I just read a book called "Temperament" by Stuart Isacoff. (Liked
the Duffin book much better). The author insists that tuning for fretted
instruments (using the lute as a prime example) was always and had to have
been in ET because the frets go straight across the fingerboard (!!!). How
does he think they tuned frets to ET without moving the frets until things
sounded in tune: I think usually just or some meantone intonation would
result. The author as much as states that ET was an ideal that they kept
striving for, but never really says it was achieved on a level other than
mathematical. In the end he shares wondrous appreciation or the piano music
of Michael Harrison: he plays and composes for his Harmonic Piano tuned in
just intonation by having 12 keys to the octave.
Duffin, on the other hand, says that even after ET had been
"established", many piano tuners into the 20th c. used their own little
private tweaks to make some intervals a little sweeter: ET still not
recognized as a perfect solution.
Regards,
Leonard Williams
On 9/25/09 7:18 PM, "wikla" <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Fri, 25 Sep 2009 18:52:10 -0400, "Roman Turovsky" <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
>>> Even after JSB there never was any ET for many, many years! For example
>>> Chopin never met ET. ET is an invention of 20th century.
>
>> ET was invented long before, and was advocated by Galilei, Frescobaldi,
>> Werckmeister, and many others.
>
> In the time of of Galilei, Frescobaldi, Werckmeister, and "many others",
> there was the want and eager to find a way to equalise the intervals. But
> there was no way, no tool. Even Chopin did not have that tool. They wanted
> it, but had they known, what becomes, they wouldn't have... ;-)
>
>
>>>> In my opinion ET lends ANY music noble and unaffected delivery.
>>>
>>> Just listen to, let us say, Antonio Cabezon, or any other keyboard guy
> of
>>> 16th c. in ET and "good temperament", and tell your feelings.. (You said
>>> "ANY music")
>
>> Take some old recording of August Wenzinger for example, and compare it
> to a
>> contemporary one.
>
> Take _any_ Cabezon piece and try it by "piano"...
>
>>>> And there is no necessity of liking dodecaphony if you like ET.
>
>>> I do agree. But is there really any other reason of liking ET than the
>>> want
>>> to feel equally every possible interval, chord. key or any sequence of
>>> notes, starting where ever? Do you really want to hear - let us say -
>>> F-major sound like E-major?
>
>> Why not? Fingerboard topography gives enough color, so why mistune?
>
> ???
>
>>> The F-major - to me - is very soft, happy and royal, and btw. also green
>
>>> to
>>> me; the E-major is much more sharp and angry, and btw. to me its colour
>>> is
>>> blue. And what is most intersting to me, is that in the so called
>>> "baroque"
>>> tuning (a'=415Hz) and in the modern tuning (a'=440Hz) those
>>> characteristics
>>> follow the name of the key? Or better said, players tune their
>>> instruments
>>> so...
>
>> Arto, we now know that picth is a chymera, the Venetian one being 465, so
>> there is no such thing as definitive "baroque pitch".
>
> Yep! There really is no definitive "baroque pitch" - as I thought everyone
> knew. I wanted to say that in all the pitches of a' (where I am taken
> into...) the colours are to me the same: F-major green etc.
>
> And of course - as always- it is possible to fool me... ;)
>
> Arto
>
>
>
>>
>>>
>>> Is it so?
>>>
>>> And an entertaining poll: What is the colour of your F-major and
> E-major?
>>> Those two are clearest to me: to me there are no other alternatives to
>>> these two. D-major perhaps could be yellow? A-minor grey possible?
>>> C-major
>>> white? Well, that's enough...
>> There are many organic compounds that give chords their colors, but I am
>> too
>> old for those....
>> RT
>>
>>
>>>
>>>> I am
>>>> certainly no fan of the former, and it can be done in any temperament
>>>> anyway. Current forms of neomodernism are not pitch-dependent, and
> often
>>>> avoid all definite pitch (as well as meter).
>>>> As to actual temperaments- none are absolute, and even fewer are
>>>> sufficiently stable to discuss.
>>>>
>>>> Another point -
>>>> There is a belief that intonational espression is largely a product of
>>> ET,
>>>> because the latter permit minute deviations therefrom which actually
>>>> produce
>>>> expression.
>>>> Minute deviations from MT are plain old ugly, and the natural
>>>> consequence
>>>> of
>>>> this is the so-called Rooley Principle, according to which any
>>>> expression
>>>> is
>>>> entirely inappropriate in Early Music in general.
>>>> RT
>>>>
>>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>>> From: "wikla" <[email protected]>
>>>> To: "Lute list" <[email protected]>
>>>> Sent: Friday, September 25, 2009 5:29 PM
>>>> Subject: [LUTE] Re: New lute music
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Dear Roman and other dears,
>>>>>
>>>>> On Fri, 25 Sep 2009 16:23:21 -0400, "Roman Turovsky" wrote:
>>>>> [...]
>>>>>> I am for one is absolutely happy to use ET, and I use it exclusively
