source file: mills2.txt Date: Tue, 19 Nov 1996 10:40:48 -0800 Subject: RE: Reply to Bill Alves From: PAULE I wrote, >I think Brian's point is that music at the time tended to have at least 14 >different notated notes, so that if meantone tuning were to be used, the >12-note keyboard would lead to some horrible wolves. Just tuning of course >would require vastly more keys, assuming it could be considered a >satisfactory tuning (which I don't happen to believe). Bill wrote, >14 notated pitches per octave in 1850? At least. >Split keys were certainly used in >the 17th and 18th centuries, but 12 keys per octave was still the norm. 1/4 >comma meantone with 12 keys per octave is still quite usable on the vast >majority of music written in the 18th century Well, the vast majority of the music was not the best music (i.e., Bach). >and well temperaments >rendered 12 even more useful. I can see how mass production necessitated >standardization of the construction of keyboards, but I remain unconvinced >that 12TET is the only possible (or even most likely) result of such >standardization. Perhaps. But by 1850, composers basically assumed they could modulate to any key, including G# major, and it would sound good. Whether this was a result of 12TET being shoved down their throats, I don't know. John Sankey wrote, >If Brian thinks that a 12 tone mean-tone-tuned keyboard leads >to wolves, he hasn't played much music of the period when >meantone was in use. I'm working on William Byrd's harpsichord >music right now (1543-1623), using pure quarter-comma meantone, >and there are NO wolves. This is off the topic by a few centuries, but what the heck. Byrd's Pavans and Galliards happen to be the only meantone recording I own, and certainly Byrd did for 12-tone meantone what Bach did for 12-tone circulating in the WTC. However, if I'm not mistaken, there is one place where Byrd uses a F-G#-C triad resolving to a C major triad (or some transposition of that). Whether you call that a wolf or a septimal minor triad is a matter of taste, I guess. Meantone was in use for a long time after 1623, though. Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Tue, 19 Nov 1996 19:44 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA18155; Tue, 19 Nov 1996 19:45:24 +0100 Received: from eartha.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA14273 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id KAA19619; Tue, 19 Nov 1996 10:45:20 -0800 Date: Tue, 19 Nov 1996 10:45:20 -0800 Message-Id: <13961119183831/0005695065PK4EM@MCIMAIL.COM> Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu