Ron writes:
> I've got to agree with Jim here on all counts. If ET (one temperament)
>was the great entrenched mindless monolith it's made out to be, there
wouldn't
> be so MUCH interest and traffic on the List about the apparently endless
> variations of, uh, alternative temperaments.
I don't see how the logic in the above statement. What does the degree
of entrenchment have to do with "a lot of interest and traffic" among a
miniscule minority of technicians. Just because there is a small but growing
interest in changing something doesn't define that something one way or
another.
>> Enthusiasm is one thing, but claiming progress over something that isn't
> generally acknowledged to be broken is something else again.
"Something that isn't generally acknowledged to be broken"? Why, of
course not. Who would point out that something is broken if they have never
known any different? The amount of ignorance about alternatives out there
is staggering, but that is the reason that progress is being claimed, there
are changes happening, and a growing number of performers are part of it.
All you have to do is ask 10 piano teachers about temperament and you will
find out that the existence of temperament is not generally acknowleded, at
all!
>If the
> temperament variants were the long awaited answer to an acknowledged
> problem, or set of problems, they could reasonably be called a "better"
> approach. As it is, alternative temperaments are just another way to
>do the same thing that ET does - to organize a tuning into some sort of
rational
> system.
The pianists I work with are calling this a better approach. More to the
point, it is one that they had no idea existed, until someone, (me) started
claiming it was worth trying.
>Nearly anything new, different, unfamiliar, or exotic, will
> always draw the momentary attention of a number of people.
Yes, I agree. And there will also be people that avoid anything new,
unfamiliar, and exotic, simply because it is these things. Those are the
people that I said were to be pitied.
> The historical temperaments were each once the ET of their
> times - the entrenched monolith within their individual sphere of
> influence.
I don't agree. Temperament history shows an everpresent changing and
melding of styles. The whole evolution took place among a wide variety of
tuning systems, and the debate over them was near constant. The writings of
the debaters is our historical record. This is contrasted to the ET era, in
which there was only one style, and no debate over its worth. I see a
profound difference here.
>Why is it that old approaches that were replaced by later
> iterations of "truth" and "currently in vogue" seem to achieve a patina
>of latent reverence when they are re-discovered? They didn't necessarily
>die from a lack of validity in the first place did they? They were often
>just "fashioned" into oblivion and may still be as good as when they were
>put on the shelf, but that doesn't make them the ANSWER.
It doesn't preclude them being the answer, either. The problem is that
we are still playing the music written on the old approaches, but using our
new one. Very few know what they are missing, but when they find out, there
is usually an epiphany, and that is always worth something.
>Enjoy it and share it around as much
>as you like, but don't try to sell it as "new and improved". We've all seen
> too many instances of that kind of packaging already.
Well, it is new, to the customers that are getting to hear it. And
as far as improved? My commercial experience is telling me that there is a
lot of improvement. With a modern machine and the research to feed it, I
definitely think there is something new and improved I can offer customers,
and I haven't seen anything from them yet that dissuades me. This isn't some
theoretical ideal I am selling, the ability to produce a wide variety of
temperament has financial rewards.
It is not for everybody,(several violinists I know hate it), but I haven't
found a pianist yet that didn't respond favorably to a change out of ET. So
yes, I will sell it any way I can. If they think it is new and an
improvement, why on earth would I tell them otherwise?
Regards,
Ed Foote
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