source file: mills2.txt Date: Sun, 1 Sep 1996 07:56:46 -0700 Subject: Re: JI versus eq temp From: Pat Missin My thoughts on this subject, for what they are worth... >Haverstick here...I want to make an observation inspired by McLaren's >post regarding the studies undertaken to see what sort of tunings folks >prefer.... Well, as someone who repairs and retunes harmonica for a variety of people (from beginners to professionals), the overwhelming majority prefer JI. In fact, there have been numerous times when someone has bought an brand-new off-the-shelf harp of the equal-tuned variety and brought to me to "fix", because it's "out of tune"! However, the same people then get very confused when they play with a pianist and their 7/4 sounds way out, compared to the piano's 1000c. >...again, in a practical, nuts >and bolts musical situation, eq temps are the only possible choice for >many various styles of music...Hstick > > I guess I feel I shouldn't agree with this, but can't help it. Much as I prefer (and come to prefer more and more) the richness of my JI harps, in a jamming situation, my first choice of instrument is a 12TET harp in the appropriate key. Having said this, I wonder how often I (or anyone else with an instrument capable of variable intonation) actually play in ET? Typically, my blues playing features a lot of neutral thirds and slightly flatted fifths. My copy of "Sensations Of Tone" is out on loan at them moment, but I seem to remember that Helmholtz found tendencies towards Pythagorean intonation amomgst violinists - are there any other studies in this field? Pat Missin - patm@globalnet.co.uk "...my music's a lot better than it sounds!" (with apologies to Mark Twain) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Sun, 1 Sep 1996 17:59 +0200 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA11664; Sun, 1 Sep 1996 18:00:53 +0200 Received: from eartha.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA11506 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id JAA12227; Sun, 1 Sep 1996 09:00:51 -0700 Date: Sun, 1 Sep 1996 09:00:51 -0700 Message-Id: <960901155648_71670.2576_HHB60-6@CompuServe.COM> Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu