source file: mills2.txt Date: Wed, 27 Sep 1995 09:45:31 -0400 Subject: Re: temperaments From: John Sankey I referred explicitly to Werckmeister III and d'Alembert/Rousseau, not to non-ET in general, in my comment about the divide between theoretical and practical writers on temperament. I reject Kirnberger too - I have yet to find a significant body of baroque music for which any of his tunings work better than the ones I mention. In fact, his tunings usually get phrasing stress backwards to my ears. And, 1/4-comma mean tone was almost certainly softened by most harpsichordists (virginalists? but NOT organists) from the earliest times. And, I thought we were talking about J.S.Bach, not three generations later (e.g. Czerny) - I have no experience at all that late. My impression (my notes do not record statistics such as this, I was just a kid in a candy shop then!) came from the music section of the library at Cambridge England when I studied there for 2 years in the 60's. It is all too true that the vast majority of writing on temperament is by dilatants and theoreticians, not by accomplished musicians. I believe Scarlatti tuned his harpsichords in the standard French temperament of the time, and will post a summary of the paper Bill Sethares & I have written on this once it has been accepted for publication. Bill is the mathematician (and a good one) - I use my ears. If you can't hear the difference between ET and WIII for Bach, relax and use ET. There are thousands of ways to enjoy music - you don't have to play the way I do! -- John Sankey bf250@freenet.carleton.ca Music is Beauty, Beauty is Truth, Truth is Freedom