Yes, but Parncutt seems to be misapplying findings about living Westerners to draw conclusions about people who lived centuries ago.>>

DIdn't he say that we don't know what it sounded like, no recording from then? Duffin was the one more unscientifically claiming something we don't for a fact, whereas Parncutt was more honestly saying we don't know for sure, if I recall the article. (I"m recording African music right now!)

<<People often develop a lot of bile towards people outside their clique. [which is why I like John Cage's non-ego idea!] And it's no surprise if an alternate tuning person feels a bit oppressed, considering the amount of disdain "status quo now" types can muster for alternate tuning—despite having no expertise in the area. >>

You're absolutely right My tonal interests is part of a chauvinistic western culture. Thanks for pointing it out. I'm all for chucking it out too, such as John Cage ideas which are Eastern influenced (no-ego, silence) or rhizome theory which rejects the 'bureaucrats of pure reason"...which in music would be ET monoculture.

<<There's also a kind of new-age appeal in just intonation or Pythagorean tuning. Pure ratios and all that. So sometimes people decide they're plugging in to a purer, more correct kind of tuning.>>

Hurrah...that is so true and well put. Parncutt calls it the Pythagorean vs. Aristoxenus opposing views which go all the way back to ancient Greece. I was thoroughly number obsessed for years but sort of switched over recently, but maybe too far. Me, I'm very intrigued by the idea as the listener, and the sound, as almost being separate, as John Cage touches on when he talks about music coming from the 'sound in itself' with the composer more as listener. So the music psychology approach interests me a treating the listener as an almost separate phenomenon from the sound itself, though it goes too extreme in almost treating the acoustics aspect as all perception and not sound.

<<The same goes somewhat for historical tunings, ... I have a certain amount of bile for 12 ET monoculture myself. The kind that takes the last century or so of tuning practices as the universal best way of tuning, based on a combination of ignorance and studies done on people trained in 12edo, which is like asking American soldiers which country is best.>>

Yes! Jingoism is in music too, and must be called out. Alternate tuning doesn't work for me personally on harmony/tonality projects, but I'm sure you're correct in what you say. I'm studying African music bull roarers and hand harps in "the Tribal Eye" documentary on the Dogon today, recording it into a musique concrete thing...the best part is where the host David Attenborough...he pronounces 'art'...he lapses into that extremely affected (sometimes) English transatlantic accent, which for me reflects on the Marlowe Heart of Darkness and superior-feeling westerner.