<HTML>In a message dated 12/28/02 1:32:50 AM Central Standard Time, bigda@gte.net writes: <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">OK.  Great idea.  Let's stop talking about it and do it.  Bremmer, Foote, Jorgenson:  line up 6 C7s; tune 5 in various HT's; tune one by Virgil Smith in ET; it would be the real truth.....or at least that day's version of it.  Let our ears hear, finally, what all this hoo-rah is about, in real time, from the real piano to our real ears.  </BLOCKQUOTE> Actually, I was only being facetious.  There was such a Temperament Festival in 1998 and although there was clearly one temperament which emerged as the favorite,  the process was far from being scientifically controlled and it really never could be. The organizer of that event told me he had a very hard time with the Institute Committee.  They told him it caused "too much stress".  Knowing who the Director is this year and his attitude about any and all temperament exhibitions, dating as far back as 10 years ago, I can assure you that nothing of the kind will happen.  At most, there will be one token presentation whose importance will be downplayed to the level of "Player Piano Roll Rewinder Repairs". At that 1998 event, there was a fellow whom I had considered to be a friend of many years who on one of the previous nights played and sang for an extended period on a piano in a public place tuned the same as the winning piano at the Festival.  I asked him how he liked that piano.  His reply was, "It was out of tune".  When I tried to explain to him that what he heard was deliberate, he could only reply, "It was *out of tune*, Bill.  When I asked him why he played on it and seemed to enjoy it for so long, he said, "A lot of people don't get them right, I just don't listen to that". Outside the room where the Temperament Festival was to be held, he was seen and heard encouraging people to go next door to the Cyber Cafe.  "*That* is where the future of our business is", he was saying.  When I questioned him, he proclaimed, "Temperament doesn't matter, only octaves and unisons do".  That is when I challenged him to prove it by organizing the "Temperament Doesn't Matter Festival" next year.  Understanding the fallacy in what he was telling people, he quit.  Ironically, he quit PTG and the piano business entirely within that year and has not been heard from since.  He used to be a participant of Pianotech but rarely offered anything of value, only jokes and other nonsense.  I understand the reason for his quitting was an injury, the very same one which I had the misfortune to sustain two years later.  I never stopped working, just adapted my techniques and procedures to get around the problem.  I was back to work only 5 days after surgery.  But he had a government job and had a doctor certify that he could no longer work as a piano technician. There is truly a difference between all of us.  None of us see the same set of circumstances the same way. Bill Bremmer RPT Madison, Wisconsin <A HREF="http://www.billbremmer.com/">Click here: -=w w w . b i l l b r e m m e r . c o m =-</A></HTML>