Over there! Way out over there

[Billbrpt@AOL.COM]

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In a message dated 1/1/01 10:40:30 AM Central Standard Time, A440A@AOL.COM
 writes:


> to those that are interested in the intonational developments that are 
> going on around us. 
>     The "Tuning" group from which this posting comes encompasses not only 
> the 
> extreme avante-garde of n-based ET fanatics,(there are those that are 
> working 
> in 31 TET and beyond),  but also the incredibly deep research of Margo 
> Schulter, who focusses on the pre Renaissance music and the foundations of 
> what eventually became our harmonic environment.  
>     
At the risk of letting loose more "vitriolic doo-doo", I don't get involved 
with nor am I the least bit interested in these, eh-hem, "developments".  
What gets me is that no matter how many notes these people can imagine being 
in a scale, it still can only be ET.  Their whole world would explode if 
anyone dared to think of something like a 31 Meantone.

These ideas about having more than a 12 note chromatic scale are certainly 
not new.  Split keys on harpsichords and organs go way, way back.  If any of 
you haven't done so yet, please read Skip Becker RPT's latest article on the 
History of Tuning.  It is very revealing and thought provoking.  The greater 
than 12 tone scale was being discussed and dismissed as foolish intellectual 
pondering in the early 19th Century too.

People had knock down, drag out fights about temperament back then too.  The 
Earl of Stanhope (my personal hero) dropping that load of pamphlets on the 
table to make a loud "thud" provided President Ronald Reagan nearly two 
centuries later with just the theatrical emphasis he needed to demonstrate 
that the country's budget was just too d*** big.  The Earl had figured it 
out.  He alone had come up with the definitive temperament, all the other 
theories were hogwash, as far as he was concerned.

Indeed, the Stanhope Well Tempered Tuning is a good one.  I used to use it up 
until the time I designed the EBVT.  What he was looking for was a way to 
retain traditional harmony, to have some really well tuned, "perfect" 
sounding chords and still avoid harsh dissonance.  He got as mad as the 
Hatter at those confounded scientists that were always trying to divide up 
scales with some kind of mathematical "logic".  You just had to be a musician 
to know that their ideas were wrong, so thought Stanhope (and so do I).

Traditional harmony is still popular and there is really no sign of it giving 
way to anything else.  Most of the most popular music there is today could 
still be played in Meantone because there are usually only 3 chords.  If 
anything, the predictions I have heard are that keyboard tuning will regress 
to that ancient mode rather than progress, if it can be called that, to some 
weird, stomach turning concoction that tends to undo the way the brain has 
functioned since birth.

What I do with my temperament and octave tuning is clearly in line with what 
the Earl of Stanhope had in mind, not Helmholtz or White and certainly not 
with any of this "futuristic" type thinking that one day there will be 
instruments that play 87 notes to the octave, all equally tempered, of 
course.  Many electronic keyboards can do that already.  In fact, my son 
wanted one for Christmas.  He said, "Dad, I want one of those keyboards with 
a bender wheel on it".  I got him one and he played with it for hours on end, 
creating lots of "new" sounding music.

As for me, I'll stick to the EBVT.

Happy New Year!

Bill Bremmer RPT
Madison, Wisconsin

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