HT, Ron Koval and Owen Jorgensen, longish

[A440A@aol.com]

Greetings, 
 Andrew said: 
 > I know in myself I hear key colors even in ET where theoretically none 

> should exist.  

 
"PTG" responds, 

>>Why not?   The number of beats in a major third varies from triad to triad. 
  

Why wouldn't that lend color to keys in ET?  <<

    It may depend on what we are defining as "color".  The number of beats 
varies in ET, but since we hear the beating in relation to the pitch at which it 
occurs, the emotional effect is the same.  Otherwise, we would hear the key 
of G as being more brilliant or more colorful than the key of C#, and there is 
little historical precedence for this, no?  If someone has a good sense of 
pitch recognition, then it is easily accepted that they will automatically assign 
the historically supported "color" to the key in use.  However, different 
colors cannot refer to different relationships existing in this or that key in 
ET, because the definition of ET is that the relationships between notes is the 
same, regardless of key.  
   I think the traditional use of the term color is what is also called 
"expressiveness" and seems to have been most in evidence in the more remote keys, 
hence, in the WT era, the keys with the purest fifths and most highly tempered 
thirds.  

"PTG" continues:  
>>I have always heard differing 

colors in different keys. too, and I have this experience with any piano.  In 

tune or not, HT or ET.   Really, it seems to me to be a phenomenon exclusive 
of 

temperament choice. << 

If one hears differing colors in different keys, regardless of the tuning or 
lack thereof, then of course, the term "color" refers to something other than 
temperament.  This isn't the same "color" difference that exists say between C 
and C# in a Werckmeister tuning, where the comparison is between a Just third 
and one that is tempered by a full syntonic comma.   
 
<<Ask yourself, this, Andrew:   don't you recognize 

colors in different keys on any piano?    And if you do, as I suspect you 
must, 

then the choice of keys by composers may be independent of temperament.<< 

     When speaking of the piano literature composed between 1700 and 1900, it 
is hard to accept that the composers didn't choose keys based on their 
harmonic resources. If we look at the piano music of Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart and 
Schubert, the prevalence of key choice is consistant between them, and is 
directly linked to the amount of dissonance in the keys of a WT, ie, the key of C is 
chosen far more than any other, and the next most often used keys are F and 
G.  Following that, we see, in order, the choice of keys is Bb or D, Eb and A.  
Virtually none are in the key of F#.   This is an allotment of key usage that 
directly follows the allotment of dissonance in the traditional WT's!  There 
are, of course, idiosyncracies.  Beethoven really had a fondness for Eb, but 
aside from that, his reliance on the keys is directly proportional to how 
tempered the thirds are. 
   It is easy to see why the keys of C#,F#, B and Ab were avoided almost 
totally in the meantone era,  who would want to compose in a wolf key?  It is also 
easy to understand that after 1900, key choice was almost democratically 
spread evenly over all the keys, which with ET in full use makes perfect sense.  
It is that middle era, from Bach to Chopin, that reveals the profound 
correlation between how often a key was chosen for composition and how wide the tonic 
thirds are.  
    Does this not suggest that the temperaments of all the eras were exerting 
compositional influences? Chopin is interesting because his compositions also 
are correlated to the WT form, but are entirely backwards to everything that 
came before!  
  There is far more musicological research that needs to be done on this, I 
think there is probably a Phd. waiting for someone out there that wants to put 
it all together.  In the meantime,  there is a growing number of pianists that 
are finding the progressive dissonance of the WT's makes perfect sense when 
used for the compositions that were created during the period in which these 
tunings were in vogue.  
Regards, 
Ed Foote RPT 
http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html
www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/well_tempered_piano.html