Re: AW: Custom Format

[David Kastrup]

antlists <antlists@youngman.org.uk> writes:

> On 01/04/2021 09:50, Kevin Barry wrote:
>> On Wed, Mar 31, 2021 at 11:47:05PM +0100, antlists wrote:
>>> On 31/03/2021 20:20, Callum Cassidy-Nolan wrote:
>>>> You are correct, there is no distinction between these two notes,
>>>> because in terms of pitch they are the same.
>>>
>>> Actually, they're not ...
>>>
>>> If you're talking about "well-tempered" instruments - basically keyboard -
>>> then IN PRACTICE they are the same note, but the whole well-tempered system
>>> is a bodge to make sure instruments sound "okay" in any modern scale.
>> I assume by "well-tempered" you mean equally tempered.
>
> Isn't Bach's 48 called "The WELL-tempered Klavier"?

Well, it's probably a confusion about "any modern scale" in connection
to Bach.  Like most people are surprised when one calls Shakespeare's
English "Early Modern".  Because what then would be Old English?  Nobody
expects something like "and on ðam seofoðan dæge hé geendode his weorc,
and geswac ða and gehalgode þone seofoðan dæg, forðan ðe hé on ðam dæge
his weorc geendode" even though it contains words like "and", "hé",
"on", "his".

> And here you prove my point. You seem to be talking about keyboard
> instruments. I play brass. There's no such thing as "well-tempered"
> for brass instruments - with just four or five adjustment points
> there's no way you can adjust the 36 or so notes that your instrument
> typically produces (and a good player can probably get more notes than
> that out of it).
>
> As for the tuning systems before equal temperament, which instruments
> would they have applied to? Brass, strings, which are incapable of
> equal temperament!

Why would strings be incapable of equal temperament?  Granted, bowed
strings are commonly tuned in pure fifths (but then you avoid playing
open strings most of the time), but tuning a guitar in unequal
temperament is a recipe for trouble, particularly since the frets are
evenly spaced and not adjustable.

Typically the sanest way to tune it is using flageolet notes (which tell
you pure intervals) but distributing the tuning errors towards slightly
sharp fourths.

> Apart from the organ (which I was shocked to discover, in its MODERN
> form, first appeared about 600BC!!!),

Herr Gottlieb Silbermann would like to have a word with you.  Because he
invested an awful lot of work to get organs to the state we call modern
and where they will, for example, do

diddlediddlediddlediddlediddlediddlediddlediddle
BO BO BO BO BO BO WHOM
diddlediddlediddlediddlediddlediddlediddlediddle

without the second row of diddles starting totally overblown because of
the inertia of the bellows weight continuing to press air through
suddenly tiny pipes.

> equal temperament appeared, I believe, at about the same time as
> instruments capable of taking advantage of it such as the ?clavichord,
> harpsichord, spinet, forte-piano etc.

Well, the forte-piano is typically stretch-tuned, so any tuning theories
need some adaptation to reality anyway.

It's a wonder different instruments manage to play together at all.

-- 
David Kastrup