How I learned to stop worrying and love Equal (vs Just) Temperament
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- Опубліковано 7 січ 2023
- Next in this series on Harmony...the importance of ET, and how I learned to tune a guitar...
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As someone who likes classical music without having much understanding of it I am loving your channel. Thank you
Great video man. I love equal temperament, most of the music I listen to uses this tuning system. Music in equal temperament makes me feel all kinds of things, which is basically what I want. Other tuning systems are worth a look too because there are all kinds of feels they infuse into the music which don't feel the same in equal temperament. Fun old music world out there.
stop being so sensitive.
@@Fire_Axus I'm quite curious where you're coming from with that comment
Sevish, there is a new tuning that is a actual improvement (richer sounding) than Equal Temperament. It's called Precise Temperament, and is technically a new type of Well Tempering. Made by Robert Edward Grant.
Well, I'm not surprised to see you here Sevish! I like what you say about 12TET offering all sorts of feelings, but that other systems can add more, at least to our 12TET-accumstomed ears. I think your music is really cool in that sense. Listening to you 12TET versions of your songs is like hearing a black and white or 2-dimensional version of it. Other systems have lots to offer precisely because we're so used to 12TET.
I love your music! You are one of my favourite microtonal artists, and one of my favourite artists in general.
I love your perspective on musical tuning. Mine is very similar. I love 12-tone equal temperament, there are so many different scenes and feelings that can be evoked with it. I also love the many approaches to just intonation that exist. And I love the vast variety of different equal and unequal temperaments that are out there too. Each of these approaches is unique, a vast, mostly uncharted ocean of musical possibilities waiting for some musician to come explore. If anyone makes any new music in any tuning system, 12-equal or otherwise, then I consider that a win, because that’s one new fascinating, curious thing that someone has added to this world.
the belief that 12 tone equal temperament is the only good equal temperament is an oversimplification. there are different systems that better approximate specific compositional needs:
9edo, 16edo, 23edo or 25edo if you want the opposite of a diatonic scale or an expanded version of it.
22edo if you want to add new kinds of thirds alongside your standard 5-limit ones.
29edo if you want to get exotic.
31edo or 50edo if you want a system that tunes simple intervals well with a few more complex ones, yet still allows for most of the common chord progressions to be played without pitch drift.
41edo or 46edo if you want a relatively accurate 13-limit system.
43edo or 56edo if you want a relatively good approximation of the harmonic series.
94edo if you want a more accurate 23-limit system.
118edo if you want an extremely accurate 5-limit system.
171edo if you want an extremely accurate 7-limit system
270edo if you want an extremely accurate 13-limit system
311edo if you want raw just intonation for most intents and purposes.
And there is also a lot of honorable mentions:
5edo, 7edo, 11edo, 13edo, 17edo, 19edo, 26edo, 27edo, 34edo, 37edo, 38edo, 39edo, 40edo, 47edo, 49edo, 53edo, 57edo, 60edo, 65edo, 68edo, 69edo, 72edo, 74edo, 75edo, 81edo. 84edo, 87edo, 96edo, 99edo, 103edo, 104edo, 105edo, 107edo, 108edo, 109edo, 111edo, 202edo, 400edo, 612edo, 2000edo, 2460edo
53 equal and 43 Harry Partch way are the best imo
Where can I learn more about this?
@@DJess95 Do you have a strong foundation in traditional music theory? If so, you might be able to make some sense of the Xenharmonic Wiki. Hardly beginner-friendly, but I did manage to learn a lot there. Either way, you should try listening to music in alternate equal temperaments-- Zhea Erose has a lot of great educational resources and music in 31 equal, Sevish writes fun electronic music in all kinds of different tunings, and Brendan Byrnes has more rock/pop adjacent stuff, also using many different systems. Those three should be a good start!
Many of the examples you used were not performed in equal temperament. Musicians often play notes differently depending on the harmonic context. Equal temperament was not common until the 20th century.
that's correct
I hope your guitar appreciates your videos as much as I do.
Great to finish with THE 9th.
Excelent explanation! Please keep up the wonderful work you are doing.
