Duffin's book is a bit tendentious.
I would tend to Mark Twain's exhortation to Believe nothing you hear, and
half of what you see.
RT
ps
SOME keyboards were splitkeyed, NOT many.
From: Mark Probert probe...@gmail.com
RT ET was invented long before, and was advocated by Galilei, Frescobaldi,
RT Werckmeister, and many others.
RT
This is as I thought prior to reading Prof Duffin's book on temperament.
Whilst it was invented, and whilst people said they used it, it seems
as though, in practice, no-one did. It was not until 1917 that the
techniques and tools needed to tune in ET became common. Before that,
measurement of Chopin's preferred tuning (when in London he had a
favourite tuner, and his pianos were measured at the time) showed that
it was in a cyclic 11th comma MT. And he liked the tonal colours that
way. Go figure.
RT Why not? Fingerboard topography gives enough color, so why mistune?
RT
Back in the day, many keyboards were split-keyed. The reason that they
died was not through tuning, or because of the music, but due to expense.
As someone once pointed out, ET makes all keys equally out of tune.
It really depends what you are after, I think. Nice thirds? ET is not
the way to go.
. mark
To get on or off this list see list information at
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
