Hi Bob,

just picked up your comments of a few days ago in the FolkAustralia Yahoo Forum - little plug there - oooooo, should be careful what I say, taking into account other current threads... :-)

ahhh,
well, about 1/4 tone accordions, I read that a tuner had been asked to set up a P/A with normal notes in one direction, and quarter tone tuned notes in the other - that's the limit of my wide "experience" on that subject. :-) Apart from other casual mentions of "weird Arab tunings" etc comments I have seen around.

As to whether they are 1/4 tuned to the "normal western equally tempered scale" - I ASS-U-ME so... :-)

Of course, if you are only going to play in a very limited number of Keys (and things like Irish Folk used to play a lot in mainly G/D for instance - because of the pipes and whistles!) then you COULD very well tune "microtones" to the "Just Intonation" (especially for "Diatonic" boxes which will have a restricted range anyway) - and there's lots of other Mudcat threads that have talked the legs off that pig!

For isntruments tuned "Just" - they can sound really great - if not played with "Equally Tempered" Instruments. Of course, human voices (and non-fretted string instruments) can do either naturally...

Robin