Re: tuning question

In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Margo Schulter
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

>We can discuss this more, from the viewpoint of a science fiction 
>scenario: how, for example, might listeners or theorists of the 1630's 
>react to a 12-equal piano. Here we'd want to take into account not only 
>the tuning itself, but also, as Vincenzo Galilei reminds us, the question 
>of timbre: a piano, like a lute, has less prominent fifth partials than a 
>harpsichord, so that wider major thirds at 400 cents might not seem so 
>tense as on the "brighter" instrument.

Are you sure that this is not the opposite, that modern instruments are
brighter, i.e., have more partials than ancient instruments?

A fellow measured up a Kaval, and noted it had less prominent partials
than a modern flute. The piano whose timbre I like the most is Steinway
because it has a brighter timbre than a Baldwin.

Then the explanation of the use of 12-equal on such instruments, despite a
lousy fifth approximation might be that it can be correct fifths can be
reached via partials. It seems me that interesting music depends on the
ability to use different principles to play against: For example, one can
play towards a 12-equal or towards rational intervals, depending on the
context. On a piano, pitchbends can be achieved by the use of chords.

  Hans Aberg