Complete Encyclopaedia of Music/B/Bearing notes

by John Weeks Moore

Bearing notes. In the tuning of keyed instruments, harps, &c., bearing notes signify those notes between which the most erroneous or highly-tempered fifth is situate, on which also the wolf is said to be thrown. Many tuners begin at C, and tune upwards, through the progression of fifths, C, G, D, A, E, B, G b, D b, and Ab, and then stop and begin again at C, the octave above the former note, and tune downwards, through the fifths F, B b, a. it E b, and thus the resulting fifth Ab, Eb, produces bearing notes; owing to each fifth having been made more or less flat than the system of twelve notes will bear, the least sum of all their errors or temperaments being the Diaschisma. Some tuners are in the habit of throwing their wolf into the fifth Ab, Db, and others into that of D b, G b, which last, as being nearest to the middle of the whole progression of fifths, seems its most appropriate place for general use.