On 06.09.2007 David W. Fenton wrote:
Are you crazy? There's a huge difference, because the less you spread out the comma, the more different the leftover keys (i.e., the bad ones) sound in comparison to the "good" keys.
True, although the temperaments in use at Bach's time were probably closer to equal temperment than what a lot of people assume. I don't really want to mention the "Bach tuning" found recently, but there are tunings by Neidhardt and others which are indeed very close to equal temperment.
In the recent past I have come to the conclusion that the term "well-tempered" refers to the equalness _in sound_ of the various keys. Admittedly this doesn't mean equal in maths, and although well tempered tunings sound relatively similar in the different keys they are not the same, and they always sound better on period instruments than a mathematically equal temperment, which sounds very bad especially on harpsichords.
Johannes -- http://www.musikmanufaktur.com http://www.camerata-berolinensis.de _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