I loved playing my piano but after some years couldn't stand the sound of its equal temperament tuning. It irritated me. Even though I had a great Steinway B, made before the original harp molds were destroyed, before the master craftsmen retired, and the when the wood was aged longer incidentally due to WWII. It was played by on by many of the legendary greats of the keyboard. I had a great tuner, I had chosen between him and Gould's tuner in NY. I learned the cello just so I didn't have to hear equal temperament anymore. Later, I learned to tune in other temperaments and again came to love the sound of my piano.
@SidewaysThinking You seem like the perfect person to ask this question! Equal temperament or any other of these tuning compromises are only an issue with fretted instruments, yes? Are these various tunings a solution specific to keyboards, lutes, guitars, etc..?
So if I listen to a recording of, say, HF Biber's Violin Sonatas Im not hearing equal temperament, well temperament or just intonation etc, right? With a skilled performer, I should just be hearing correctly pitched notes, regardless of key changes... is this right?
This is how I've always understood the development of these tunings ie they were diverse compromises developed for keyboards and other "fretted" instruments. (But not an issue for cello, human voice etc)
Is this correct? Lmk what I'm missing. if you have time to reply ;) Thanks.
@@AnHebrewChild it is more or less correct. However, whether or not the players intone with Natural Scale or they follow ET is entirely subjective: it could be no fretted instruments are in use, it could be that a piano is guiding the orchestra... it's a matter of taste, but I would say that highly trained calssical violinists can and do use both - as the opportunity arises. Most musicians, in fact, would probably , if given the chance, bend the notes to fit perfect harmony.
I can't believe you opened with saying equal temperament fixes Handel
Grrat video. For me as a classical musician, I tend to ignore temperament unless I'm playing with a keyboard that has fixed pitches. On wind instruments we automatically adjust the pitches using our ears so we generally aren't playing in equal temperament unless with a piano. I play a lot of 18th century music including vivaldi and bach and we definitely aren't playing in equal temperament and we are definitely changing key, but I don't have to over think it too much, my ears help me. For example, I dont play an A sharp exactly like a b flat, its all about context. But even in later music I think youd be surprised how much orchestral musicians adjust tuning to fit the harmonic context. In an orchestra, if I have the third of a chord, its normal practice to keep it flatter then equal temperament because it sounds nicer in the chord, purer. But overall its probably not too noticeable by an audience.
Thanks! This is a very insightful comment into the inner workings of the real music world.
I feel like because of the physical nature of guitars, they get a special exception to being tuned "exactly right"
'Cause like, it sounds fine once you blend it in with other instruments anyway.
Great analysis
Very interesting
How apropos. Just finished a season with a choir conductor who is absolutely obsessed with pitch, up to and including going through the piece before the performance and repeatedly reminding different sections that they were flat. The problem was that by the time we actually rehearsed with the orchestra we were so skittish it was hard to tell whether we were on or off. I don't recommend it. If you can't trust your ear you got nothing.
I like your guitar! Where’s it from?
It's my sons actually...
Game-changing revolutionary techniques for time management: plan your year, your week, and your day. Use a calendar.
I love how you make this about the guitar - I wish someone had explained this all to me when I was 13! I also want to point out however, that "Pythagoras" tuning and "just" tuning are quite different actually, and the former is almost just as much of a break from the natural scale as ET. Just intonation is based on all the notes of the scale being aligned in perfect intervals with the root. Pythagoras came up with an interesting idea but it was already a departure from the natural scale - he tuned by going around with fifths and making little adjustments, but in the end you always had the wolf interval. That's not how Just intonation works...
I'm curious how you think just intonation works.
@@HarryS77 it definitely doesn't work the way pythagoras tuning does... but what specifically are questioning/asking about? (before I risk babbling about something irrelevant to your question 🙂 )
Are there really different ways that Just Intonation could work? Or are you refering to consecutive just intervals rather than fixed notes in relation to the root?
@@HarryS77 for example, when you stay in just intonation and in one key, you are never out of tune, nor do you hit a wolf interval...
@@FlanaFugue I think most classically trained musicians would agree that Pythagorean tuning and just intonation are different. This is even a distinction that Barbour makes in his Tuning and Temperament.
