Key Color

[Richard Moody]

    "Key colour" was esoteric banter back in the 1700 and 1800's
much as it is today.   Indeed it was PDQ Bach (it is claimed) who
set the tone which many of the modern day revivalists seem to base
their assertions.   However a Library of Congress reading room rat
who dug up the original, claims that the famous quote "What key
colour!"  exclaimed by him while he was eclat many (or any
actually) of the "Wells" by comparing them to the fledgling
attempts at ET, is a mistranslation which should actually read,
"What key colour?"
     "The exclamation mark instead of a question mark can only be
regarded as an typesetter goof that somehow got past the editors"
claims the free lance researcher.  "This totally refutes those who
claim PDQ Bach recognized Key Color in the temperaments of his
time and that ET killed it. My next project is to get to the
bottom of the statement, "ET kills key color" says the researcher.
If it is based on PDQ's alleged 'what key color!' then we have
seen the fallacy of that."
    Our intrepid researcher added, "I am still researching what
the  Masters themselves said about temperament and key color.  So
far I have uncovered nothing, not even a hint from JS Bach himself
as to what he intended for the tuning of his WTC.  Mozart writes
about his favorite piano maker hanging soundboards out in the
weather but nothing about tuning.  Chopin wrote many
letters---were there any thing specific as to tuning in those?
Most of the composers wrote hundreds of letters in detail to their
works. Is there in these any reference to tuning?
    So how important was tuning? Perhaps the translators and
editors who compiled writings of the composers simply omitted such
uninteresting technical details as tuning. Or,,,perhaps the
Masters simply did not care to spend more than 15 minutes on
tuning. Or,, perhaps temperament meant nothing or very little to
them so long as they could play in all keys and not have the
audience wince at any. Unfortunately this scenario would not
appeal to the proponents of Key color produced by any temperament
other than Equal Temperament.  Why they insist on key color as
determined by temperament that was important to composers, and
therefore important for tuners to tune something other than ET,
when they themselves cannot identify it in a blind listening test
is beyond me...or that is the direction research is leading
     ---rm


references to it are----- Original Message -----
From: jolly roger <baldyam@sk.sympatico.ca>
To: Pianotech <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Sunday, September 29, 2002 11:19 AM
Subject: Re: Learning Aural Tuning (Broadwood)


> Hi ric,
>              Cutting edge technology of the day, love the loose
use of the
> term ET.
> One wonders if he would flip, if he could hear our ET, and
complain there
> is no key colour??????
> Roger
>