Re: [MMM] meantone pattern of keys default

> Paul & Judy,

Paul probably already answered this just fine, but I'll give you a bit
of my take before the torpor of the day knocks me under (is it 95
degrees 95 percent humidity all across the country, or only in the
parts that aren't burning?)

> Q1. What's the pattern?
[...]
> Q2. Was C really considered the center of this default three
> sharp two flat meantone tuning?

Well, actually the center is d. It is literally the center of a C-E short
octave four octave keyboard, it is the final of mode one, and it is
the note halfway between c and d -- the MEAN!

Of course you can tune meantone centered anywhere you have a
major third you want to bisect. F#-A# would work fine, centered on
G#.

The pattern is you tune the fourths and fifths to get your proper
bisect, which tunes five notes (c, g, d, a, e), then from the ends (c
and e) you tune three fifths down from c (f, b flat, e flat) and three
fifths up ffrom e (b, f#, c#). That gives you 11 notes. If you're
stopping at 12, you have to decide whether to make it a G# or an A
flat. G sharp is the more common, but retuning for the key you are
in next didn't take long. Of course this is why the gig musicians
published all those little fakebooks called things like 'Suite in F', or
'Suite in G', or 'Suite in e minor' -- sho you would know you could
play a bunch of dances without having to stop and retune the
accidentals.

Judy

Judith Conrad, clavichordist
Music Director, Calvary Baptist Church
747 Broad Street, Providence RI 02907

On 27 Jun 2002, at 0:00, X. J. Scott wrote:

> Was C-E compass more common early on than the 5 octave F-F
> that seemed to be the most popular later? Or am I wrong about
> that being popular -- I had thought the F-F compass was the 5
> octaveer one that gave the cembalist the widest repertoire.

OK, quick explanation -- when I said c-e short octave four octave
compass, it goes from low C, C2 to piano tuners, to high c''', C6 to
piano tuners. But it doesn't have all the notes at the bottom, it's a
'short octave' -- bottom note looks like E, but plays C, next note is
F, the thing that looks like F# plays D, G is G, the thing that looks
like G# plays E.. So you have no C# or D# or F# or G# in the
bottom (short) octave. Well, sometimes you had split accidentals
to give you F# and G#. So D was actually in the middle of a four
octave keyboard.C - C. Weird, huh!

Organ keyboards never got more than that, most of the time,
except that at some point a bit before 1700 they started making.
them chromatic to the bottom instead of having the short octave.
Most keyboards weren't more than 4 octaves until near 1700, full
five - octave ones didn't start till well into the 18th century. I think
something like 30 of Scarlatti's 500 sonatas require five octaves. A
few notes above c''' were pretty standard in Bach's time, the
noted\s below C weren't.

Judy

Judith Conrad clavichordist
http://home.mindspring.com/~judithconrad/index.html