Re[2]: the well-tempered clavier

["Mark Williamson" <mwilliamson@alston.com>]

     Well, define equal temperament.  I am familiar to the 
     scholarly theory to which you refer, and in fact several 
     excellent craftsmen who have worked on my instruments as I 
     have moved around the country have been subscribers to that 
     theory.  But all I mean by "equal temperament" is that the 
     instrument does not have to be *totally retuned* regardless 
     of what key you are playing in.  That probably fits your 
     definition of "well-tempered," and certainly Bach's 
     definition, so I am OK with that.
     
     Mark
     
     BTW, my digital synthesizer is absolutely equally tempered 
     unless you choose a different system.  That is, the ratio of 
     the frequency of any tone to the tone one half-step 
     immediately below it is exactly equal to the twelfth root of 
     two.  The computer makes it so.  I cannot see any 
     disadvantage to this tuning system if you are playing in all 
     24 keys.
     
     One of the things that's so odd about tuning a piano or 
     harpsichord is that no craftsman, no matter how skilled, can 
     tune any instrument to this degree of accuracy.  And even if 
     he or she did, there would be variations beyond this degree 
     of accuracy almost as soon as he or she were done.  So it's 
     questionable whether some of the differences between 
     different systems of "well" temperament are really that 
     significant.  What matters to me is whether you can play in 
     all 24 keys without (1) retuning the instrument or (2) any 
     noticeable difference between how the keys sound.  And (2) 
     is optional:  in some styles of music you want different 
     keys to have different sounds and in others you want a more 
     neutral, ambulatory feel.


______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Re: the well-tempered clavier
Author:  Jeff Dods <jdods@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca> at internet
Date:    6/6/97 12:58 PM


> 
> 
>      You will certainly get a lot of responses on this; it's a 
>      favorite subject for many.  WTC 1 was written (a) to 
>      demonstrate the modulatory advantages of equal temperament 
     
There was a lot of discussion about this on the harpsichord list a few 
months back. Let me give you my watered down version.
My impression is that no scholors believe anymore that "well temperament" 
was equal temperament.  Yes, it was probably a "modern" temperment in the 
18 century, i.e. more modern that any kind of mean-tone, but in no way 
mistakable with equal temperament.
     
I *know* there are others on the list who could speak volumes on this topic, 
and quote 18th century German...
     
Jeff.
jdods@chem.utoronto.ca