In a message dated 10/31/00 12:56:46 PM Central Standard Time, hoffsoco@martin.luther.edu (Conrad Hoffsommer) writes: << I just tuned my first piano of the day (1950s Baldwin R), and found it hardly needed a thing, just a little pitch change right above the bass/tenor break and two or three unisons. Those M3s were beating ever so nicely faster and faster as I went up the scale. Even the M10s and M19s showed no signs of speed reversal in either direction. Somebody must have really screwed up and left it in ET, but then again it's only going to be used for jazz this week - Lincoln Center Jazz Sextet is here for a five day residency. >> Whoever tuned that piano last must be in the top 10% of tuners who really know the difference between ET and RW. Now, just think if you were unethical like me and tuned for that Jazz group in EBVT. The first thing that would happen is, the pianist would play the 3rds and say, "Hey, these 3rds are uneven!" Then he'd try to play "Body & Soul" and would quit after just a few bars and exclaim, "Hey, you can't *modulate* with this thing". Then the other instruments which are all in perfect ET would notice that only a few of their pitches match. They'd all yell, "Hey, we can't play in tune with this piano the way you have it!, We want ET!" You'd be called on the carpet, dragged into court, made to pay loss and punitive damages in the 10's to 100's of thousands of dollars, be fired from your job, kicked out of PTG and exiled to Wisconsin! Don't ever try it! You have nothing to gain and everything to lose! Don't follow that road less chosen, people only do that in corny poems and get away with it. As someone on the List recently admonished, "There's a *reason* all of those other temperaments are *historical*". (and don't you forget it!). Bill Bremmer RPT Madison, Wisconsin
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