ET temperament beat ratios

[Richard Moody]

> I would tune it in HT and then play the Chopin number
> in Db and then transpose it to C. In this case, there was even
> more difference that could be heard by almost everyone.
>
> Jim Coleman, Sr.

I never knew this until I started to learn piano tuning but I
heard the Raindrop Prelude for at least 6 months in both keys.  I
"hated" it, but my piano teacher picked it to play it at the
annual recital.  She happened to live right around the corner and
since cramming comes naturally to a 15 year old, many were the
times I heard it 10 minutes later half a step higher.  But I NEVER
noticed.   Hers was a grand, mine was an old upright tuned half a
step low which of course I nor anyone else knew at the time.
    But I have heard that particular piece is startling when
played half step lower.  Of course you know me, it is not the
"color of the key" its the peculiarity of the piece.  Play it  in
D and if you like it a lot better I said so first.
hmmmm do you think I "hated" it because it really does sound awful
in C ? ?
Try it now?   Forget it, the piano is tuned in Meantone, and the
only other one around is a Kimball spinet.  Well there is my
Yamaha PSR-340. Yippee I can download a .mid I bet and listen to
it,    a heck of a lot easier than trying to play the darned
thing.   Really---he could have used an editor on it.  I bet
George Sand or her son wrote half of it.....

---ric
    "he {Chopin} protested with all his might, and he was right,
against the puerility of these imitations for the ear.  His genius
was full of the mysterious harmonies of nature."     George Sand