Equal Temperament, Oh really, what else is news?

Charles Neuman piano@charlesneuman.net
Thu, 21 Feb 2002 21:23:08 -0500 (EST)


If there's evidence that ET was practiced in the 18th century, I'd like to
hear it. Has anyone tried to contact Stuart Isacoff? I'd be interested in
what the "other side" has to say. Jorgensen spells out his position pretty
clearly. And popular culture just takes it for granted that ET has been
around for more than a century and that the difference between WT and ET
is insignificant. But I'd like to hear from someone who has some more
evidence on the subject.

I suspect (but can't prove) that there's a problem with terminology
(surprise surprise). When some people say "ET", they might mean any
temperament where you can play in all keys. Or they might label any
attempt an a equal type of temperament as ET. Jorgensen is strict: he says
that people couldn't tune in ET before around 1900 even if they tried. And
Bill Bremmer pretty much says the same thing about most people today (no
offense intended, and correct me if I'm misreading it). But I wouldn't be
surprised if there's evidence that showed that people attempted to tune in
ET over a century ago and did it to the best of their abilities for their
time period, even if it wouldn't pass the RPT exams. So they call it ET,
but today we might not. That might be some of the source of the
controversy.

That's my 13.7 cents,

Charles




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