source file: m1411.txt
Date: Sat, 9 May 1998 17:52:32 -0700 (PDT)

Subject: Re:  TUNING digest 1404

From: "Jo A. Hainline" <hainline@unr.edu>

On Mon, 4 May 1998, A440A wrote:

> Bruce writes:
> >Actually it seems to me that the fascination with polyphony along with
> >12ET's somewhat universal simplicity, has caused the predominance of
> >12TET-- it has taken 250-300 years to somewhat exhaust the rich endowment
> >of this tuning. 
>  
>     If I understand Bruce to mean that ET has been used for 250-300 years, I
> must respectfully disagree.  There is more than ample evidence to show that,
> while theorized about much earlier,  the use of 12 TET didn't actually come to
> prominence before 1850.     
> 
Ed

My apologies for the numbers--actually I was thinking back to Bach and
Silberman's time-- when I believe that what they were really shooting for
was 12ET, the ability to modulate to any key with equivalent harmonic
development possible.  This opened up a whole world of harmonic polyphony
that Bach hinted at in his music that was not possible before his time and
an ET tuning scheme.  Thanks for pointing out my error in time scale.

Bruce Kanzelmeyer