The temperament crusade continues

[Richard Moody]

----------
> From: A440A@AOL.COM
> To: pianotech@ptg.org
> Subject: The temperament crusade continues
> Date: Thursday, December 09, 1999 8:30 PM
> 
>  Greetings all, 
>       The  Washington Post has just carried an article that may be of 
> interest to technicians.   I would encourage any and all to read it and 
> comment.   You can find it at 
> 
>
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-12/08/067l-120899-idx.html


> 
> Regards, 
> Ed Foote

Its tough when a misquote (I hope),  never the less conveys
mis-information. 

The article said...... 
	<<The well temperament, he notes, "is what Beethoven grew up around, this
is what Mozart lived in the middle of, this was the only tuning available
until the late 1850s."   >>

hopefully this (below) is a glitch in "media translation", (an HTML fubar)
or I have a glitch in comprehension.... 
	<<The octave intrigued Pythagoras but didn't deafen him to other pleasing
pairings of notes. He discovered, for instance, that a string divided so
that one part is precisely 1112 times as long as the other also sounds a
harmonious interval. That interval is known as the "perfect fifth.">>

To hear a fifth on a monochord, divide the string into five parts, place
the bridge at the 3rd division.   The three segments below the bridge
sound the bottom note, the remaining two sound the "perfect" fifth above. 
	To divide a string so that one part is "precisely 1112 times as long as
the other"  wouldn't you need a string precisely divided into 1113 parts?
On the other hand I have not heard of an  1112:1 interval...yet
((((fwiw 10 octaves is 1024:1,  10 octaves + a 5th is 1536:1. 
(2^10*3/2))))

---ricredulousnotyet