What temperament is a guitar tuned? (encore)

[Tim Keenan & Rebecca Counts]

Bill, John, Keith, and anyone else who is still listening:

Also sprach Billrpt:

>>It is far easier to simply believe in and agree with someone else who
> > says that anything but ET would be wrong and without proving it, proclaim that
> > it "wouldn't work".

I take it you must be referring to me--I recognize those last two words 
as something I *actually* said.  

I first was exposed to historical temperaments about twenty years ago at 
the hands of an organist and harpsichordist named Richard Birney-Smith. 
He had a little portatif pipe organ, and did concerts in a variety of 
historical temperaments, including mean-tone.  I found it very 
interesting, and in many cases found that the historical temperaments 
added a great deal.

Now: let's get to "Well Temperament" (an awkward reverse construction 
from the adjectival phrase "well-tempered".  Initially, this phrase 
presumably referred to a novel approach to temperament which rendered 
keyboard instruments playable in a variety of keys.  It did not refer to 
any of the specific formulae which have since been devised by a whole lot 
of very erudite people.

I have agreed with you, Bill,  that guitars generally require some 
adjustment of temperament, which renders them more well-tempered.  I 
leave out the capital letters on purpose.  I have demonstrated logically 
that a formula for what you call a Well Temperament cannot be applied to 
a guitar, because all the different ways one can produce the same note 
give different pitches, which means that what you say about given keys 
having characteristic colours is nonsense, unless you only play one form 
of each chord.  When you say the keys of A and G sounded sweet, I presume 
you mean using the simplest forms of the I,IV and V chords in those keys, 
each of which has only three strings fretted, all within the first three 
frets.  This is a lot like what I said about open tunings.  However, if 
you played them in an E-form barre, they would NECESSARILY have the same 
colour as the key of E (presuming that the frets are accurately placed). 
 If you played them in a C-form barre, they would have the colour of C.

You (Bill) have not responded to this central thesis of my argument in 
any way I have presented it so far, and I don't expect you will now, 
either.  I can only assume that you don't understand it, and that you 
haven't tried it yourself, because it is self-evident to anyone who 
actually plays a guitar.  I respectfully suggest that you pursue your 
guitar playing a bit and learn some of the many other ways of producing 
the chords in the keys of A, G, a-flat minor, and b-flat minor, since 
those are the ones to which you refer, and you will see that the colour 
you attribute to key is an artifact of the position on the neck.

So that's it.  I'm done. 

And please let's all be friends.  There is absolutely nothing personal in 
any of this.  I bear you no animosity, Bill, honest.

Tim Keenan
>