Tuning Acro Question for Bill

[Ken Jankura]

Billbrpt wrote:
> and forgot to set my SAT on the page number.  I was tuning each note 
>to the fundamental.
>
>I didn't realize my mistake until I had tuned almost the entire middle 
>section center strings (with the strip mute in). Before starting over, I 
>decided to see what kind of temperament it made.  I'm afraid to say,
somehow, 
>that it was blatantly Reverse Well.  
>

I am having a very hard time visualizing (auralizing) how tuning to the
theoretical fundamental in a temperament from a SAT set at 0.0 can change
an ET to a cycle-of-fifth based tuning where Gb, B, or Db thirds somehow
magically become the calmest sounding RBIs and C, F, and G thirds become
the most harsh, or am I misunderstanding the definition of RWT?  If a Well
temperament is a cycle-of-fifth based temperament with the key of C as the
center, then a Reverse Well temperament is one with Gb as the center. Or am
I missing something? Why would the C-E interval be faster, than the Db-F
above it? And then very noticeably faster than the B-D#, which should be
much slower beating than the A#-C# below it? It seems like we can talk
about errors in stretch or individual notes of a temperament affecting the
key color, but not about their reversing the entire structure. 
____________
OK, rather than just ask, I just went and tuned the temperament section on
a small grand in my shop to the SAT, no page, fundamentals set at 0.0.
Here's what I found: the beat rates of all the thirds progressed from
slower to faster (there was one third that might be counted a little faster
than its upper neighbor, but just barely), but the scaling problems and
lack of inharmonicity tempering, I presume, caused there to be a jump in
rate between adjacent thirds more so than if I had been tuning it for real.
The 4ths were a little slower than I like, and the 5ths a little faster. Is
this a reverse well? If so, I don't get it. I put my own piano in Youngs
Well a few months ago, and can plainly hear key color differences. On this
grand experiment, I cannot. If you can elucidate, I'd appeciate it.
With respect,
Ken Jankura
Newburg, PA