Equal Temperament, Oh really, what else is news?

[Billbrpt@AOL.COM]

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In a message dated 2/21/02 10:18:57 AM Central Standard Time, 
davidlovepianos@earthlink.net (David Love) writes:


> There is a local composer/technician who has apparently done extensive 
> research and found documentation suggesting that ET, contrary to popular 
> belief, was actually being used pre-1800.  He has done a few presentations 
> on this subject and though I haven't personally heard them, it certainly 
> adds fuel to the fire, doesn't it.
>  
> e

Yes, and there are people who are still trying to prove that we never went to 
the moon, either, even though it would have been much more difficult to fake 
it.

I don't believe this is true because tuning a really and truly Equal 
Temperament is as difficult to do by ear as isdrawing a perfectly straight 
line free hand without a ruler.  It is not impossible but very few can really 
do it.  Add to that, the information we have now was not known back then and 
the instruments they had back then were far more unstable than today's.

Research, research and research, trying to find some thread of "proof" that 
somebody tuned in a way that nobody wanted back then all you want, it just is 
not true.  People will call anything "equal" if they want to and that's where 
the real truth of the matter lies.  It was called something it was not.  If 
they were really trying for ET, that's all they were doing is trying.  When 
everything sounded "kinda sorta pretty even"  (as a retired conductor used to 
call it), and there were no obvious "sour" sounds, then it was ET.  That's 
the way my EBVT or Jim Coleman's WT's sound and they are most decidedly *not* 
ET.

I've also been researching for years too.  I don't bring this up very often 
because every time I do, I get accused of "unethical advertising".  But as a 
CTE for over 10 years now, I have seen and heard everything, both in and out 
of the exam room.  Very few people are able to score a 100 in the temperament 
and midrange.  Even if they do, the tolerances can still allow for audible 
inequality.  Calculated elctronic programs are only as good as the accuracy 
of programming, the scale design of the piano and the aural correction of the 
two afterwards are.  But it's ET if you say it is or you mean it to be, so it 
seems.

As far as I'm concerned, ET has always been and will always be a theoretical 
idea which is not worth pursuing.

Bill Bremmer RPT
Madison, Wisconsin
 <A HREF="http://www.billbremmer.com/">Click here: -=w w w . b i l l b r e m m e r . c o m =-</A> 

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