source file: mills2.txt Date: Sat, 11 Nov 1995 20:00:29 -0800 Subject: Just Tuning - definition From: bf250@freenet.carleton.ca (John Sankey) The Early Music list has just been informed, with the Harvard Dictionary of music as authority, that Just Tuning is "any tuning that incorporates five or more acoustically pure types of intervals within the octave." That means, of course, that Pythagorean and 1/4-comma meantone, and, for that matter, most early temperaments, are Just Tunings! Somehow, I don't think that is the definition that JI advocates use today. Would readers email me a short answer to two questions: 1) if the form of the Harvard definition is adequate, with what number would you replace their number five? 2) if the definition is inadequate in form, what is the minimum set of additional criteria you have to call something a just tuning? I'll summarize the answers to this list, and to the early music crowd, without attributions. Thanks for your answers. -- John Sankey bf250@freenet.carleton.ca Music is Beauty, Beauty is Truth, Truth is Freedom Received: from eartha.mills.edu [144.91.3.20] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Sun, 12 Nov 1995 18:54 +0100 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id IAA07173; Sun, 12 Nov 1995 08:54:37 -0800 Date: Sun, 12 Nov 1995 08:54:37 -0800 Message-Id: <199511121653.IAA01620@hopf.dnai.com> Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu