<HTML>In a message dated 11/1/01 7:38:37 AM Central Standard Time, davidlovepianos@earthlink.net (David Love) writes: <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">The interesting thing along these lines is that I don't see that many composers (and I do tune for many composers) asking for HT's.  Perhaps they haven't had there eyes opened yet and just don't know about them.  Yet many of these individuals are knowledgeable in this area and many have very highly developed ears.  If you are looking for objective criteria, perhaps that does say something. </BLOCKQUOTE> Thanks to Ed Foote for his answers.  I had asked for an example of 20th Century music, not 19th Century or before since it is well know that Brahms and Chopin did use what we know as HT's and often  *deliberately* chose the remote key signatures for the strong effects they had on the music.  These effects carried over to composition and did (and should) affect the way vocalists and instrumentalists play in the remote keys. Regrettably and unfortunately, the fact is that at this time, there are musicians and composers who have had no exposure except to the modern piano, electronic keyboards and ET.  Contemporary society has not generally heard anything else and so has learned to accept this kind of *altered* (neutralized and smoothed out) sound as normal.  The original sounds now seem exaggerated and foreign to the ear to many (but not all). The suggestion you have made about changing the tonal center to the bottom of the cycle of 5ths is indeed what I have called Reverse Well and what I had always considered to be a mistake made out of ignorance.  The only HT's that seem to reflect it are the dubious DeMorgan and another 19th Century technician's writings which seem simply to be full of errors and omissions. What is known is that with the use of the modern piano and ET to express *all* eras and forms of music, pianists have often taken to ignoring the tempo, dynamic and pedal markings in order to *adapt* the composition to the constraints of the instrument.  Unfortunately, from what I have observed, all too many pianists have actually learned to play in Reverse Well.  Thus, they have learned everything with a strange kind of reverse polarity to it. So, playing something in Ab or Db where for one's entire life, slow, gentle beating has been heard and for which the compensation has been to play louder and faster with the foot on the pedal, even a mild HT seems suddenly shocking.  The truth is that if you really want to experience this Romantic era music as it is *intended*, you'll have to find and learn an HT which suits you and learn to incorporate the array of sounds it provides into your playing. I don't believe enough modern era composers have had enough exposure to the infinite variety in which a keyboard may be tuned in order to make informed decisions about it.  It always ends up as "Just do the regular".  I have two long term composer customers who hire me for the way I tune and who understand it and like it.  I am more than sure that my EBVT would well serve any contemporary composer's needs and provide an enhancement to their music over that which a standard ET tuning would provide. Bill Bremmer RPT Madison, Wisconsin</HTML>