>Hi Dan, no I don't think it's an illusion. Tuning ET is very hard, >because the major thirds are already right at the limit of what the >ear will accept (many would say, beyond) so if they're just the >tiniest bit too wide it sounds dreadful. But with meantone >temperaments, the major thirds can be pure, or not so pure, but as >long as they're somewhere between pure and ET it sounds OK. > >You tune a harpsichord in ET? Now that really is a sin. Try it in >1/4 comma, and play Byrd, then tell me you like it in ET. Good Lord no! I got the tuner (Violab) specifically to tune the harpsichord in meantone (or any of about a dozen other temperaments) and then found out what a useful tool it was first for the Baroque lute, then all my instruments; including the bass viol & the steel string guitar, and finally realized how easy it would work for setting the lute frets anywhere I chose. No Extra Terrestrial tunings in this house! Even the piano (Ivers & Pond, 1906- their "Upright Grand") is tuned to temperament one of my students calls "Victorian Meantone"
The harpsichord is in 1/4 comma meantone at this moment except for the top octave which is first to fall into Badtone- and yes indeed the Byrd chirps quite happily. Handel gets a touch strange, if she (my wife, the keyboardist in the family. I'm the tunist) plays Handel, things start to go strange at times- maybe 6th comma is coming soon. What you just said about the lute tuning having MORE flexibility- room for error from true purity of the 3rds- makes sense for the reason you stated. The guitar, with the fixed frets, is the only instrument that really bugs me. Steel strings are especially sensitive to the temperament nuances. Dan -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
