What temperament is a guitar tuned? (encore)

[Billbrpt@aol.com]

In a message dated 6/3/98 3:30:11 PM Central Daylight Time, kam544@ionet.net
 writes:

<< Dear Bill,
 
 While I don't doubt your story, it is very difficult for me to conceive of
 a guitarist with the necessary abilities to perform with an opera company,
 and then, at the same time, be unable to tune his/her own high quality
 instrument to the point where a music director would have to say it was
 never in tune with the orchestra.   I just don't have that kind of an
imagination.  There is something missing, what I don't know.>>


None of the qualified guitarists in town wanted to put on a costume and do the
 role.  Yes, the guy was really lame but he was the only one they could find.
 Its not the worst thing I've seen as far as stage productions go, not by a
 long shot.

I'll skip replying in detail to the rest of your reply, Keith.  You tried the
 figures on one guitar, heard what you wanted to hear and believed what you
 wanted to believe.  You want to believe that there is only one way to tune the
 guitar, your way, the way you have always done it. I  know you don't want to
 come right out and tell someone else that he is wrong, that would be too
 strong. It is far easier to simply believe in and agree with someone else who
 says that anything but ET would be wrong and without proving it, proclaim that
 it "wouldn't work".

Apparently you did not try the alternative set of figures.  You took only the
 most extreme set, claim that you tuned according to them (no one knows if you
 did it accurately or not or whether the right partial selection was used) and
 heard for yourself what you wanted to hear:  Regular old out of tune ET was
 better than any of this nonsense that these HT kooks come up with.

It's no different than the tuner who goes up to a piano tuned in an HT, bangs
 on some chords or intervals out of context and quite sure of himself
 proclaims, "See, I told you it just wouldn't work".  
 
I don't know how it could be that I would tune this guy's guitar for the
 production and for so many other people the same way and have them all say how
 well they liked it if it is as "wierd sounding" as you say.  If I were to
 follow your opinion of the matter, it would have been better to let the guy
 tune his own guitar off pitch in some vaguely disorganized manner than to do
 what I actually did.  

So, there is something peculiar about your assesment.  To use your own words,
 " I just don't have that kind of an imagination.  There is something missing,
 what I don't know."

When I go to Providence next month,  I will participate in a morning long
 event where those who attend will largely be delighted by what they hear.
 There will be others  who will not go because they already know that what they
 will hear, they will not like.  It will not matter what it is that is
 presented.  They might hear the same thing someplace else and not think
 anything negative at all but because the very idea does not fit their pre-
 conceived, hard-line notions, they will not like it. They will group together,
 perhaps in the Cyber Café, grumble about what they think is so wrong about it
 and shake their heads in disbelief that so many could get interested in an
 idea that just "won't work".

So I really don't expect you to change your mind, Keith.  But I am quite sure
 that if you had been in the audience of that production of the Man of La
 Mancha, you probably would have had no negative comment about the guy on stage
 playing the guitar.  If I had left him to his own devices, what he really
 thought was ET, you most likely would have said what the director did, the
 guitar was out of tune.

Bill Bremmer RPT
Madison, Wisconsin