<HTML>Thanks Ed, ...for telling about this book.  I don't know how I missed hearing about it.  I did read the excerpt provided on Amazon.com.  I want to have and read the book even though I expect to shoot holes in what it says.  I believe that listening carefully to an opponent's views are important.  Sometimes it may lead to changing one's views, sometimes it may lead to compromise but in this case, I think it will end up giving me even stronger support for my own. I think you have to realize that the author is not one of us, he has reached conclusions from what there is most available to read on the subject.  With all of Jorgensen's material out of print it's not hard to see how he missed or ignored the points of view presented there. While I, myself, do not believe in the "conspiracy theory", the author himself alludes to what many point to as evidence: <<The general acceptance of equal temperament led to some of the most exquisite music ever written. Why the resistance to it lasted so long, and how it was gradually overcome, is a story that encompasses the most crucial elements of Western culture-social history, religion, philosophy, art, science, economics, and musical evolution-during a period when Europe was struggling to give birth to the modern age.>> I read this as, without ET, we would never have had the music we have today so it took everybody pulling together to eradicate all other ideas in order to finally have something that really works. The author says earlier in this excerpt how we freely accept ET today but that it was not considered correct or desirable and how vehemently it was rejected in earlier times.  Such complete changes of attitude usually require generations in society to be educated in the new belief while the old is either denounced or better yet, *erased* from memory by suppressing all evidence and vestiges of it. In George Orwell's Novel, 1984, there were whole factories whose employees changed and rewrote history books so that what happened in the past would be consistent with the goals and views of the "Party" today.  Hmmmm.  William Braide White: ET or Meantone, your call.  ET it is!  Grove's Dictionary of Music:  Well-Tempered is the same as ET.  2002 Encyclopedia Britannica still says the same thing. While I can't imagine it being done deliberately as a true conspiracy, the effect has nearly been the same.  People today generally only know of one temperament, ET.  Most music professionals believe that there is only one possibility, any other arrangement would ultimately be unacceptable. It is so thoroughly part of what is considered common knowledge that it hardly even needs to be written about. One good example of this is the PTG Tuning Exam does not specify ET, it merely *assumes* that it will be the one and only possible choice, so much so, that it does not even have to be written any more than "no shoes, no shirt, no service" would have to be on the same page. By the way, I did order your "Six Degrees of Temperament".  It does look interesting.  There is nothing else like it anywhere.  It is special ordered and may take until April to ship. I also ordered the new Emmanuel Ax recording of Rachmaninoff's Suite for 2 pianos.  It is such good and powerful music that I won't care that it is in ET although I hope that maybe someday, I'll hear the work in EBVT. 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> </HTML>