[Harp-L] more on temperament and such

["Jonathan R. Ross" <jross38@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

>Bach liked equal tuning well enough. Check out the well tempered
clavier >for
>some astounding music.

There is a lot of debate about what temperament(s) Bach actually used.
There is no direct evidence of his preferences in this regard, but a
fair amount of speculation (do a search and you'll see that I'm
understating it with the phrase "fair amount").  Bach certainly knew of
equal temperament, but he also knew of the various _well_ temperaments
which are inherently unequal in nature.  Some argue that the title of
the work in question actually hints that he was arguing in favor of
well-temperament over ET--I'm not sure I'd go that far.  In any event,
the music sounds wonderful in a variety of tuning schemes both ET and
well-tempered, but not so in some of the other schemes which had existed
for centuries (meantone, for instance).

>Methinks some of the members are a little too hung up on this tuning
thing.

Some of the members tune instruments for a living, so need to be "hung
up" on this issue or else be out of a job soon enough.

>What other instruments are of necessity 12-TET (ie.
>impractical to stock one for each key)?

None.  12TET is one solution to the problem, but not the only one by any
means.  While it is impractical to re-temper an organ, piano or
accordion for each performance, that doesn't mean that 12TET is the
de-facto solution.  Depending on what music you focus on and the nature
of the instrument itself other temperaments can be a better choice than
12TET.  If the instrument is designed primarily for the performance of
pre-Romantic Western formal music, 12TET would probably be a rather bad
choice.  On an organ, for instance, 12TET has the advantage of sounding
best for Romantic pieces, decent for classical and Bach, and usually
passable on the Baroque.  But other well-temperaments can handle much of
this as well, with a different emphasis (best for Bach and classical,
decent for the Baroque and earlier and usually passable on Romantic
pieces).  The question is always what compromises are you willing to
make; what do you want to stress and what do you want to minimize.

>It also depends on the type of music you are playing. For Jazz and
modern
>music probably ET will work best, but for older music (up until about
1930)
>a well tempered piano is much more beautiful. (at least to my ears)

Not to disagree (your ears are your own and thus right for you), but
pianos were generally tuned to 12TET (or as close as they are today) by
the 1880's at the latest (earlier in the US), probably earlier.  Brahms,
for instance, would have been intending the majority of his piano works
to be in 12TET.  And, much of the post-modern composition has actually
been away from 12TET and focused on rediscovering older systems of
exploring new ones.  

>Where the instruments have a built-in chromatic scale (e.g. keyboard
and >fretted instruments) AND they are played in various keys, only
equal >temperament will work.

Not true.  Any temperament will work, but some have different
compromises than 12TET.  Playing an instrument tuned to 1/4 comma
meantone centered around C in C# may be a rather dissonant experience,
but it can be done and is actually correct for some periods of
music--and might be useful for the strangeness it imparts to new pieces.
But that is an extreme example, as the various well-temperaments can
work in all keys as well, but emphasize some over others.  12TET simply
emphasizes none and some would argue that it hurts them all equally
because of that.  It is _A_ solution, but by no means the only one which
is workable or musically acceptable.

>Chromatic harmonicas must be equal tuned to be played in different keys
on >the same instrument.

Again, see above.  While I use, basically, 12TET on my chroms, I've
considered other systems as well (not long, actually) and those would
still work in all keys, just with a different character to each key.  It
would impose a different set of challenges in playing the instrument
chromatically, but these would not necessarily be any harder or any less
musical than the challenges 12TET imposes on the chrom.



Finally, I hope this doesn't post twice--I don't know why that happened.



 oo    JR "Bulldogge" Ross
()()   & Snuffy, too:)
`--'