But today, most composers and performers of just intonation have a different perspective where just intonation is simply a tuning system using ratios with whole numbers, in which case Pythagorean tuning is indeed part of the just intonation sphere (as 3-limit) since it derives from 3/2 (you mention that Pythagorean tuning involves adjustments to this scheme, but as far as I know this is not true). This definition is agnostic toward consonance (whereas older definitions of JI as small-numbered 5-limit weren't) and toward wolf intervals like 40/27, which would sound wolfy relative to 1/1 but not in a major chord like 32/27, 40/27, 16/9, or the Pythagorean minor third, the wolf fourth, and the Pythagorean minor seventh. I would even go so far to say that any chord with whole number ratios is still technically in just intonation, but it may not be tuned to the pure triad we expect/want. And in fact, even the most consonant 5-limit just scale will have wolf intervals. That's one of the gripes theorists have had with it for centuries. For instance, consider the abovementioned fifth that emerges between the major second 9/8 and the major sixth 5/3. The major sixth needs to be 27/16 to work.
You also mention that just intonation and Pythagorean tuning do not work the same way, but their methods are the same. Pythagorean is generated by ratios whose highest prime is a multiple of 3 (or by stacking fifths), and "just intonation" aka 5-limit, is generated with multiples of 5 (stacking thirds and fifths). The same is true for all ratios with primes greater than 2. It's quite common for higher limit JI to include lower limit intervals, so 5-limit includes ratios from 5/4 and from 3/2.
As far as being in tune in one key, being "in tune" is relative, and there's often a gulf between theory and practice. But the idea that just intonation is restricted to one key simply isn't true except in the case of fixed pitch instruments that cannot adjust for commas. For other instruments and voice, modulation while remaining in tune is absolutely possible.
I'm not sure what you mean by the "natural scale." The only naturally occurring "scale" I can think of is the overtone series, but Pythagorean tuning exists within the overtone series (eg the relationship between the 81st and 64th partial), so I can only assume you mean something like the intense diatonic scale 1/1, 9/8, 5/4, 4/3, 3/2, 5/3, 15/8. If I remember, Ptolemy derived this scale long after Pythagoras, so Pythagoras likely didn't have that scale around to break from.
I have a problem with brevity.
@@HarryS77 Ok I am going to try this again. Sorry about the überlate response but I'm afraid this will be the third time writing here: I had terrible 'Backspace' luck, where I managed to delete my entire comment by hitting 'backspace' not only once but twice...
Anyways, your argument that we should use Just Intonation as a category under which we should put all justly derived systems is sensbile and very well-informed.
I just don't see the point of redefining things. Just Intonation is the widely used term to refer to the overtone series, or natural scale.
How would we differentiate between Pythagorean and Just Intonation then? They ARE very different scales. Shall we all officially name the scale derived from the overtone series the Natural Scale?? And then get everyone to agree? I don't really see the point.
Again, it does make sense, as you point out, but...is it necessary and is it even possible?
Of course we can call it a "sphere", and then it is a category, but when most people say 'Just Intonation' as a tuning system, we are talking about the notes of the overtone series.
And I do compose music using it - I have iunstruments tuned to what I and everyone I personally know call Just Intonation. I have been doing this for decades.
I apologize for any of this sounding 'short'... my other versions were much longer and cordial.
well, i am glad you stopped worrying, but now you love equal. feelings are irrational, so you should just refrain from always clinging to 1 tuning system.
Fantastic channel 👏 👍 subscribed
The fix has been made! Precise Temperament tuning. It's modification to Well Tempering, so not only does new tuning sound more rich thank Equal Temperament, playing if different keys adds different colorings to those keys. Because its not "fixed" like Equal Temperament. Even more interesting the inventor bases his tuning off of A432Hz Scientific Tuning reference. I'm here to inform, but also to share a Bach performance played in this tuning. Hope you can check it out!!!
There's nothing scientific about A=432Hz. It's new age malarky. Tuning systems are diapason agnostic. Anyone pushing 432 should be approached with suspicion because either they don't know what they're talking about, or they think you don't anything.
Do we know the features of the tuning Bach had in mind for his 48 preludes and fugues?
No-one seems to have covered the effect of our conditioning. In the main people grow to like what they see and hear from an early age. Flowers are pretty - some more so that others, so are sounds - again some more so than others. Jazz can seem a mess yet another rendition works for us as we actually like the interwoven events. Slight inaccuracies in the tuning of the various instruments might well contribute or indeed detract from the experience.
There is a general consensus but its not absolute. We like different flowers but not too many hate them. Pick up your instrument. Try to play something people want to hear. Are yo sure about that?
