more on this temperament thing

[A440A@AOL.COM]

Tom writes:
<<  Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't be safe to say that one of the

underlining reasons Well-Tempered and Mean Tone Tempered tunings were

mandatory in their days, irate beat structures in some of the keys were one

of the only features which demonstrated excitable sound change.  <<

    I certainly agree that "irate" beating adds a dimension of its own.  
There is scientific proof that a majority of listeners are stimulated by 
dissonance and sedated by consonsance when exposed to intervals that are 
tuned, respectively, Tempered or Just.  
    However, rather than holding that there were"mandatory" tunings in 
previous eras, I believe that there was a tremendous amount of variety within 
 distinguishable genres, plus regional differences in the chronological 
evolution of temperament.  We mark these distinctions by the writings of the 
theroists, instrument builders, and (rarely) the composers and musicians.  
    Viewed from Pythagoras on, the last 300 years of keyboard tuning exhibit 
the historical norm, in that they represented the latest that technology had 
to offer.  History shows that technology has always had strong and immediate 
effects on Western music's intonation.  There is a curve there that can be 
viewed as a long continuous, albeit irregular, change of increasing 
complexity.  Not only do the instruments, composers, and music  show the 
influence of each technological change,  the documented progression of 
temperament reflect these changes too.  
      As an example, I would offer that the Romantic composers may not have 
been inspired to create such washes of sound if their instruments had no more 
sustain than a harpsichord.  Their compositions were in some degree 
influenced by those new, big grand pianos that were being developed.  By the 
same token,  Stravinsky would have not written the way he did if there was a 
41 cent wolf in the middle of the scale.   
      Until the ability of tuners to produce equal temperament coincided with 
the composers evolving beyond tonality-based creations and wanted equality, 
what we call well-tempered was the coin of the realm, even in all its 
dominations.  It is hard to imagine that Mozart or Schubert composed as 
though all keys had the same harmonic nature.  

 >>With today's instruments with incredible  volume and

tonal capabilities combined with an EXTREMELY WELL TUNED ET,equal

temperament is still  as an extremely refined, flexible, and finely

constructed temperament capable of demonstrating and capturing the FULL

range of music in all keys.<< 
 
     Here I must respectfully disagree.  The Full range must be defined by 14 
cent thirds??  I think not.  ET only has one harmonic character in its 
thirds, how could this possibly capture and demonstrate what Beethoven was 
doing when he modulated?  Imo, it doesn't, it only suggests the move from 
consonance to dissonance and back again.  It does not offer the various 
levels of emotional manipulation(measurable) that are physiologically 
demonstrable with a variety of sizes of like intervals.  Consider that C
hopin's music on a WT often produces a pure melodic line over a very tempered 
harmony.  This results in a musical texture that cannot be produced when 
everything is tempered alike.  Does it sound better?  I can't answer that for 
anybody but myself, but since I have a tuning hammer, I have the choice of 
what I want to sell.   
    It may be that the dissonance, in and of itself, is unpleasant to the ear 
that expects it to be, or to the ear that expects something else,  but this 
is getting into the "meaning" of music, and that requires we understand that 
"meaning" is a product of a message being received.  It is NOT a unique 
property of the message.  Thus,  the listeners' expectations have a lot to do 
with the creation of meaning, and it is at this point that the technician's 
presentation sets the stage for the customer to derive "meaning" from a 
different tuning.  
    I don't know how else to explain why some techs have had no success 
promoting a change, and others have set their clienteles on fire!  Both Ste
inway artists here in Nashville have told me they are never going back to ET 
for pre 1885  music.  This is more than smoke and mirrors, more than a "king 
has no clothes" phenomenom.  I didn't really sell them on it, they came to 
these conclusions from playing their pianos.  
   On a side note, it seems to be so easy to polarize the discussion along 
lines of HT tuners and ET tuners.  This is a dead-end road.   My objective 
was to draw the distinction between multi-temperament tuners and those that 
only tune one way.(note, I am not saying which way).  The 
multi-temperament-aware tech has more tools in his tuning toolbox, how they 
are used determines his results.  
    An ancient Oriental saying applies, here. It says that the superior 
warrior has no favorite weapon. I don't have a favorite temperament, I have a 
lot of them and I use them all in a variety of situations.  The most 
surprising is that the local jazz club has a Young on the piano and pianists 
that never heard of me or the temperaments just love the sound.  I haven't 
said a word, rather, I just let the sound do the heavy lifting.  
Regards, 
Ed Foote RPT