temperaments

[Ron Koval]

Hi everyone,

I just had to respond to this again.

ric wrote:
Don't forget the first instrument that had to be constructed to ET in
order to exist as a musical instrument, the lute and later the guitar.
The proportional spacing of the frets results in ET or is ET depending
on how you want to think about it.
<snip>

Yes, of course you are right.... except when you realize that many times the 
tuning of one string to another is tuned pure by many guitarists, instead of 
tempered.  So you get ET melodic lines, (notes played on the same string) 
while the harmonies will not be strictly ET. (chords played by multiple 
strings)


ric again:
To provide for the creation of music, composers and players and
listeners desire that some instruments must be built and tuned according
to ET.  The accordion, harmonica, reed organ, and all the orchestral
fixed pitch instruments, which includes flutes, woodwinds, saxophones,
xylophones, marimbas, glockenspiels, orchestra bells, tympani etc. Since
the octave is a universal interval, ET is a musical necessity, not a
"norm".

You mentioned you are a bassoon player.  Is your bassoon designed in
Et? If not, what?
<snip>

ARRRRRG! (sorry for yelling)  There are no orchestral fixed pitch 
instruments, except in the percussion section. (that includes harp and 
piano, although there are very few, if any ET harps) Any instrument that the 
performer can influence the pitch is NOT a fixed pitch instrument.  I had a 
link to the Fox bassoon website, and an explanation of why I think that no 
wind instrument is designed in ET in a previous post.  And what does the 
width of the octave have to do with the necessity of ET?


ric again:
The only "norm" I know in music among players is to match pitch and
"make pleasing harmonies".  There is no temperament in these situations
unless you are playing a tempered instrument.  It a matter of tempered
instruments matching pitch with free pitch instruments, and the job of
the musician is to make his/her instrument sound good with all the
others.
>
Ps  If you want a keyboard instrument tuned to a different temperament
that is OK, but why is the "norm" of ET for keyboard instruments for the
last 200 years so hard for some to acknowledge?
<snip>

Now we're actually getting somewhere. This was my point, that in reality, ET 
is pretty rare.  The musicians in your example above would insist that they 
were playing in ET, because that's what they KNOW to be the truth.  Truth in 
their minds, but not truth in reality.  In fact, what is the "litmus test" 
for ET?  I commonly use a temperament that has a maximum offset from ET of 
only 1.2 cents.  Yet, to another skilled tuner who would test the thirds in 
chromatic order, it is easily heard to be not ET.  Are you saying that for 
the last 200 years, pianos have been tuned to within a cent of ET?  Using 
what methods?  How many people taking the PTG test miss a note by more than 
a cent?  Check out the other thread: "anyone can buy a hammer and take out 
an ad"  for an example of theory not matching reality.  You may KNOW the 
truth of ET being the norm for the last 2 centuries, but I'm afraid reality 
shows us otherwise.

Ron Koval

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