On Jan 7, 2012, at 2:03 AM, Martyn Hodgson wrote: > Read Lindley's book on lute temperaments if you don't believe me.
I have read it, and it's a major reason I don't believe you. Lindley ignores or dismisses nearly all the evidence that contradicts his thesis, often comically. My personal favorite is citing Valderrabano's duets at a minor third as evidence of ET on page 22, while noting on page 55 that Valderrabano instructs the players to adjust the frets. He inexplcably dismisses as "question-begging" Doni's remark about the wideness of the distance between the second and third frets. Lindley thinks that Milan's music needs to be played in meantone, presumably thinking Milan is some sort of island in an ET ocean. He concedes that Gerle calls for meantone, but dismisses Dowland's instructions, substantively identical, as so inept that Dowland probably never used them. Lindley always strikes me as the detective searching all over for clues to the murder while the butler is standing in front of him with a smoking pistol. What it boils down to is that theorists wrote a lot of stuff that can be read as describing equal temperament (though much of it can also be read as simply meaning more equal than keyboards, or more versatile than keyboards because the frets were adjustable) while all the practical evidence (fretting instructions and the actual frets on metal-strung instruments) shows non-ET. In Mersenne's case, I think the very theorist cited as evidence of ET gives a non-ET fretting scheme. The universally known, skillful players with whom I've discussed Lindley's book (mostly when they were faculty at LSA seminars), always do it with an annoyed tone, for reasons similar to the ones I just noted. Lindley is the latest theorist who's at odds with practice. BTW, the book we're discussing is Lutes, Viols and Temperaments (Cambridge University Press, 1984) -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