I hate to break it to you but just about every performance clip you used illustrates just intonation not equal temperament. The only performance that would be confined to an equal tempered system would be a fixed intonation instrument such as a keyboard instrument. Just about all other instruments perform according to a just system which is essentially in tune in real time (the proficiency of the player also effects this). ET keyboards don't favor certain keys and are are equally out of tune all the time. I see where you were going with this, but you need to separate composition from performance and idiomatic instrumental writing (the reason so many keys were added to woodwinds in the 19th century).
Thank god for equal temperament or we wouldn't have this beautiful song 😂ua-cam.com/video/88kJd9PwVwY/v-deo.htmlsi=Gk8zB2V826i5tKjA
Math describes the world… but the world is Physics, it is not as perfect as Math. The world is discrete, finite.
The Just\Pythagoren intonation (temperament) for Music does not care about physical structure of material and even Geometry… yes, it is ironic to say this about the pythagoreans.
What 1500 years after Pythagoras was done with the Equal Temperament was the compensation for the imperfection of the real physical world. Also it was about time with the invention (discovery) of the Logarithm as the mathematical method of approximation (Calculus) between sums and multiplications (powers).
Pythagoras did not break anything.
He just showed us the perfect, linear structure of Musical notes. But Music is produced by imperfect musical instruments with physical characteristics and various geometry (shapes and sizes) emitted through an imperfect medium (air) environment. Music is not static (always starting from the same tone
ote) and linear - it is dynamic and intertwined in harmonies and overlaps.
The Equal Temperament (ET), through the approximation of logarithms, gave us the best fit for the real application of Music!
On certain instruments there are structural (geometrical) tweaks we can implement, such so certain combination of notes to be as close as possible (more so than ET) to the Just intonation. We call this tweaks True Temperament.
Also, a fifth, octave and those obsolete music "theory" names were introduced 1000 after Pythagoras, with the establishment of the Church chants (most of which had 6 and 7 notes, called Church modes… somehow derivatives of the old Mediterranean\Egyptian modes of Music at least a few thousand years old).
The only one who fuскed op Music were those church monks such as Guido d'Arezzo, favouring 6 (later 7) out of 12 notes already known, assigning their favourite Latin alphabet structure (sequence) to those 6 (7) notes, and also naming them after the syllables of their favourite religious psalm, on the notes of their favourite mode (which had 6 notes, later the 7th was added) and pretentiously calling it "natural" major mode!
The mess we can see today in the form of the standard Music notation (score)!
It's not a mess and not outdated. What are you talking about?
@@tamasfoldesi2358 Read it again, maybe?
@@PASHKULI Then what do you mean by obsolete music theory names?
@@tamasfoldesi2358 Special cases and predilections:
• alphabet (English\Latin)
• note names from favourite song (Santce Johannes)
• special favourite mode ("natural") major
No time to explain.
Equal temperament is nearly always an inferior compromise than some other well temperament. I find it boring.
The argument that you can’t use all the keys in a Victorian temperament is not true. You can see jazz played in Victorian on UA-cam including by my friend Carl Radford.
how sound can be boring? 🤔
@@viarnay It's not, but relative to other temperaments (Victorian, Thomas Young, Kellman-Bach), respectfully, I'd argue it is. I would take Equal temperament over nothing :)
Nearly every single claim this video makes is plain wrong. What a clown.
must be why so many professionals have chimed in telling himn "great video"...
Yeah, I'm not really following his reasoning. "Yeah, 12 isn't as good as just intonation, but at least everyone uses it." ?? He very well could have talked about the fluidity of key changes in music, but instead he chose to play performances of classical music (almost all of which were performed in just intonation, which I think may have gone over his head) to prove that we don't really need JI. lol
@@luphoria I think you may be taking this the wrong way - he seems to be coming to terms with ET in his own way, which we all have to do at some point... Also, the classical examples are not quite purely in Just Intonation. They are based on ET but with voices and strings the performers make slight adjustments as they go, which gives their intervals as heard together a pure quality.
@@FlanaFugue The compositions are certainly in 12-tone, but I think it might be a stretch to say they are written in 12-TET, especially because they are in a single key. Brass instruments are tuned to the key, voices and strings play in the key, ... i would say it's JI.
Dude, just tune your guitar and stop overanalyzing it!
Dude, just detune your guitar and start to overanalyze it! We need something new from a new perspective