In a message dated 10/23/00 8:11:10 AM Central Daylight Time, remoody@midstatesd.net (Richard Moody) writes: << Many maintain that ET couldn't be defined until the coincident partials were understood and their beat rates could be calculated and that could not happen until after Helmholtz. (1870) This I would call modern ET. However the idea that the circle of fifths in tuning each 5th slightly flat would eliminate the wolf has existed since the time of Pythagoras. This is the rudementry form of ET. Just how much is "exactly flat" has eluded theorists until Helmholtz showed that beats of intervals occur between the coincident partials. It is my understanding that Montal described ET somewhere between rudementry and modern. >> Although I respect Ric and all of his writings about this, at times it seems to me that he wishes he could prove the world is really flat, that this "round" thing that we have been on to since this Columbus guy and his buddy Gallileo started fooling around is really all a big hoax. On one hand, you may be right, Ric, they were all *trying* to tune ET. But guess what? They still are! It boils down to the idea that if you *intended* to tune ET and you *believed* that you did, that is good enough. There is no reason to study or know about anything else. If you do, you'll just get into trouble and you'll create many more questions and problems for which there will never be any answers or solutions. But as long as you get it "kinda, sorta, pretty even" (as a friend of mine used to say), that is all anybody ever wants. As long as you can get the tonalities to sound slightly confused, so you can't distinguish one key from the other, you've got ET! ET: Believe in it or wander the earth in an endless quest for the truth and peace of mind. Bill Bremmer RPT Madison, Wisconsin
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