Oh, and the B major chord is the only strange major chord pattern on the piano, as far as A,B,C,D,E,F,G go.
I have a song that uses it…and I forget what the shape is almost every time. :rolleyes:
On guitar all shapes are the same regardless of key.
(I’m not a concert pianist…I just write stuff)
What’s strange about a B major triad?
If you only play music in one key, or if you have instruments that are cheap enough to have one for each key, sure, you don’t need equal temperament at all. No problem. If you’re happy with a flute that is perfectly tuned to a key whose basic note is 453.5 Hz and which only has five notes that exactly hit the overtones, and is thus perfectly out of tune with every other instrument on the planet, heck, go for it.
But here in the real world, we like to have bands and groups using finely crafted and expensive instruments that are able to play melodies in a host of different keys.
If you want to have those, you definitely do have an overriding need for equal temperament.
Is it better than other tunings? No, and it’s just your fantasy that anyone is saying so. Musicians like music of any type, strange tunings are like candy to musicians, when we don’t have half notes we bend strings … it’s just that if you want the ability to play in a variety of keys, it’s not optional, you must use equal tempered scales.
You’re telling me that musicians weren’t passionately involved in disputes about temperament, and then tag that on at the end?
Simply not true. Bach wrote the Well-Tempered Clavier, after all, not the Even Tempered Clavier. Well into the 19th century, even into the early history of recorded music, non-equally-tempered intonation persisted in places. The use of non-ET systems is well established among period-instrument performers of baroque music and earlier.
the 2 black notes…I’d forget one or the other on either hand and I’d all minor like 
From Wikipedia:
Now what I want to point out to you is that these are all different schemes that, like equal temperament, do not match the overtones either. You seem to be pitting equal temperament against some imaginary type of temperament that fits the overtones perfectly. But there is no such temperament. In fact, equal temperament, meantone temperament, and well temperament are all systems of approximation.
Nor is it an accident that equal temperament won out over all of the other systems of approximation in the long run. It wasn’t some kind of conspiracy or rampant stupidity that made equal temperament win out over the other approximations.
It won out because it fits the overtones better than the other approximations. It fits better than well temperament, Bach notwithstanding. It fits better than meantone temperament, Baroque music notwithstanding.
Now, I understand that you have some kind of grudge against equal temperament. But the ugly fact is, we’ve moved on from those tunings, which leaves you sounding like someone claiming that we should still start fires with flint and steel, because they don’t like matches.
Yes, flint and steel works to start fires. Yes, quarter-comma meantone temperament works to approximate the overtones. Both of them have “persisted in places” as you say. But by and large the world has discarded both of them, because a better system was found.
You seem to be claiming the equal tempered system is not better than well tempered. Well, OK … then why has it been accepted world wide for almost all music? Because it’s worse? … didn’t think so.
Before I can answer that, the onus is on you to demonstrate that it has been accepted for ‘almost all’ music. As musical traditions across the world continue to use different tunings, this is simply not the case.
You know those stories about the Japanese soldiers on remote islands who never heard that WWII was over, and were, like, still fighting it in the 1970s? I wonder what it would be like to find someone like that, only the war whose end they hadn’t heard about was, say, the Hundred Years War, or some other war from like 500 years ago?
Yeah. I wonder what that would be like.
Naw, the huge, overwhelming acceptance of “western” music all over the world is obvious. Go to almost any city or town anywhere, and you’ll hear reggae and rap and rock and symphonies and the like. All in equal tempered scales. Bob Marley is a star in every country I’ve ever been in. And western instruments, from guitars and pianos to trumpets and saxophones, are found in cities and villages and hamlets worldwide. How do I know? Because I’ve worked in Africa and Central America and Asia and the Pacific Islands and South America, and taken my guitar with me, and listened to the music wherever I went.
So rather than waving your hands and saying “musical traditions across the world continue to use different tunings”, how about you pony up with a) the names and b) the extent or influence and c) the tunings used by those traditions. I’m not saying those places don’t exist, they do. Indian classical music does not use equal temperament, they have their own totally different system which is unlike any western tuning. And I have a lovely flute with a haunting scale that is out of tune with every instrument known, but sounds wonderful on its own. And I’ve seen places where people still light fires with a bow drill … but most of the world uses matches and lighters, and loves reggae and rock and rap.
A late response, I know, but quite frankly I don’t think this deserves anything more than returning to an accusation of cultural supremacism. “It must be better, because it’s more widespread” doesn’t hold water. (Typed while listening to Billie Holiday diverge from equal temperament with a consistency that merits the term ‘system’, even if it doesn’t have a name.)
Diatonic harmonicas, for one, are generally tuned to Richter tuning, for instance. I would also state that blues (and by extension rock) music strays substantially from standard 12-tone ET (particularly with its use of the ambiguous third that lies somewhere between a minor and major third).