<html> <body> It is my understanding that Werkmeister was intended for organs and that Bach used a different temperament for his stringed keyboard instruments.  Kellner's temperament may be a good representation as he was a student.  As an aside, I had our baby grand on Barne's Idealized Bach temperament for some time.  It really sounded sweet.  I eventually tuned it back to ET for practice purposes and we were surprised by how sour and dissonant ET can be by comparison.  Mind-you, Debussy was rather less dreamy on Barnes ;-). Andrew At 02:48 PM 3/8/2005 -0800, you wrote: <blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>For Bach specifically, the Werckmeister is widely used, although there are a few other contenders. Go to my website <a href="http://rollingball.com/TemperamentsFrames.htm">http://rollingball.com/TemperamentsFrames.htm</a> to see a lot of graphs representing the range of thirds and fifths in each of the temperaments. Bradley Lehman more recently offers one on his website, <a href="http://www.larips.com/">http://www.larips.com/</a> , using the following offsets which he deduces from Bach's markings on the Anna Magdalena manuscript: Eb 3.9 Bb 3.9 F 7.8 C 5.9 G 3.9 D 2.0 A 0.0 E -2.0 B 0.0 F# 2.0 C# 3.9 G# 3.9   Note, however, these offsets are all sharp except E, so this will put a lot of additional tension on the piano. To equalize the tension, try: Eb +1 Bb +1 F +4.9 C +3 G +1 D -0.9 A -2.9 E -4.9 B -2.9 F# -0.9 C# +1 G# +1 Also be aware that a temperament cannot really be reduced to cents, which are approximations at best. The historic temperaments were usually set by measures like "set this third as sharp as the ear can bear" - or in some cases certain fifths were tuned perfect while others were tuned "as flat as the ear can bear".   | |   | | |   | |   | | |   | |   | | |   | |   | | |   | |   | | |   | |   | | |   | |  Jason Kanter . piano tuning regulation repair <a href="mailto:jkanter@rollingball.com">jkanter@rollingball.com</a> . cell 425 830 1561 serving the eastside and the san juans <dl> <dd>-----Original Message----- <dd>From: pianotech-bounces@ptg.org [<a href="mailto:pianotech-bounces@ptg.org" eudora="autourl">mailto:pianotech-bounces@ptg.org</a>]On Behalf Of Michael Gamble <dd>Sent: Tuesday, March 08, 2005 2:08 PM <dd>To: jonathan stuchell <dd>Cc: pianotech@ptg.org <dd>Subject: Re: historical temperaments <dd>Hello Jonathan <dd>First - how much time have you got? There's a lot of information out there about "temperaments". This type of tuning is used mainly on historic type instruments: real square pianos (circa late 1700s) Harpsichords and Fortepianos. The temperament we use at Glyndebourne is Vallotti. In fact I have to tune a Kawai grand to this temperament to use with a Harpsichord in rehearsal for Bill Christie. The variation from equal temperament is as follows: <dd> a:0   a#:+6.0  b:+2.0  c:+6.0  c#:0.0  d:+2.0  d#:+4.0  e:-2.0  f:+8.0  f#:-2:0  g:+4.0  g#:+2.0 <dd>  <dd>The "wildest" off pitch temperament is "Werkmeister-III" where: <dd>a:0  a#:+17.5  b:-7.0  c:+10.5  c#:-13.5  d:+2.5  d#:+20.5  e:-3.5  f:+13.5  f#:-10.0  g:+7.0  g#:-17.0 <dd>  <dd>Lambert(1774) is closest to equal temp. <dd>  <dd>I shall stop there and put on my flame suit for daring to suggest anything so OT as "temperaments" <dd>  <dd>Regards from darkest Sussex <dd>Michael G.(UK) <dd>----- Original Message ----- <dd>From: <a href="mailto:jstuchell@verizon.net">jonathan stuchell</a> <dd>To: <a href="mailto:michael@gambles.fsnet.co.uk">Michael Gamble</a> <dd>Sent: Tuesday, March 08, 2005 4:48 PM <dd>Subject: historical temperament <dd>  Hello, <dd>  <dd>        I want to start using historical temperaments.  How do I go about this?  I use a Peterson virtual strobe tuner which has settings for Young, <dd>Werkmeister, Kirnberger, Pythagorean, Kellner etc.  I would like to use one from J.S. Bach's time.  Information seems hard to find.  Im very interested, because I favor the Baroque period.  Also, Baroque instruments are becoming popular.  Hope you can give me some advice!    <dd>  <dd>       <dd>  <dd>   Thanks, <dd>  <dd>  <dd>Jonathan Stuchell   <dd>  <dd>  <dd>  <dd>  <dd>  </dl> </blockquote></body> </html>