I’ve asked a question before but never gotten a full answer.
I suppose it’s far too much work to retune a piano or violin frequently, but for a special recording of a single-key masterpiece, why not tune the instruments for a “better” temperament?
I hope the following table is correct. The first column shows note ratios for the “just intonation” of classic temperament; the second column shows the same for equal temperament. Note that major 3rd is almost 1% “too sharp” compared with the perfect 5:4 (1.25) ratio of just intonation. I suppose some ears would be able to “hear” the beauty of a perfect major-third!?
1.125 1.122 Major 2nd (D)
1.200 1.189 Minor 3rd (D#)
1.250 1.260 Major 3rd (E)
1.333 1.335 Fourth (F)
1.500 1.498 Fifth (G)
1.667 1.682 Major 6th (A)
1.875 1.888 Major 7th (B)
2.000 2.000 Octave (C)
Are temperaments other than equal-temperament ever used today for pianos, etc.?
Oh Man! I fell asleep thinking I had made the most insightful observation of my life with the classicalists imbuing each key with meaning out of unconscious desire, and wake up to find out it wasn’t even an original thought! Bummer.
Hearing where things went, I am glad a dozed of composing an answer to the original question. I will have to read the rest of the thread eventually- there are always these pearls (well, sometimes only semi-precious stones) of knowledge or wisdom in these long threads. I am grateful however that I did not try it when I was so tired. Just for the record, I was drowsy when I made my post- but I was stone cold sober. Not sure the same could be said for those seeing colors coming out of their music (I kid, I kid- kinda). I’m not saying it isn’t a true phenomenon, but if it is it must be … more rare than it would seem from reading about it.
And lastly, the poster who was saying the difference between C and C# are two different colors. Well, very slightly. If you apply Roy G. Biv to a scale and it is red on both ends, the difference between C and C# is the difference between red and orange-red. F would be green, G would be blue. Of course your leading tone would be violet, but I am at a loss as to how that is supposed to make me feel; I guess it isn’t sepia though. Music is complex enough for me without it being in Technicolor.
You are correct. I suppose I should have said having no sheet music at all. These guys had music flowing out of them like few others.
Two very interesting guys almost defined by their musical abilities by many. One played keys for an older touring Southern Rock group. Being on their tour bus and sitting backstage for their show was easily the coolest thing I ever did. (Led to one of my most self conscious moments ever, never lean against a stack of Marshall amps no matter how tired your legs are!!) Every time he came off stage he still wanted to play. He would ask me to take him to a bar with live music, and before long he would be invited to sit in for a song. He would play this quick two chord ‘riff’ (?)as he was walking up that sounded to me like BAHH bahh while his left hand adjusted stuff on the controls. People would cheer right then, before they started a song. He would end up owning the room by last call. Sometimes the drummer would come with us, once he sat down the local guy just had to wait to get his kit back at the end of the night.
The other guy was the musical director for a very well known guy who often sang falsetto. I believe there is a touring show about his musical beginnings travelling the country now (or perhaps recently). Remarkably versatile player, loved Bach, played hymns and made them … alive or something. He rocked gospel music and would bring some of the best vocalists in LA up to the burbs and let them wail. On Saturday nights he would (about once a month) bring a stand-up bass player to church and play a full on jazz service. But my favorite was when he played the Hammond B3; dude could make me shiver. He wanted me to build an extension onto the stage he could put his organ into so he could attach the pedals, but we were never able to secure permission. He also took a bunch of volunteer, armature musicians and turned them into a pretty decent band (he did bring in some ringers I admit). He would play behind a singer and give him or her so much support, he could also rescue a marginal performance, and absolutely control the audience. I can almost say his greatest musical ability was that he always used his talent to make others look good. One time we were discussing a San Francisco group I liked and I mentioned the horn player used to play for Count Basie. He told me one of his greatest honors was conducting the Count Basie Orchestra for a few nights. Turns out Mr. Basie was under the weather and he was asked to fill in. It was amazing for me to hear how excited he got while discussing him. I must have said something like at the level you guys play… He told me that Basie was sublime, how he would go measures and measures without playing anything. How he would listen to the group and when he did jump in how it was the perfect chord, perfect note. Told me that Basie always enhanced the music with every note he played- never just filled space. He got the same way talking about Bach, but went beyond my understanding pretty quickly there. At least when he talked about Basie I knew the works he was referring to.
I have known some other fine musicians who have accomplished much in their musical careers, but those two guys are at the top of my list.
I suspect the answer is yes, since you can hear a difference if you listen to the intervals under controlled conditions. Less abstractly, there are passages by (eg) Duke Ellington where the trumpeter bends certain notes by an 1/8-tone to musical effect, and it is certainly audible. 1/8 of an equal step is 25 cents, and such small intervals are in the region where the temperament does make a difference.
This is still all about relative rather than absolute pitch, of course.
BTW, one can get a self-tuning piano (you input the concert pitch and temperament and it automatically re-tunes the instrument in less than a minute).
There are some recordings out there of pieces performed in whatever non equal-temperament tuning system they were written in.
I imagine it must be a huge challenge as a performer as it would require playing different intervals (a strain on the ears though not the fingers to a prodigious pianist, though a violinist would have to adjust their playing to hit slightly different intervals). I’m not even sure that you can play a different tuning with a modern woodwind instrument.
As an aside, this article/book review gives some nice context to the question of the development of equal temperament. The book itself was interesting and I recommend it, though I admit that after a while it starts to turn into more and more pages of just beating the same horse.
Now we are in the realm of classical Indian music, where the octave is theoretically divided into some large number of possible notes and the instrument is indeed re-tuned for each raga.
Again we have emotions traditionally associated to each mode, but this time the scale does actually vary, beyond 12 equally-spaced notes, anyway: Shruti (music) - Wikipedia
