source file: m1412.txt
Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 10:07:23 -0500 (CDT)

Subject: Re:  TUNING digest 1404

From: Paul Hahn <Paul-Hahn@library.wustl.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.     

A couple of thoughts here:

(a) I'm not sure that 12TET has been exhausted even yet (I've posted on
    this before, and recently, so I won't belabor the point).

(b) Just because tunings weren't 100% exactly 12TET doesn't disqualify
    the music of the Baroque period from being (in some essential way)
    12TET-ish, as it were.  Heck, most purportedly 12TET instruments
    even today aren't all that exact--see Barbour, or the recent thread
    on synthesizer tuning resolution.  To me, the essential things are
    that there are 12 pitch/interval classes and no wolves; if those two
    conditions are met (that pretty much describes the circulating
    temperaments that were used increasingly throughout the Baroque) I'd
    be willing to call it some form of 12TET.  Certainly it's closer to
    that than JI, or other tempered schemes with more than 12 pitch
    classes.

--pH <manynote@lib-rary.wustl.edu> http://library.wustl.edu/~manynote
    O
   /\        "Churchill? Can he run a hundred balls?"
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