Non-ETs; more organic than ET?

[Don A. Gilmore]

I may be an engineer, but I'm also an advanced, conservatory-trained pianist
of some 32 years experience (I started at the conservatory when I was eight
in 1972) and  I come from a line of five generations of professional
musicians (my grandfather was a famous jazz bandleader, singer and
saxophonist in Kansas City).  That's more than can be said for most tuners.

What was heard in Mozart's day was inferior, just as automobiles of 1915
were inferior to the ones today.  Mozart didn't play in a primitive
temperament because he wanted to; he did because there wasn't a better way
yet.  There is a concrete, musical reason why virtually all instruments are
tuned to ET and it has nothing to do with the "tidiness" of mathematics (and
ET isn't constucted with a rational number, by the way).  ET is the *only*
temperament where everyone plays the same intervals within a key and in all
the keys all the time.  There is no other.  In *all* other systems *no* two
keys sound alike.  In *all* other systems you cannot have equal consonance
for all intervals, even in the same key.  If you flatten the E in the major
third between C and E to be more consonant, the resulting third from E to G#
will not be the same...in fact it will be *worse* than ET.  And all other
intervals that include that E will be changed by varying degrees.  I have
played in other temperaments and it is a pain in the ass, especially when
accompanying other instruments.

ET wasn't foisted upon the musical community by dastardly engineers,
politicians, or by divine decree; it was invented *by* musicians and has
been universally adopted because WE LIKE IT and because it solves the many
problems and limitations you experience if you don't use it.  I AM a
musician.  ET vastly simplifies music for us and lets us all play and
modulate with complete freedom.  Any other temperament is a gimmick, like
titanium golf clubs or a six-string bass guitar.  A $500 cue isn't going to
make you shoot pool any better and a fancy tuning isn't going to make you
sound any better.

Don

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David M. Porritt" <dm.porritt@verizon.net>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Saturday, April 03, 2004 1:17 PM
Subject: Re: Non-ETs; more organic than ET?
> Engineers (who are not always the most artistic lot) tend to think that if
a temperament can be constructed with a rational number it must be right.
However, if one wants to hear what Mozart was hearing you can't use ET.  Of
course hearing what Mozart heard might not be important to you, but if it
is................
>
> dave