<HTML>In a message dated 11/18/00 7:49:17 PM Central Standard Time, caccola@net1plus.com (Clark) writes: <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">> The G-D, D-A, and A-E fifths were tempered  by 1/3 syntonic comma > ( 7 cents). >  Stanhope considered these fifths "offensive". Interesting that fifths about this wide aren't so grating as these flat ones, and I gots instruments tuned with both! </BLOCKQUOTE> Whoops, sorry about the previous post, I hit the send button unintentionally.  Yes, it is interesting that a wide 5th somehow sounds much more tolerable than a narrowed one.  But consider the octave, it does too.  While Werkmeister taught that a wide 5th would be counterproductive, there were others during the same time period who created the Modified Meantone Temperaments (MMT) and the milder, 1/6 & 1/7 Comma Meantones.  Many of these can be used in the same way that a WEll-Temperament (WT) is used.  The power of the mild "Wolf" can be astonishing. I had a German style diatonic accordion made by a Cajun friend of mine in Louisiana who makes these as his business.  I had him tune my reeds with 2 cent wide 5ths rather than the 2 cent narrow 5ths that the builder gets from his strobe tuner.  Everyone who plays my uniquely tuned accordion is atonished by its sound, including the maker.  As hard as I tried to explain to him the reasons for what I did, he could not grasp it.   As many who stick to the original way they were trained to tune in spite of knowing of other methods, he still tunes his accordions with StrobeTuner 2 cent narrow 5ths and 3rds that are technically narrow (he flattens the 3rds by 15 cents).  He sticks to this way of tuning because he says it is "traditional" and that even though my way sounds good to him, he is afraid of it because no one else has ever proposed anything remotely like it.  He is afraid to simply tune an accordion this way because he thinks someone may not like it. Below is a chart for the way I had my "C" Accordion tuned.  When a C Major chord is played on mine, it has a bold and clear but slightly lilting sound.   When the same kind of accordion is played tuned the usual way, it sounds distinctly flat and slightly out of tune by comparison.  My tuning actually matches the wide intervals that the Cajun musicians and vocalists use while the usual tuning always has a distinctly "off" and slightly flat sound. In those musical circles, the accordion is often talked about (with some degree of frustration) as being slightly out of tune in much the same way as other instrumentalists remark that the piano is always slightly out of tune, even at its best.  The amazing thing is that there is no reason whatsoever to use ET values when tuning it but that is how deeply rooted the notion that a scale *must* be equal just to be a real scale is.  Tuning Chart for C Accordian Bill Bremmer RPT PUSH            PULL E2: -14          G2: +2 G2: +2           B2: -14   E3: -14          F3: +8 G3: +2           A3: 0 C4: -2            B3: -14 E4: -14           D4: -2 G4: +2           F4: +8 C5: 0             A4: 0 G5: +4           D5: 0 C6: +2            F5: +10 E6: -10           A5: +2 G6: +6           B5: -12 C7: +4           D6: +2 E7: -8            F6: +12 G7: +8           A6: +4 Note: the usual way to tune this instrument has all values at 0 except the E's and the B's which are tuned at -15. Bill Bremmer RPT Madison, Wisconsin</HTML>