<HTML>In a message dated 1/3/01= 3:56:13 AM Central Standard Time, ramsey@extremezone.com (Kevin E. Rams= ey) writes: Subject: Who invented....... .....Equal Temperament ? Was it Mersenne, JS Bach , Lanfranco , or someone else ?<= /FONT> I'm not sure about this . Does anyone on the List know ? Duncan. <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-= LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">Well, according to Jorgense= n,, the first person who actually described a detailed method of tuning = in ET was William Braid White. Before that, a lot of people thought they= were tuning in ET, but in reality, they were tuning in something "appro= aching" ET. Most of the romantic era music was played and composed in a = variant of well-temperaments. Ask Bill, or Ed. Hey were are you guys? </BLOCKQUOTE> In a message dated 1/3/01 3:55:23 AM Central Standard Time, Richard.= Brekne@grieg.uib.no (Richard Brekne) writes: <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-= LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">ET was known in China waaay= yyy before the greeks were even thought of.... or so I have heard... gri= n. </BLOCKQUOTE> That's what they say, Richard but I hope the pianos they had then weren'= t as bad as what they say is coming out of there now. Ironically, I was going to say the same thing as Kevin.  Helmholtz = wrote a table of theoretical frequencies but William Braide White was th= e first to write up anything that could really be identified as ET for t= uning the modern piano.  The others only got close and they were la= rgely tuning precursors to the modern piano such as organs, harpsichords= and fortepianos.  Even White's instructions were not complete enou= gh for most people to actually get it right.  It took PTG, Bill Gar= lick RPT and Dr. Al Sanderson RPT to identify the 4:5 ratio of contiguou= s 3rds in order for tuners to be able to consistently tune a true ET. Bach definitely had nothing to do with ET, contrary to popular belief. &= nbsp;The transition from 1/4 and possibly 1/5 Syntonic Meantones to the = early *Well-Tempered* Tuning systems such as those by Kirnburger and Wer= kmeister were erroneously *called* ET, thereby causing the confusion abo= ut when ET really came into practice.  This was because the Well-Te= mpered system supposedly now made all keys equally *accessible*, hence "= ET".  The notion that Bach used ET itself was reinforced because ma= ny textbooks, including Grove's Dictionary of Music printed the error th= at equated Well-Tempered Tuning to ET.  (The two terms, in fact, ar= e mutually exclusive). I don't know who Lanfranco was but other theorists such as Mersenne and = Marpurg proposed ET but as a useful temperament, it was regarded as = unsatisfactory to most people for tuning the early keyboard instruments in <= BR>their days.  The tuning of some fretted instruments in ET did date b= ack to a very early time (1500's) but again, if they didn't do much bett= er than I see people typically do today, it never really was ET. While ET really is possible today on the modern piano, it still remains = a difficult and furtive goal.  While most advocate it strongly and = believe in it as a fact of existence, others question its reality and va= lidity. My personal opinion is that even though the modern piano seems to be des= igned for an equal tempered scale in its string arrangement, the keyboar= d still has an irregular pattern that suggests an irregular scale. &nbsp= ;Since it is really a late 19th Century instrument, a late 19th Century = style tuning seems to fit it best for all around use. Bill Bremmer RPT Madison, Wisconsin</HTML>