[sdiy] Black Magic oscillator cans

[ASSI]

On Wednesday 23 July 2003 21:00, Magnus Danielson wrote:
> We must recall that Phytagorian tuning really makes sense in that it
> is really the overtone beatings which will be of interest in
> "harmony" of cords and ensembles of instruments. Bach rationalized
> the whole thing with his well- tempered scale which makes all keys
> sound equally bad.

It wasn't so much to "rationalize" than to show the joys of a 
non-restrictive tuning system, of which equal tempered is just an 
extreme example. Bach specifically said "well tempered" and not "equal 
tempered" and it is quite unlikely that during his lifetime he came 
anywhere near to experience an instrument tuned to equal-tempered 
scale. In fact his most likely encounter would still have been Meantone 
tuning (if the instrument in question was tuned at all ;-). The 
well-tempered tuning systems for the piano were still being developed 
and the more notable ones that survived after a period of 
experimentation and still in marginal use today, have not been 
available until after Bach's death (d'Alembert 1752, Young 1799, Prinz 
1808). I don't have the dates for Kirnberger and Werckmeister, but 
remember them to be even later, also these are leaning (much) more to 
the equal-tempered side. Pure equal tempered tuning as we know today 
has not been in use until about the 1900 timeframe.

"Beethoven on the Temperaments" (Gasparo Records #332):
"This CD contains pure intervals which may be habit forming!" 



Achim.
-- +<[ Q+ & Matrix-12 & WAVE#46 & microQkb Omega sonic heaven ]>+ --

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