STONAKER Temperament . . . . and others

[Carl Root]

Jim Coleman, Sr. wrote:
> Bill Stegeman who lives in Austin, MN who is in his early 90's probably knew
> him. He may have more information for you. This Bill Stonaker was very well
> known in the 50's and 60's. His work on the "Both Ways from the Middle"
> temperament was copied by many fine piano technicians.

I will go further and state that every professional technician who
considers him/herself a student of the profession should study the
temperament sequences of these two gentlemen.  Back in the early
seventies, when I was just getting started, I bought or took out of the
library every book I could find on the subject.  My conclusions were
that many sequences were rather arbitrary and not particularly useful. 
The following four systems comprise the basics: 

The first four notes of the Stegeman temperament are: C, F, F, and Ab
(not necessarily in that order: transpose it to A).  The Stonaker
temperament starts: A, F, D, Bb.  You should also work with the A, D, D,
G version of the circle of fourths, and of course, the A, F, C#, F
contiguous thirds temperament also referred to as the Hale/Faust
temperament.  

You can learn a lot by working with the first four notes of your
sequence.

Carl Root, RPT