Tempering comparisons

[A440A@aol.com]

 Greetings, 
  I wrote that we would have a > state of the art ET> at the convention.  
Phil writes: 

>>care to elaborate?

  Yes, David Anderson has volunteered to tune one of the pianos used in the 
temperament presentation in ET.  He has described his "rolling fourths" 
tuning at length on pianotech.  I look forward to hearing it, myself.  


 
Also,  I received this post, privately, but would like to respond publicly: 

>>Ed, I would really like to hear a truly objective comparison of what you say
about ET v. WT. The only way this will be possible, in
my experience, is if you tune piano A=ET and B=WT then the next day switch 
A=WT
and B=ET, etc. Every time I've heard the comparison I've
always questioned the piano choice and limitations, and it's always lacked 
this
kind of "control". This would seem at least a bit more objective.

Yes, it would be more objective, (though time-consuming).  Anybody that wants 
to prove the point to themselves should find a two piano venue and try it.   
However,  I have a pair of Steinways in my lab at Vanderbilt that I switch 
back and forth.  The same comments follow the same tuning, regardless of 
which piano is used. Does that count?  
   Also, the piano used for ET is ALWAYS heard as "brighter", even in other 
venues in which I have presented the comparison(in the Austin seminar,  I 
tuned the "brighter" piano in WT, but the audience heard the other one as 
being more brilliant when we compared them).  This was surprising to me at 
first, but I have come to believe that the ear is registering the 
omni-present tempering of the ET as a tonal quality.
Regards,    
Ed Foote RPT 
www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/
www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/well_tempered_piano.html