Just Intonation

Comment

Comment by Norbert Oldani on December 10, 2009 at 1:19pm

The nuts and bolts statement of Andrew Violette is true I think. However there may be more to temperament than this. As some one once said,"Bach was a genius. He would not have written the "Well Tempered Clavier" in 12 tone E.T. just to show how to make 48 transpositions!". They show how different all the 12 tone harmonies are in a well-tempered system . If one listens carefully to any of the dominant-tonic cadences there will be very audible differences. Each one will have different subtle flavor!
12 tone E. T. was already known in the fifteenth century. There were good reasons for not using it! We are all tone deaf.

Comment by Norbert Oldani on December 9, 2009 at 6:51pm

Andrew Violette makes a good point in his last comment about the musical mind, consider Chopin's etude for thirds or consider J. S. Bach's 48 preludes and fugues of the "Well Tempered Clavier" which still sound fine in 12 tone E.T. or consider a lot of other great works in 12- tone E.T.!
I belonged to the now defunct Just Intonation Network for years from beginning to end but I have always found the iconoclastic attitude of many people in that organization very annoying. I am glad to read comments from people with open minds. Yes indeed, there is all sorts of fine new music after Harry Partch! Well take that David Doty! Maybe I should have wrote him a letter.

Comment by Andrew Violette on December 9, 2009 at 9:21am

I don't mind equal temperament and I don't mind equal temperament thirds or sixths for that matter. Just temperament is fine too. But these are only the nuts and bolts of composition. The big question is what is the musical mind behind the temperament?

Comment by Danny Wier on December 8, 2009 at 6:58pm

Well I'm one of those very lucky people to have perfect pitch, but I'm biased so much towards 12-et. I only started writing "microtonal" music a few years ago, and I'm still working on retraining my ear. I can tell a note's pitch to a quarter tone's precision in A-440 tuning, but I write in 72-edo (mainly because it's a compromise--a multiple of 12 that approximates 11-limit JI really well).

The intonation issues of 12-et might be why I prefer faster piano and guitar works to slower ones. centuries ago we were worrying about wolf fifths and fourths and now we're come to accept wolf thirds and sixths as a "necessary evil". I do use my own "cheap and dirty ordinaire" which tunes the fifths from Bb to F# a quarter comma flat and the rest a quarter comma sharp, which gives you more septimal-sounding thirds and sixths in keys with a lot of sharps or flats in the signature.

And I'm what you may call a "JI realist"; I'm not going even try to beg string players to play exact 5/4s and such. I'd rather just have the strings play major intervals an approximate "twelfth tone" flat of ET and the septimal "blues" minor thirds and sevenths a "sixth tone" flat...

Comment by Norbert Oldani on December 8, 2009 at 4:04pm

Yes, 12 tone E.T. thirds sound poor,especially on the piano! The only piano etude or study I have ever really liked is Chopin's Etude.

I don't have so called perfect pitch and now a days I am happy about having a good sense of relative pitch for my microtonal work, Well-tempered scales are just great!

Comment by John Oliver on August 17, 2009 at 3:10am

I've never understood how the notion of "perfect pitch" came about. How can memorizing the inadequacies of equal temperment be considered a laudable thing? I've always hated tonal music on the piano; romantic and late romantic music started to sound acceptable; then when I heard serial music on the piano I began to hear something wonderful for the instrument! But since I started writing microtonal music, I find it very hard to put up with out of tune 3rds (and 7ths).

Comment by Andrew Violette on December 28, 2008 at 6:50pm

Just intonation sounds beautiful on the piano or harpsichord but almost impossible to achieve on string instruments. At least out of tune just intonation sounds fairly interesting.

Comment by Randy Gibson on December 19, 2008 at 2:04pm

I was never able to hear the thirds in my ear training classes - then when i started studying Just it all made sense - Equal 3rds do suck!

Comment by XLR on December 18, 2008 at 8:55am

Yep... 12 tone ET. I've always found the M3 especially harsh. I remember as a little kid tuning a pair of guitar strings so a major 3rd fretted on them was beautifully in tune (just int), then being frustrated when it threw out other intervals between various strings. When I figured out why it was happening it was a major discovery, heh.

Comment by Carlo Serafini on December 18, 2008 at 3:51am

Are you talking about major 3rds of 12tET (400 cents)?
:-)

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