21st century tonality

[A440A@AOL.COM]

 Dave writes:
> EDT
>tuning teaches you nothing about how to pick a temperament for a
>program, gives no real, gut level knowledge of the musical
>possibilities involved, <snip> 

Greetings, 
  I must respectfully disagree.  The use of Owen Jorgensen's aural 
instructions and the use of his SAT offsets produce the same results.  (ok, 
maybe not "same" to the zillionth of a cent, but far beyond the ability to 
discriminate musically between the two, i.e. you may be able to find a 
deviation by testing, but 99% of the pianists will never tell them apart by 
playing music on them).
  
   As far as developing a "gut level" feeling for the temperaments, listening 
to the music played on a variety of them does that. It is not necessary to 
practice the aural balancing of the thirds to build recognition of the tonal 
balance in a well tempered octave.  A well temperament teaches the same 
*musical* lesson, whether produced by machine or ear.
      The more important aspect in the resurgence of temperament interest is 
that the machines make these tunings accessible to the public.  Tuners in 
general have little interest in doing the work needed to create an aural 
library of the temperaments on hand, especially for what is, temporarily, 
limited demand.   The information on how to aurally tune the temperaments has 
been available for the last 50 years (M. Barbour, C. Viroli),  however,  no 
appreciable progress was made in enlightening  the piano world of the 
alternatives until tuners had the machines at their disposal.  
       So what if the saving grace of tonality is now wrapped in plastic and 
microchips?  There are many pianists today that have returned to the earlier 
tunings who otherwise would have spent their lives in a mono-temperament 
world had it not been for Jorgensen, Sanderson, Reyburn and Scott.  
     I have asked many tuners if they would afford to take the time to 
research and become familiar with the six major temperaments needed to cover 
most of the piano's history.  very few have even considered it.  Thus, the mac
hine is, imho, a necessary ingredient in the restoration of the temperaments. 
 As such,  it will become the cynosure for those that ascribe greater value 
to the aural path, but without the use of modern technology, I see little 
hope for a widespread revival of tonality. 
Regards, 
Ed Foote RPT