In a message dated 4/14/99 2:28:40 AM Central Daylight Time, o-anders@online.no writes: << I Belieave that Reversed well is not wrong, I think it belongs to the American History of Music. I read on the list that almost everybody tunes reversed in the states and maybe it supposed to be like that. Maybe we should send it to the Smithsonian institute. Is that the right place? When costumer say that this is wrong itīs reversedwell we can tell them "I know but it isnīt wrong itīs an American History Tuning AHT, and be happy because you get to the same price as a regular tuning". >> Thank you so much for your patience and your willingness to use your thought processes to try to discover some alternatives in an atmosphere that can at times be very hostile. The ideas you have are not wrong. As I suggested in a previous post, if you have a theory, you should go ahead and try to test it. The problem with what has been called Reverse Well is that it is a commonly made error that is made non-deliberately. It is *believed* by the person to be ET but is, in fact, a kind of backwards version of an HT with no deliberate placing of types and sizes of intervals, just random errors that somehow follow a loose but predictable pattern. What you are suggesting is that you like to have either pure or at least more gently beating 3rds (than those that ET provides) along the flat side of the Cycle of 5ths. While this is not usually a goal, I have known of times when it is. There is a high school choir teacher who always has me tune one piano in an 18th Century Modified Meantone Temperament and another identical studio piano in the same temperament but *transposed* 1/2 step higher. Transposing the temperament places all of the slowly beating 3rds in the places where you usually hear the harshest, nearly unusable 3rds. He has a specific reason for wanting this. He wants his choir to hear and sing with triads and harmony that has been trained and focused on that more nearly pure sound. He has been very successful at it since he is an award winning music teacher, is genuinely loved by his students and his choral groups are invited to perform in many places other than at the school and have also won many achievement awards. Any time one of those groups performs outside of the school, he has me tune the piano and sometimes two pianos there in very specific ways. One of Professor Owen Jorgensen RPT's points has always been that those who insist on only ET may be missing the opportunity for more business. If not one, but two pianos are required, then there is twice as much work and twice as much income to earn. If you wish to test your theory, you can take the very simple Vallotti/Fairchild idea that I gave you and *transpose* it. Do as you suggested in one of your earlier posts. Rather than tuning the F3-F4 temperament centered on A3, move the whole thing up 1/2 step and make Bb3 your starting pitch. Many band instruments tune form the Bb pitch so there are Bb forks and aural electronic tuners that offer that pitch too. The Sanderson "Accu-Fork" has that capability. In the CD recording, "Switched On Bach 2000", Wendy Carlos uses some transposed Meantone Temperaments for the very same reasons you cite. Another way to accomplish what you are suggesting is to use a Meantone Temperament that starts on a note other than C. This would essentially be transposing it too. In the 1/4 Comma Meantone, a series of 11 5ths are tuned about 5 cents narrow. This causes 8 3rds to be pure and leaves 4 "wolf" 3rds and one "wolf" 5th, all in excess of 40 cents wide. These "wolf" intervals are generally considered to be musically unusable. If you started on Db (C#), for example, it would shift the entire set of pure versus "wolf" intervals to those that you wish to work with on instruments based in the flat keys. So, rather than having the attitude that a piano *must* be tuned in ET but some kinds of errors are still acceptable, think in terms of *deliberately* adjusting the scale to suit your purpose. There is certainly nothing wrong with that and in my opinion, there is a whole lot right with it. Sincerely, Bill Bremmer RPT Madison, Wisconsin
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