source file: mills2.txt Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1996 02:06:28 -0800 Subject: Re: More diatonicism (und Yasser ist auch dabei) From: Gary Morrison <71670.2576@CompuServe.COM> > However, the use of different spellings for enharmonics does not mean that > the composer requires (or even desires) a different tuning for the two. I > still fail to see any revolution coming from the mass production of the > 12-pitch-per-octave piano keyboard in the 19th century. Certainly in meantone tunings you don't want to use a D# in place of an Eb, for example! Brian's point, which seems to me at least to be largely correct, is that mass producing keyboards with more than 12 tones per octave was not terribly feasible in the times when meantone tunings were popular. The only realistic solution was to stick with 12 and tune them to well-temperaments instead. As for whether that would qualify as a "revolution", I guess you can decide. Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Sat, 23 Nov 1996 16:21 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA05188; Sat, 23 Nov 1996 16:22:57 +0100 Received: from eartha.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA05232 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id HAA11959; Sat, 23 Nov 1996 07:22:54 -0800 Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1996 07:22:54 -0800 Message-Id: Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu