Conrad, I found RW again today

[Billbrpt@AOL.COM]

Yes, Folks,
I hate to say it but I found one again.  This is why I DON'T want to document 
this stuff.  It happens just too much.  I used the FAC program to create an 
ET to use as a reference, and by gawsh, it was RW too!  A friend who is a 
non-member technician happed to call right when I was listening to that FAC 
program tuning.  I said, over my cellphone, "say, aren't the B3-D#-4 and 
Db-4-F4 3rds just a bit slower than that C4-E4 3rd?" He didn't hesitate to 
say, "yes".  When listening to the contiguous 3rds, Ab3-C4 and C4-E4, I heard 
a greater than 4:5 ratio.

Now the SAT generated RW was a Quasi-ET RW with the kind of error that I 
recognize as being slight and that would probably only score 1 point off on 
the Exam.  The other day, I left open the *possibility* that my own aural ET 
might not be perfect but this FAC generated ET had more error than mine.  
Nevertheless, I used the SAT generated Quasi-ETRW as a standard.  The piano, 
as it was, a nice, big (well-scaled, low inharmonicity) old Vose Upright, got 
a score of 75.  (I have no information about who tuned it last or when it was 
done last.  The people were not home and had left a key for me.)

This slight error from the FAC calculation is an example of how even a small 
error can create a RW and can have a negative effect in music whereas an 
equally small error in the direction of the usual historical precedents 
might, at the least, do no harm, at best might make the piano truly more 
musical.  In fact, if I had moved the note C4 just 2 cents sharper, I 
probably would have gotten the Quasi-ET documented in Owen's big red book 
that has all notes the same as ET except that the note C is sharpened by 1 
cent.

As usual, I tuned to standard pitch in the EBVT.

Bill Bremmer RPT
Madison, Wisconsin