Re: quarter comma meantone

I'll look at the sources you all have talked about. Thanks. I haven't had any problem finding charts (all different) with frequencies for quarter comma meantone, but I don't know whether any of these charts are based on what some expert composers or keyboard tuners might have used several hundred years ago. I know that everyone back then used different starting frequencies and had different tuning systems, believing his was the "best" way. (Somehow that sounds like what we have been hearing on this tuning@egroups when talking about just intonation. "His own way" is "better than" some other person's way!!!) ALITA

--- In tuning@egroups.com, "Ed & Alita Morrison" <ESSAIM@T...> wrote:
> I'll look at the sources you all have talked about. Thanks. I haven't had any problem >finding charts (all different) with frequencies for quarter comma meantone, but I don't >know whether any of these charts are based on what some expert composers or >keyboard tuners might have used several hundred years ago. I know that everyone back >then used different starting frequencies and had different tuning systems, believing his >was the "best" way. (Somehow that sounds like what we have been hearing on this >tuning@egroups when talking about just intonation. "His own way" is "better than" some >other person's way!!!) ALITA

Hi Alita -- No one used Hertz hundreds of years ago. Each region had its own pitch
standard, so yes, there would have been a host of different starting frequencies, but 1/4-
comma meantone is 1/4-comma meantone -- totally unambiguous (as long as you're
sure to distinguish G# from Ab, etc.). If you're really concerned about reproducing the
actual pitch level a particular composer or performer might have used, you might find
some helpful clues in Ellis's appendix to Helmholtz's book, _On the Sensations of Tone_.