source file: mills3.txt
Date: Fri, 5 Dec 1997 15:59:08 +0100

Subject: Re: what "well temperament" means

From: mr88cet@texas.net (Gary Morrison)

>    I would vote to use Well Temperament  to describe the irregular,
>circulating, non-restrictive tunings that seemed to have begun with
>Werckmiester, and found perfection in the Young.

   Presumably not Young as in LaMonte Young?

   I once defined well temperament, keying off the obviously overvague
definition in the New Harvard Dictionary (and freely admitting that I don't
know how authoritative this definition would be), as a tuning of twelve
steps per octave based upon a circle of fifths, no two of which differ in
size by more than a pythagorean comma.

   That seems to match all of the well temperaments that I'm aware of.
Unfortunately it also allows for pythagorean to be called well temperament!
That being the case, it might be better to restrict, instead or
additionally, the difference in size of ADJACENT fifths in the circle, and
to something somewhat smaller.  That somewhat smaller allowable difference
would be whatever matches historical Werckmeister, Kirnberger, etc.
temperaments of course.

   I noticed that your definition specifically excludes equal temperament
from being a "degenerate" (in the semimathematical sense of "extreme") case
of well temperament.  I'm inclined to think that that's probably
appropriate, but I'm not sure.

   Ronnie Milsap you say has played with well temperaments?!  Interesting.


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