Tom writes: << Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't be safe to say that one of the underlining reasons Well-Tempered and Mean Tone Tempered tunings were mandatory in their days, irate beat structures in some of the keys were one of the only features which demonstrated excitable sound change. << I certainly agree that "irate" beating adds a dimension of its own. There is scientific proof that a majority of listeners are stimulated by dissonance and sedated by consonsance when exposed to intervals that are tuned, respectively, Tempered or Just. However, rather than holding that there were"mandatory" tunings in previous eras, I believe that there was a tremendous amount of variety within distinguishable genres, plus regional differences in the chronological evolution of temperament. We mark these distinctions by the writings of the theroists, instrument builders, and (rarely) the composers and musicians. Viewed from Pythagoras on, the last 300 years of keyboard tuning exhibit the historical norm, in that they represented the latest that technology had to offer. History shows that technology has always had strong and immediate effects on Western music's intonation. There is a curve there that can be viewed as a long continuous, albeit irregular, change of increasing complexity. Not only do the instruments, composers, and music show the influence of each technological change, the documented progression of temperament reflect these changes too. As an example, I would offer that the Romantic composers may not have been inspired to create such washes of sound if their instruments had no more sustain than a harpsichord. Their compositions were in some degree influenced by those new, big grand pianos that were being developed. By the same token, Stravinsky would have not written the way he did if there was a 41 cent wolf in the middle of the scale. Until the ability of tuners to produce equal temperament coincided with the composers evolving beyond tonality-based creations and wanted equality, what we call well-tempered was the coin of the realm, even in all its dominations. It is hard to imagine that Mozart or Schubert composed as though all keys had the same harmonic nature. >>With today's instruments with incredible volume and tonal capabilities combined with an EXTREMELY WELL TUNED ET,equal temperament is still as an extremely refined, flexible, and finely constructed temperament capable of demonstrating and capturing the FULL range of music in all keys.<< Here I must respectfully disagree. The Full range must be defined by 14 cent thirds?? I think not. ET only has one harmonic character in its thirds, how could this possibly capture and demonstrate what Beethoven was doing when he modulated? Imo, it doesn't, it only suggests the move from consonance to dissonance and back again. It does not offer the various levels of emotional manipulation(measurable) that are physiologically demonstrable with a variety of sizes of like intervals. Consider that C hopin's music on a WT often produces a pure melodic line over a very tempered harmony. This results in a musical texture that cannot be produced when everything is tempered alike. Does it sound better? I can't answer that for anybody but myself, but since I have a tuning hammer, I have the choice of what I want to sell. It may be that the dissonance, in and of itself, is unpleasant to the ear that expects it to be, or to the ear that expects something else, but this is getting into the "meaning" of music, and that requires we understand that "meaning" is a product of a message being received. It is NOT a unique property of the message. Thus, the listeners' expectations have a lot to do with the creation of meaning, and it is at this point that the technician's presentation sets the stage for the customer to derive "meaning" from a different tuning. I don't know how else to explain why some techs have had no success promoting a change, and others have set their clienteles on fire! Both Ste inway artists here in Nashville have told me they are never going back to ET for pre 1885 music. This is more than smoke and mirrors, more than a "king has no clothes" phenomenom. I didn't really sell them on it, they came to these conclusions from playing their pianos. On a side note, it seems to be so easy to polarize the discussion along lines of HT tuners and ET tuners. This is a dead-end road. My objective was to draw the distinction between multi-temperament tuners and those that only tune one way.(note, I am not saying which way). The multi-temperament-aware tech has more tools in his tuning toolbox, how they are used determines his results. An ancient Oriental saying applies, here. It says that the superior warrior has no favorite weapon. I don't have a favorite temperament, I have a lot of them and I use them all in a variety of situations. The most surprising is that the local jazz club has a Young on the piano and pianists that never heard of me or the temperaments just love the sound. I haven't said a word, rather, I just let the sound do the heavy lifting. Regards, Ed Foote RPT
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