Non-ETs; more organic than ET?

[A440A@aol.com]

Don writes:

<< What was heard in Mozart's day was inferior, just as automobiles of 1915

were inferior to the ones today.  Mozart didn't play in a primitive

temperament because he wanted to; he did because there wasn't a better way

yet. << 

     I must confess amusement at the willingness to offer a totally 
unsupportable value judgment.  In 1915, autos were in the second decade of their 
evolution.  In 1750, temperaments were in their 20th century of development.  There 
is no equivalence here.  Mozart could have been playing and composing in 
meantone for much of his work, and what is primitive about that?  
     Fact is, though ET requires much more effort to create than a WT, the 
result is nowhere near as complex as a WT.  There are fewer tonal resources in 
ET since there is only one "color" of third.  It takes far more skill to 
compose musically in a WT, but there is far more musical values available.  It has 
been scientifically proven that consonance and dissonance cause different 
emotional effects in listeners.  How the composers used this manipulative effect is 
a lost art today.  
 
>>There is a concrete, musical reason why virtually all instruments are

tuned to ET and it has nothing to do with the "tidiness" of mathematics (and

ET isn't constucted with a rational number, by the way).  ET is the *only*

temperament where everyone plays the same intervals within a key and in all

the keys all the time.  << 

   I think it was because of ease of musical manufacturing.  And anyway, we 
are talking about pianos, here.  How many people are you envisioning being on 
the same keyboard at one time??

>> In *all* other systems *no* two

keys sound alike.  In *all* other systems you cannot have equal consonance

for all intervals, even in the same key. << 

Umm, are we overlooking 1/4C Meantone, a tuning which has numerous keys with 
the same degree of tempering in eight keys? 
 
>>If you flatten the E in the major

third between C and E to be more consonant, the resulting third from E to G#

will not be the same...in fact it will be *worse* than ET. << 

     Worse?  Or more expressive?  Fact is, if 14 cent thirds are so 
acceptable, is another cent or two going to be so bad??  Or, if one takes the view that 
14 cents is the absolute limit of tolerance, does it make sense to have a 
tuning where *everything* is tuned at the extreme limit of acceptance?  
Especially when the vast majority of music is played in keys with less than 4 
accidentals.  If dissonance is "bad", then ET must be considered bad, because it is 
completely dissonant.  

 >>ET wasn't foisted upon the musical community by dastardly engineers,

politicians, or by divine decree; it was invented *by* musicians and has

been universally adopted because WE LIKE IT and because it solves the many

problems and limitations you experience if you don't use it.<< 

    Invented by musicians?  Which musicians would that be? Jorgensen posits 
that it was proposed by avant-garde theorists, and in its early introduction, 
the major resistance came from musicians.    
     And "WE" like it?? Who is we?  There are many professional musicians 
here in Nashville that have really changed their minds about temperament, and the 
same goes for other venues, (ask Jon Page or Richard Brekne).  Are all these 
musicians deaf?   I submit that ET is simply a 'one size sorta fits all' 
approach and to accept it for a universal answer, one must trade off aesthetic 
complexity for simple convenience. 

>>ET vastly simplifies music for us and lets us all play and

modulate with complete freedom.  Any other temperament is a gimmick >>

     If one expects and desires sameness in all keys, then ET is the obvious 
choice.  However,  to say that it is the 'superior' tuning  indicates a 
personal, hence, subjective, preference more than a supportable fact.  There is a 
huge difference between knowing what we like and liking what we know!   
Regards, 

Ed Foote RPT 
http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html
www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/well_tempered_piano.html