source file: mills2.txt Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 05:29:02 +0200 Subject: Re: Perishable tunings and other permutations? From: Joseph Downing On Sat, 12 Jul 1997, Charles Lucy wrote: > All this chat about meantone tuning is very interesting, yet it > would seem very difficult to affirm the details of which tunings > were used on keyboard instruments, as the tuning is perishable. > Does anyone have access to physical fretted instruments from the > periods in question, so that fret, nut and bridge distances may > be measured? Of course, the other instrument that if fairly stable in tuning is the organ. If pipes are 'dead-cut' to 'correct'length,(which was not uncommon in earlier times, and not uncommon now amongst better builders) then it is possilbe to get a fair idea of the builders ideas about tuning. In fact, a lot of the info about tuning does come from organs, especially organs in poor areas, where the resources were not available to 'up-date' the organ to the latest fancy. Joe Downing, in Syracuse Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Sun, 13 Jul 1997 14:04 +0200 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA05968; Sun, 13 Jul 1997 14:05:03 +0200 Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 14:05:03 +0200 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA05808 Received: (qmail 8669 invoked from network); 13 Jul 1997 12:04:49 -0000 Received: from localhost (HELO ella.mills.edu) (127.0.0.1) by localhost with SMTP; 13 Jul 1997 12:04:49 -0000 Message-Id: <33C725C5.2800@erols.com> Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu