Explanation of Reverse Well

[Carl Root]

Good Morning Ron and Bill,

Bill -
I have no problem will Reverse Well getting an upper case designation
because it describes a specific sequence with certain preconditions -
like HTs, no?  The results may actually get fairly close to ET depending
on the scale.  I think you overestimate the extent of the problem,
however.  As Ron points out,  Reverse Well will not get you a passing
grade on the RPT exam, yet we've been upgrading new members with an
objective exam for almost twenty years, and a considerable number of
members who took the older nonstandarized versions actually studied the
subject and learned how to set an equal temperament that compensated for
inharmonicity.

Do I recall that you actually said recently that you had no objection to
ET?  I recall that you've condemned it in the past, but on closer
examination, you were really talking about RW, right.  So in future -
and I'm sure it will come up again - please do me and the rest of us a
favor and refrain from condemning ET when you really mean RW.

Ron -
I thank you for your efforts to get RW clarified.  It took a lot of work
and got you flamed.  (sort of like my efforts to improve the quality of
posts on this list :-))  I agree that it would be more constructive to
discuss the practical and theoretical ways of avoiding RW rather than
complaining about how often we find examples of RW in the field.

But when I attempted to discuss this on the list recently, there was
very little discussion.  Someone with little knowledge of the subject
would have learned about the benefits of contiguous thirds, but little
else.

You challenged Bill to accurately describe the sequence that resulted in
an RW temperament.  He finally did, and then accused you of being a
practitioner despite no supporting evidence that I could find.  So post
your own tuning sequence and prove him wrong.

Carl Root, RPT
Rockville, MD