Responsive ET

[Ron Koval]

Hi everyone,

I've got something new to present.  It had been under the heading of 
temperaments, but I thought that many of you may have been quick with the 
delete button and missed it.  Ric Moody and I have been once again 
discussing the existance and use of equal temperament pre-1900.  I decided 
to accept a redefinition of ET after questioning him what methods early 
tuners used to arrive at ET.  He responded with Broadwood's own writing from 
1811, claiming sucess with his tunings (ET) pleasing Mozart and Hayden.  So 
on to this:

A growing body of technicians have been discovering the joys and musicality
of tuning an earlier version of equal temperament.  One example of this
temperament, known as Broadwood's best, has been used successfully in homes, 
in
recording studios, and on the stage around the world.  With a maximum offset 
from the
"sterile, clinical" modern equal temperament of only 5/100ths of a half
step, all keys are playable, while retaining the preferences of musical
development and harmony valued by western music.  Others of us have been
instrumental in developing new versions of this more musical equal
temperament for everyday use.  Consider the Equal Beating Victorian, the
Coleman 11 and the Koval Variable temperaments as those developed using both
the best of the aural tradition and modern spreadsheet technology.  By
removing the biases introduced in the middle of the 20th century by the
development of tuning technology, we've rediscovered the extra connection to
the music that these tunings can bring.

Ric's follow-up response expressed his concern for tuning using the modern 
technology, and asking about the sources for Broadwood's Best.

The modern sources mostly filter through Owen Jorgensen's works.  In 
studying virtually all of the earlier forms of equal temperament, a distinct 
pattern emerges.  The spreading out of the dissonence follows the musical 
rules of composition based on a circle of fifths tonality.  Therefore, I 
propose that it was not a single tuning that was used and preferred by 
composers and performers, but a STYLE of tuning, sharing similar results.  
Therefore, it's not required, or even important to replicate the tunings of 
the past to recapture a musical equal temperament.  Instead, now we are able 
to create tunings using much more manipulation of available information.

I think that the advent of machine tuning caused a ripple effect throughout 
the aural tuning community.  Techniques were developed in the last part of 
the 20th century to allow aural tuners to achieve the same sterile tunings 
that the machines were capable of churning out.  The aural link to the 
tunings of the past has now been mostly severed.  Many tuners that follow 
the directions of the past, without using the advanced aural techniques from 
the last 20 years end up tuning a version of equal temperament that reverses 
the pattern of dissonence found in the early versions of equal temperament.  
Using offsets from machine calculated ET tunings opens a doorway to those 
technicians willing to experiment with another style of equal temperament.

There was a question requesting aural instructions for the Broadwood's 
Best....  If anyone has them handy, please post them back to the list.

Ron Koval
Chicagoland

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