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We already have a thousand posts about this, so what will one more hurt?

I have a love-hate relationship with ET. The tech in me sees the practicality of it, but the pianist in me hates it. For me, music should sound musical; not practical.

Give me the shades, colors, and textures of the different keys.

I didn't realize that the term "musical" had only one narrow definition. Equal temperament allows full versatility to play in any key with aproximately the same amount of "un-musical" quality. Every other non ET is a compromise. If one is playing pieces that uses keys which have more favourable musical qualities, there would obviously be some small benefits.

Unfortuanately, I have yet to open a fake book or classical music book that has "All pieces in the key of Db" written on it.

Key word being "un-musical."

One key or another does not mean anything to me. but that is not so with those with absolute pitch. I have to suspect that those with AP tend to have a preference for UT.

But before I understood what ET really was, I used to wonder why the F and especially the Eb brass instruments couldn't play in tune while us Bb brass instruments could. And I also wondered why pieces with flats sounded sooo much better than pieces with sharps. I had a band director encourage us to try playing with the 12 note strob-o-scope to work on our intonation. There were some notes where this just didn't work, I would run out of "lip". It was much easier for woodwinds. I understand this all now.

It is ET which is the compromise. You seem to need a lesson in the history of Western music.

Careful now. Every temperament on a 12 tone per octave keyboard is a compromise of some kind versus just intonation.

The inference in the posting was the ET was not a compromise. ET is a temperament based on a compromise, which is based on a compromise, and yet another compromise, ad infinitum.

To think that ET is not a compromise begs the study of music history and musicology.

Alex McDonald, a competitor in the recent Cliburn Competition, made a comment in an interview about the piano choices available. He observed that a piano is an instrument which is, and can never be, in tune with itself. Yet the common feeling in this forum is that pianists can't tell if a piano is in tune or not. I always beg to differ.

Marty,

You are correct about the compromise of a compromise of a compromise...

I am not so sure about pianists knowing when a piano is as tuned as it can be. Now that I tune my own piano, I am starting to hear the tuning qualities of all the pianos I hear, and I hate that it is interfering with my enjoyment of the music. Until I started tuning, I was blissfully unaware of the subtle variations in the structure of a tuning. I just performed the music and the piano was the vehicle. It is different from the awareness of the tuning of an organ or harpsichord, which are inherently cleaner sounding.

Loren,
You want the shades, colors,..., but using which UT?

I have a feeling ET is here to stay. People just like to be able to play in every key!(playing f# chord should sound as good/bad as playing C chord)

Playing a F# chord should every bit as good as a C chord, but it should sound different other than just a difference in pitch.

There is no reason why you can't play any fixed pitch instrument with a non-ET tuning in every key! It just sounds better.

(Flame suit on)

I like EBVT. Love it, actually.

I use ET 'cause it has only two letters and is first alphabetically bufur UT!

I use ET because I like sterile environments...

Oh yeah, and octave stretching is for sissies!

Of course you can! It is done all the time. 99+% of all tunings on a piano, by the time the tuner has left, are non-ET. And, if you really want key colour, tune your piano in 1/4 comma meantone, founded on C, and play all your pieces one half step higher or lower than written. Or better yet, for those people who don't transpose at sight, base your fundamental pitch on F#. Then you can play all the pieces as written.

Just read about it à la Hebrew. Then you'll love it - Trust me!

I use ET because it's out of this world(!)where wolves roam not.

I agree with what I think you are saying.

I understand completely! One of the reasons I became a piano technician was so I would be in the yellow pages between Physicians and Pizza.