source file: mills2.txt Date: Mon, 3 Mar 1997 02:26:33 -0800 Subject: Ed Foote's ET remarks From: Will Grant Back in the 70's the elder Mr. Sabathil and Robert Buecker both lent me harpsichords for a while, and naturally I had to tune them every couple of days. For me, at least, well temperaments are what comes naturally in this situation. Each time I tuned, I tried to find appropriate little personalities for each key. E and A were usually brilliant, and G and E-flat were usually sweet; but it was a game pursued for fun, and it was different every time. I think it is simply true that the well temperaments are attractive variations on ET, and they are indeed improvements upon ET. The French, of course, are bureaucrats by nature; but in practice a well temperament is better even for serialism than a blank ET. It is true that one might want to retune keyboards in serial pieces from section to section, or even phrase to phrase, but that is no insurmountable problem with electronic instruments. Best, Will Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Mon, 3 Mar 1997 11:35 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA02738; Mon, 3 Mar 1997 11:34:59 +0100 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA02712 Received: from by ella.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) id CAA05635; Mon, 3 Mar 1997 02:33:15 -0800 Date: Mon, 3 Mar 1997 02:33:15 -0800 Message-Id: Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@ella.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@ella.mills.edu