsh in ensemble than most modern pianos do (to my ears), 
>both because they're built that way and tuned that way.

>Laurence    


>There were probably at least a few tuners capable of either a reasonable ET or a 
>reasonable WT in London during this time. And the traveling virtuosi would probably 
>have used them - speculation, but reasonable speculation. It seems unlikely they 
>would have accepted playing on MT or extreme Ordinaire. 
>    No doubt there were traditions that persisted, but we must note where those 
>traditions were rooted. In Germany, they were thoroughly rooted in a century of 
>circular temperaments, and knowledge about how to achieve a fairly refined ET was 
>readily available.