source file: mills2.txt Date: Mon, 3 Mar 1997 04:02:51 -0800 Subject: Re: Ed Foote's ET remarks From: kollos@cavehill.dnet.co.uk (Jonathan Walker) Will Grant wrote: > ... Each time I tuned, I tried to find appropriate > little personalities for each key. E and A were usually brilliant, > and G and E-flat were usually sweet; but it was a game pursued > for fun, and it was different every time. Do you mean, perhaps, that the major thirds of the tonic triads in E and A were closer to 81/64, whereas those in G and Eb were closer to 5/4? Or something along these lines? > I think it is simply true that the well temperaments are > attractive variations on ET, and they are indeed improvements > upon ET. The comparative merits of different tunings systems are relative to the music you wish to play in them. 12TET would never have been adopted as the normal keyboard tuning if well temperaments were thought to be as suitable for Chopin as they were for Bach (I choose Chopin because he explicitly demanded 12TET). Likewise, in the early 18th century, well-temperament would not have been adopted as a keyboard norm if meantone temperaments answered all the needs of musicians and composers at this time. No tuning is superior simpliciter, but only superior (if at all) in relation to a specified musical repertoire. > ... in practice > a well temperament is better even for serialism than a blank > ET. It is true that one might want to retune keyboards in serial > pieces from section to section, or even phrase to phrase, but > that is no insurmountable problem with electronic instruments. How so? What advantages could any well-temperament possibly offer for serial music? Well-temperaments took the form they did because in the period 1700-50 "white-notes" keys predominated, and modulations were mainly local and not very far reaching, but the exceptions were frequent enough for some compromise to be desirable (a compromise not available within meantone systems, even given a couple of split keys). Thus C major receives good (i.e. 5/4 or close) major thirds, while F# major has to make do with near Pythagorean major thirds. Well-temperaments were thus designed entirely to cope best with the characteristics of the music of this period. Serial music shares none of these characteristics; playing it on a well-tempered keyboard is no doubt harmless fun, but to make claims that it _ought_ to be played thus seem quite baseless. -- Jonathan Walker Queen's University Belfast mailto:kollos@cavehill.dnet.co.uk http://www.music.qub.ac.uk/~walker/ Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Mon, 3 Mar 1997 13:08 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA02827; Mon, 3 Mar 1997 13:08:03 +0100 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA02852 Received: from by ella.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) id EAA19419; Mon, 3 Mar 1997 04:06:21 -0800 Date: Mon, 3 Mar 1997 04:06:21 -0800 Message-Id: Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@ella.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@ella.mills.edu