well temperament defined

[A440A@aol.com]

Ric writes: 
<< When a client, colleague, friend, musician, conservator, or

professor asks me "what is a Well Temperament" can I give them

a print out of your post below?   Or would you rather refer them

to the

url of this list for a search of the archives?  >>

I asked Bill Garlick for his shortest definition of  WT once, and his reply 
was that it is a temperament in which varied key color is organized along the 
circle of fifths,beginning at C or F, and contains no wolves,(hence, is not 
retrictive).  Traditionally, no third is wider than the syntonic comma of 
21.5 cents.  
     When I am asked further, I tell customers it is a tuning in which the 
harmoniousness of the intervals is stacked from more in tune than ET to less 
"in tune", creating a palette of harmonic values rather than just one.
 
Ed Foote RPT 
www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/
www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/well_tempered_piano.html