source file: mills2.txt Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 21:53:31 +0200 Subject: Re: Perishing Logic From: Paul Hahn On Sun, 13 Jul 1997, Charles Lucy wrote: > In Digest 1132 Paul Hahn wrote: > >Haven't you been listening? > > I have been both reading and thinking... Sometimes I wonder. > >Daniel has several times mentioned the fact > >that many of the organs available to Mozart were in meantone. > > As I read > > > Organs hold their tuning splendidly. > > If all the pipes are "unmodified": yet there were other indicators > suggested in the thread, about keys of composition, and other instruments > must also have been used. And what does that have to do with it? Your first post stated that keyboard instruments were unreliable indicators of tuning practise because the tuning was perishable. Organs are a direct counterexample to that idea. They hold their tunings, not perfectly, but amazingly well, and if they have been modified it is usually possible to find evidence of it. > >[Fretted instruments use ET] because of the difficulty of frets > >needing to be in different places from one string to the next. > > yet your logic falls apart here. Fretting in meantone is quite practical > with frets placed right across the board. This only works if you are willing to use more than 12 pitch-classes, as Gary has already pointed out, and which builders historically have not done. --pH http://library.wustl.edu/~manynote <*> O /\ "Foul? What the hell for?" -\-\-- o "Because you are chalking your cue with the 3-ball." Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Mon, 14 Jul 1997 21:56 +0200 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA11985; Mon, 14 Jul 1997 21:56:37 +0200 Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 21:56:37 +0200 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA11965 Received: (qmail 1733 invoked from network); 14 Jul 1997 18:54:42 -0000 Received: from localhost (HELO ella.mills.edu) (127.0.0.1) by localhost with SMTP; 14 Jul 1997 18:54:42 -0000 Message-Id: Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu