Secor wt17

This is a 17-tone well tempered tuning by George Secor, described in his article The 17-tone Puzzle:

The requirements for a temperament having an irregular closed circle of fifths in 17… are somewhat different from those for 12 in that many of the tempered intervals are used to represent two different just ratios. For example, …6 system degrees of 17-ET (6º17) falls between 11:14 and 7:9. In a temperament with a circle of fifths of varying size, certain intervals will more closely approximate one of these ratios in one part of the circle and the other ratio in another part of the circle. The objective is to construct the temperament in such a way that the best approximations of these ratios will occur, in the desired keys, simultaneously in chords in which these intervals (or their inversions) are used in combination, e.g. …7:9:11 in 17.

In my 17-WT, using primes 3, 7, 11, and 13, the best intonation occurs in five different keys (with B-flat, F, C, G, and D as fundamental tones)… While the 6:7:9 (subminor) triad in 17-WT is not as good as in 22-ET, the best 6:7:9:11 tetrads in 17-WT are considerably better than those in 22-ET. Even though a significant improvement is made in the harmonic effect of 17-WT over 17-ET, the former retains the general melodic characteristics of the latter.

Secor advises using C = 264 Hz when playing alongside instruments tuned to 17edo, so that corresponding pitches of the scales would not deviate by more than 6.7 cents.

Here's the beginning of a 17wt jazz piece by George Secor: 17WTjazz.mp3

Scala file

! secor_wt17.scl
!
George Secor's 17-tone well temperament
 17
!
 66.741
 144.856
 214.441
 278.339
 353.610
 428.882
 492.780
 562.364
 640.479
 707.220
 771.118
 849.233
 921.661
 985.559
 1057.987
 1136.102
 1200.