On Sun, Feb 15, 2009 at 6:55 PM, howard posner <[email protected]> wrote: > Temperament is mostly the concern of musicians who play fixed-pitch > instruments. A singer doesn't have to worry about it, because the > singer can adjust as needed. Temperament is just a poor substitute > for what a good singer does as a matter of course. > > In any event, it strikes me as unlikely to the point of absurdity > that a singer could remember and reproduce the difference between > fifth-comma and sixth-comma meantone,
1/5 or 1/6 MT is an absurd example, you're right, but ET, 1/4 MT or Pythagorean temperaments are wide enough apart to be _very_ obvious to any singer. Most singers are aware of what is happening around them, without giving it the names we do, as there's no need for them to understand the system used. In stead, they will remember things like wide thirds, take care with the d#, not quite pure fifths, etc. And many singers will ofcourse adjust thirds in final chords to their own taste, or to the temperament at hand, depending on the temperament/divaness of the singer. I'm often asked to leave out the thirds in final chords to give the change to the singer to make a more beautiful one than my fixed fret can give. But any sensitive continuo player will do this as a matter of course. As said here before: with good musicians there's no need to discuss anything, with the bad ones there's no use. David -- ******************************* David van Ooijen [email protected] www.davidvanooijen.nl ******************************* To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
