Re: 55-tet

Hi Brian,

> nowadays. Of course, real composers in the real world recognize
> that all of these tunings are simply heard as "a whole buncha
> small intervals" by listeners and practicing composers alike.
> Once you get past about 29 equal, hands-on experience composing
> in these equal temperaments shows that there's no significant
> audible musical difference between (say) 51 as opposed to 55 or
> 53, or 60 as opposed to 65.

Actually, I'm not sure about this part of what you say.

I find when I improvise in a temperament the improvisation seems
to be much influenced by the temperament, even if difference
in the tuning itself may be subtle to hear, somehow not enough
to explain the difference.

So one could perhaps use improvisation itself as a way to pick up
on the nuances of the temperament. Or if using an acoustic rather
than keyboard istrument, try playing along with a tuning while
improvising, and see if the way one plays is affected by the
temperament.

Retuning an already improvised piece in various ways and trying
to pick up on the tunign in that way may not work so well, particularly
if one tries hard to listen to it (and so engage the analytical
mind strongly) to try to hear what it is. For one thing,
the piece already will have some of the inspriation of the
tuning it was comosed in, some kind of expectation of how
chord progressions work, so one may hear notes as just slightly
retuned from that and not notice that, rather than in the
new tuning. Then also, one is talking about something fairly
subtle, (but possibly strong in its effect too, just subtle
in the sense that we aren't used to picking up on it).

We are brought up in our musical culture that doesn't have a
particularly live tradition of sensitivity to temperaments,
so perhaps this is something that the analytical mind will
easily miss out on.

It's a thought anyway.

Here is what I'm planning to say about 55-tet (after comment from Paul
on MMM, and mentioning a web site I found in a search of the
tuning list archive)

"
55-tet twelve tone scale is a close approximation to sixth comma
meantone. Origins seem to be from Tosi in 1723. Each step of
55-tet is very close to a syntonic comma. This makes a twelve tone
scale consisiting of two sizes of semitone, one of five, and one
of four approximate syntonic commas. Leopold Mozart (Wolfgang Mozart's
father) was in favour of this system and wrote a couple of scales to be used
as excerices for it. Teleman advocated it for this same reason.

Here is a site by an author who strongly advocates use of sixth
comma meantone for baroque music:

http://www-midischool.cwru.edu/Duffin/Vallotti/56K/page4.html

On page 4 he mentions that the tritone sounds particularly good
in sixth comma meantone, being at the most optimal position in
a certain sense, and this links in with the improvisations -

I remember noticing that the one from B to F sounded particularly
nice and enjoyed using it.
"

(N.b. accidentally posted this to MMM first - sorry).

Robert