Non-ETs; more organic than ET?

[David Love]

Though I too have a personal preference for ET, I wouldn't be so quick to
dismiss the merits of unequal temperaments.  I have several customers,
professional musicians and teachers, who have come to appreciate the
qualities of Well Temperaments, in particular.  Many of these are people
very interested in and knowledgable about music of the period in which
these types of temperaments were used.  While I personally wouldn't argue
that anything is lost to the the music of Bach or Mozart by playing it in
ET, I think it is interesting, and still musical, to hear it performed not
only on period instruments, but in period temperaments.  

David Love
davidlovepianos@earthlink.net


> [Original Message]
> From: Don A. Gilmore <eromlignod@kc.rr.com>
> To: Pianotech <pianotech@ptg.org>
> Date: 4/3/2004 1:12:52 PM
> Subject: Re: Non-ETs; more organic than ET?
>
> 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
>