<HTML>In a message dated 4/26/01 10:11:55 PM Central Daylight Time, pianola@online.no (Ola Andersson) writes: <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">When you are tuning EBVT  I would like to know if you find the thirds slower than 6bps, and if you find the A3-E4 to be faster than 1bps when tuning the white keys. And how do you fine the the relation F#-B and B- E How bad is F#-B and how pure is B-E?</BLOCKQUOTE> Ola, You need to *establish* your F3-A3, C4-E4, G3-B3 3rds and G3-E4 6th *all* at 6 beats per second.  You don't have to worry about an extremely accurate rate, however.  You could use a slower rate, yes, but if you do, it will affect the beat rates of the other intervals too. The EBVT is, in fact, an adaptation of a temperament found in Professor Owen Jorgensen RPT's second publication, the "Handbook" for tuning the Equal Beating Temperaments.  In that book, there is a temperament called the "Rameau-Rousseau-Hall 18th Century Modified Meantone Temperament".  It's C4-E4 3rd is pure.  What this does is set certain parameters. I found, through experimentation, that if you widen that 3rd, at first nearly imperceptibly, then more and more, that the whole rest of the temperament is affected proportionately.  I have read on this List about others who have made this discovery too. So, the point is, that yes, you do have some room for error or for a personal taste adjustment where, in principal, you have *none* in ET.  But, to get the desired proportions of the version of this 18th Century Temperament that I have come to call, "EBVT,"  you have to have a C4-E4 3rd that beats at about 1/2 the speed that it would in ET.  This will give you the all important 4 pure 5ths (that *no* other Victorian style temperament has) and will also keep all of your 4ths and 5ths tempered within a range that the *contemporary* ear will accept. The problem you are having with the F#3-B4 4th probably comes from trying to set your C4-E4 3rd too slow.  This will also make your G3-D4 5th and your A3-D4 4th be more tempered and beat more strongly (rapidly).   You may well find that in many pianos, the C3-E3 3rd, the one an octave below the original F3-F4 temperament sequence will beat *slower* than 3 beats per second which is what would be expected (1/2 the speed of the same interval an octave higher).  Don't worry about this, it is to your advantage and is caused by inharmonicity.  This is how, in fact, that a skilled tuner can make the so-called "poor" scale design sound sweeter and more in tune.  Many technicians are simply frustrated by this phenomenon and make a choice that ends up sounding worse, not better. I have found in many cases that my EBVT sounds more like 1/5 Comma Meantone in the lower part of Octave 3.  This and the effects of Equal Beating allow what is nominally, and by a cursory look at numerical deviations from ET, a *Victorian* Temperament, to serve very appropriately as a temperament which is far more unequal and naturally, much more restrictive.  In short, the manipulative tricks used in tuning the piano the way I do and which cannot be duplicated with any smooth curve Electronic Tuning program that I know of, allow you to have it both ways:  A tuning system which caters to the requirements of *both* early and more modern music.  Americans have the metaphor, "to have one's cake and eat it too". Just make sure you start with a rapid enough beat in your starting 3rds.  The consequences of tempering your octaves will work to your advantage in giving you that "cleaner" and "clearer" overall sound that you desire from the piano, not "distort" the temperament as some people have suggested. Keep up the good work and exploration of new ideas. Bill Bremmer RPT Madison, Wisconsin</HTML>