Howard, This difficulty that you mention was obviously the reason why so many witnesses complain about the problems raised by associating keyboards and fretted instruments at the time. Yet they did perform together, so they obviously found compromises, and what is a tuning, any tuning, if not a compromise ? Some are more satisfactory than others but none is universal and none can claim anything like perfection. It all depends on the purpose and the context. Meantone is only one possibility among others, including equal, pyhtagorean, you name it, and the rest is a question of ear, sensitivity, expressivity (maybe this is a creation ;-) and good taste. My opinion and conclusion so far remains that no dogma will ever prevail in that field, and no theory, as attractive as it may be, will ever reconcile what was has, after all, never been reconciled by our predecessors in the 16th - 18th centuries. It is not a clear-cut matter with certainties and final conclusions : doubts, doubts, and experiments...
All the best, Jean-Marie ======= 18-06-2008 23:24:06 ======= > >On Jun 18, 2008, at 1:58 PM, Jean-Marie Poirier wrote: > >> Anyway, the bulk of historical evidence is clearly in favour of a >> more or less equal temperament when considering fretted instruments >> like lutes or viols, > >As far as I know, the historical evidence consists mostly of: > >1) Actual instructions for fretting the instruments, which describe >unequal temperament; > >2) Theorists implying equal fretting; and > >3) Metal-fretted instruments all in unequal temperament. > >It's difficult to reconcile the second category with the other two. > > >-- > >To get on or off this list see list information at >http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html >--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >Orange vous informe que cet e-mail a ete controle par l'anti-virus mail. >Aucun virus connu a ce jour par nos services n'a ete detecte. > > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://poirierjm.free.fr 19-06-2008
