Could I please be excused for having skimmed over this thread, there's a lot of noise on it - but the argument contains a very important principle for me.

I don't read music very well and certainly don't think of music in terms of notes on a stave. For equal temperament B sharp IS C but written out in a horrendously complicated fashion - that's the fact.

A tune in C is the same tune when it's in D or E and a quarter! What makes you choose that key is down to range of voice - the tuning of the instrument, or whatever. Intonation within the scale is a matter of taste or convenience - if you stay in one key then you have the luxury of choosing more perfect harmonies as notes of your scale if your chosen instrument can do that. If you need to modulate all over the shop then you're probably better sticking with equal temperament because that's more flexible if less perfect. Different keys sound different to us because of the resonances in our own heads combined with our own experience of having heard notes before.

Music theory is a very good scientific approach to explain what we understand as music in absolute terms. But following it to the letter will always detract from the music itself because music is only music and not science and you just have to make the nicest noise for yourself and anyone who can be bothered to listen to you.

Anyone here who defines music by what they read on a stave or knows from training in music theory would do well to try and distance themselves from both those things when listening to or performing music itself because it only ever gets in the way of the actual process, give it a go - music is a totally different animal when released from the captivity of theory and transcription in it's basic form.

Cheers

Squeezy