<HTML>In a message dated 6/27/02 12:12:12 AM Central Daylight Time, Piannaman@AOL.COM writes: <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">I was between jobs today, listening to Debussy's Preludes in the comfort of my automobile, when a thought struck me:  a true whole-tone scale can only be achieved in equal temperament.  The percentage of difference between each like interval would have to be the same throughout the keyboard for a true whole-tone effect to be achieved.  Then I realized that this subject is fodder for more enlightened minds than my own.   Any theoretical or historical insights on this one??</BLOCKQUOTE> This may be true but it still does not mean that ET is required to play Debussy's music and have it sound its best.  Granted, there are many recordings, all presumed to be in ET but I have heard his music, including the pieces with the whole tone scales in other temperaments.  To me, the effect of ET is to always water down and homogenize the intended effects within the music.  A temperament with too much contrast will surely produce shockingly bad effects but this is not a reason to go to the other extreme of complete neutralization. This calls for a comparison study.  Select some Debussy music with these whole tone scale features and tune in ET, then compare the way the music sounds using other temperaments.  I have no doubt in my confidence that a piano tuned in my EBVT would produce at least as good music but probably better than a piano tuned in ET.  So would some other temperaments. 1/4 Comma Meantone would probably not sound good.  But contrary to the belief that many people have, there are an infinite number of possibilities between ET and 1/4 Comma Meantone.  The challenge is to discover what really does make better music. By the way, this premise sounds an awful lot like Isacoff's writing in his recent book.  "Each tone unequivocally equidistant from the other"  (which is not the case in *any* properly tuned piano, ET or otherwise, when you consider the necessity of octave stretching).  This lofty and seemingly unchangeable idea of perfection leads to the false premise that it was a *requirement* for the music to have been written.  This is simply not true.  The probability is that Debussy's own piano was not tuned in a strict ET and that whatever the temperament was, it had an influence on how he wrote. 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>