<HTML>In a message dated 1/1/01 10:40:30 AM Central Standard Time, A440A@AOL.COM writes: <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">to those that are interested in the intonational developments that are going on around us.    The "Tuning" group from which this posting comes encompasses not only the extreme avante-garde of n-based ET fanatics,(there are those that are working in 31 TET and beyond),  but also the incredibly deep research of Margo Schulter, who focusses on the pre Renaissance music and the foundations of what eventually became our harmonic environment.      </BLOCKQUOTE> At the risk of letting loose more "vitriolic doo-doo", I don't get involved with nor am I the least bit interested in these, eh-hem, "developments".   What gets me is that no matter how many notes these people can imagine being in a scale, it still can only be ET.  Their whole world would explode if anyone dared to think of something like a 31 Meantone. These ideas about having more than a 12 note chromatic scale are certainly not new.  Split keys on harpsichords and organs go way, way back.  If any of you haven't done so yet, please read Skip Becker RPT's latest article on the History of Tuning.  It is very revealing and thought provoking.  The greater than 12 tone scale was being discussed and dismissed as foolish intellectual pondering in the early 19th Century too. People had knock down, drag out fights about temperament back then too.  The Earl of Stanhope (my personal hero) dropping that load of pamphlets on the table to make a loud "thud" provided President Ronald Reagan nearly two centuries later with just the theatrical emphasis he needed to demonstrate that the country's budget was just too d*** big.  The Earl had figured it out.  He alone had come up with the definitive temperament, all the other theories were hogwash, as far as he was concerned. Indeed, the Stanhope Well Tempered Tuning is a good one.  I used to use it up until the time I designed the EBVT.  What he was looking for was a way to retain traditional harmony, to have some really well tuned, "perfect" sounding chords and still avoid harsh dissonance.  He got as mad as the Hatter at those confounded scientists that were always trying to divide up scales with some kind of mathematical "logic".  You just had to be a musician to know that their ideas were wrong, so thought Stanhope (and so do I). Traditional harmony is still popular and there is really no sign of it giving way to anything else.  Most of the most popular music there is today could still be played in Meantone because there are usually only 3 chords.  If anything, the predictions I have heard are that keyboard tuning will regress to that ancient mode rather than progress, if it can be called that, to some weird, stomach turning concoction that tends to undo the way the brain has functioned since birth. What I do with my temperament and octave tuning is clearly in line with what the Earl of Stanhope had in mind, not Helmholtz or White and certainly not with any of this "futuristic" type thinking that one day there will be instruments that play 87 notes to the octave, all equally tempered, of course.  Many electronic keyboards can do that already.  In fact, my son wanted one for Christmas.  He said, "Dad, I want one of those keyboards with a bender wheel on it".  I got him one and he played with it for hours on end, creating lots of "new" sounding music. As for me, I'll stick to the EBVT. Happy New Year! Bill Bremmer RPT Madison, Wisconsin</HTML>