Hey Conrad, I'm guessing this is just a case of over-re-simplificating, but when you wrote this: <snip> I never said all fifths were pure. The fact that they _can't_ all be pure is why we have to temper in the first place! All the methods of tempering are efforts to split that difference. The more times you split the difference, the fewer pure intervals until you get to ET, where there are none. <snip> It might have been a bit more clear to observe that there are a great many temperaments that do not have ANY pure fifths, yet produce key color. The Wells and Victorians value a range of dissonence, rather than just "good" or "bad". But back to Corte's question..... Hmmmm, do they "ripen" quicker? What normally goes out first? Unisons. There shouldn't be any difference there. Next, if you live in a variable climate, I guess the octaves start getting spread, or contracted, around the break. All of the machine-generated temperaments set the octaves the same way as ET, so there shouldn't be any difference there, either. Only in the EBVT, by Bill Bremmer, do the octave widths get tempered, based on the tempering of the octave 5th. So we are down to the other intervals going out..... Here's the weird thing. ET has all of the beat speeds of intervals, from real slow in the bass, to real fast in the treble. Moderate temperaments share many of the same beatspeeds, just in a different order than an ET tuner would expect. It's easy to find a third out of place in ET by using a chromatic progression. Since the thirds are already "out of order" in an alternate temperament, there might actually be a little more movement allowed, before the differences are enough to alter the character of the temperament. But remember, we are already way down the list past the unisons going out before any of this comes into play. Once the unisons get ripe, all bets are off! So my guess would have to be that ET is the quickest "ripening" temperament, due to the minute tolerances required to actually achieve a true ET. Ron Koval Chicagoland _________________________________________________________________ FREE pop-up blocking with the new MSN Toolbar – get it now! http://toolbar.msn.com/go/onm00200415ave/direct/01/
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