well-tempered tuning

[Richard Moody]

>I think though that some people will suggest that tuning ET is
> harder than tuning just or meantone. 
> 
> I believe on this question we must defer to tuners with experience and
> knowledge of tuning these temperaments by ear.  They would be able to
tell
> us what is easy or hard to tune.

I hope I am wrong but it seems the only temperament that has "survived" to
be passed on directly to us is ET. Meantone appears to have died out by
1900.  For a tuner today to tune Meantone he would have to be self taught.
Which is OK if that is all that can be had. If there is a tuner who tunes
Meantone from the Aural tradition who was taught by another tuner who
learned from another tuner and so on back into the 1800's, that would be
someone I would travel far and wide to meet.  
	In this current interest of historical temperaments, I find it curious
that Meantone does get much mention. Yet it is probably the  temperament
WTC was  tuned away from. "The  temperament of the Classical period" it
has been said. 
	The following is opinion only, presented because of the forum aspect of
this list, for peer review in other words.  I believe there two "species",
if you will, of temperaments; Meantone, and Well.  ET evolved from Well. 
    Meantone is its own distinct branch.  Meantone provided the keyboard
player with pure thirds (up to 8 !) but a limited amount of key signatures
to play in.  The Wells especially that which  was used in WTC, had little
or no objective of pure thirds, rather offered six or less pure fifths and
compressed (tempered) the remaining  fifths to make a chromatic keyboard
octave that could  play in all keys.  ET succeeded in tempering them all,
so much so that they (5ths) sound pure in music. The thirds in ET are
sharp and "beat" but that is perceived as pleasant. just as singers or
vioilins use vibrato when playing sustained thirds. 
	The interest of pure thirds seems to have been in the pipe organs.   Also
its effects on the triads played as chords.  But this now becomes the
scope of music theory---how the music sounds different and why. 
	William Braid White the man Jorgensen credits with ET as we (tuners tune
it) know it in the 20th century writes in "Piano Tuning and Allied Arts"
(5th ed)
	
"At any rate, the Mean-Tone Temperament ought to be kept alive if only
because it was the Temperament of the classical age of music, furnishing
the intonation to which the earlier classical masters were accustomed and
that they had "in their ears" when they were writing their works. 
	It must not be forgotten that the Mean-Tone Temperament was worked out
{"early years of the 16th century"..p.237} during that stage of musical
development when composition was based on the principle of Tonality. The
men of that age would have been horrified at the thought of considering
the musical scale to be twelve equal semitones!  Such a conception now
practically realized in the universally adopted Equal Temperament would
have been quite foreign to their ideas. This fact explains the curious
gaps and limits of Mean-Tone"  p. 244

Richard Moody