Voice w/ tuning lever;define well temp.

[Paul N. Bailey]

>Hello,

>If it isn't too much trouble, could someone explain the difference between
>"well" temperament and "equal" temperament?

>Many thanks.

>Karen Johnson
>Kgj38@aol.com



Hello, Karen;
	I don't usually like to make long quotes from published works, but
this book is out of print, and Prof. Jorgensen does make it pretty clear.

from TUNING THE HISTORICAL TEMPERAMENTS BY EAR, Owen Jorgensen, 1977;

WELL TEMPERAMENT is unequal temperament which is also unrestricted temperament:
	that is, it is fully tempered so that keys tuned as sharps can also be
	used as flats and keys tuned as flats can also be used as sharps. Thus,
	there are no enharmonic or modulatory restrictions and no wolf
	intervals. These virtues are also contained in the standard equal
	temperament, and they are the cause of the erroneous statements in most
	dictionaries and encyclopedias which state that the term well temperament
	is synonymous with the term equal temperament. In direct opposition to
	equal temperament, the purpose of well temperament is to allow harmonic
	color change thru modulation. Only when the tones are not equally spaced
	can there be different effects in the various tonalities. This latter
	quality cannot exist in true equal temperament in which all tonalities
	have identical effects except for increasing or decreasing beat speeds.
	In the number of proportional beat triads, well temperament is superior
	to equal temperament and also most of the meantone temperaments. This
	gives well temperament a certain rhythmic harmoniousness. For the
	classical rules governing the tuning of all well temperaments, see
pg.246.

					___WELL TEMPERAMENT___(pg.245)
	WELL TEMPERAMENT is the field which has been most neglected for over a
century because it has been erroneously thought to be an older term for equal
temperament. Well Temperament is not synonymous with equal temperament. J.S.
Bach wrote for the well tempered clavier and not the equal tempered clavier.
Although the forms of well temperament must have been known since the time of
Henricus Grammateus in the early sixteenth century, theorists did not write
extensively about well temperament until1690 and after.

	There are no wolf intervals in well temperament, and all the triads are
musically usable. Complete freedom of modulation exists in both well temperament
and equal temperament. During modulation, however, equal temperament lacks the
harmonic key-color changes inherent in the unequally spaced tones of well
temperament. Modulatory key-coloring was considered an essentioa musical quality

by all those who rejected equal temperament. The basic ideal of well temperament

is to preserve a meantone type of harmonic smoothness in the commonly used keys
while allowing one to modulate with very evenly changing key coloring through a
circle of fourths to the very brilliant lesser used keys. One may then modulate
evenly back to the mellow commonly used keys.

	Voices and wind or stringed instruments experience no difficulty
adjusting
to harpsichord or piano accompaniments in well temperament because the actual
differences in the frequencies between each tone of any well temperament and the
corresponding tones of equal temperament are very minute. These minute
differences,
however, are enough to make the great color changes in well temperament. The
unevenness of the chromatic scale in well temperament is not nearly as apparent
as
it is in the meantone temperaments. In the number of proportional beating
triads,all
of the well temperaments are superior to their equivalent comma divisions in the

meantone temperaments. This gives well temperament an unrivaled quality of
rhytmic
harmoniousness. Equal temperament does not contain any proportional beating
triads at all.

{There follows two pages of formal rules, which generally come down to the this}

C-E must be the smallest third, but not smaller than just. Gb-Bb must be the
largest third , but not larger than 21.5 cents larger than just. Modulation
should
proceed in a regular fashion. There must be no fifths larger than just, and
therefore
no resulting harmonic waste. {P.B.}

Although TUNING (1991) is still available, from the glossary -

VICTORIAN TEMPERAMENT: The variety of well temperament that was practiced during
the
	19th century by those tuners who thought that they were tuning equal
temperament.

	Great thanks to Owen Jorgensen, and a strong recommendation for his book,

					TUNING
			The perfection of eighteenth century temperament
			The lost art of nineteenth century temperament
					and
			The science of equal temperament
					with
			Instructions for aural and electronic tuning.

			    Michigan State University Press
				     East Lansing
				        1991