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While they may be influenced by it, the serious choir I was in was adept at producing perfect harmonies rather than the slightly-off equal temperament. To say t

While they may be influenced by it, the serious choir I was in was adept at producing perfect harmonies rather than the slightly-off equal temperament. To say that 2 solid players can't produce a perfect fourth or fifth together due to this equal temp influence, that's incorrect. The main issue comes when you have other instruments playing with you that are equal tempered. You will sound off if you sing or play with them, and you will sound off if you don't. That's one reason a capella music can sound really great, it's not slightly off but rather perfect intervals.

jerf 8y ago
"To say that 2 solid players can't produce a perfect fourth or fifth together due to this equal temp influence, that's incorrect." No, of course not. What I'm saying is the underlying tune is very likely still equal temperament. Probably one end of your perfect fifth is pinned to the equal temperament frequency, and the other end is tweaking just a bit to be the perfect fifth. That's still at least "influenced heavily" by equal temperament, if not simply "equal temperament with a couple tweaks". I've heard plenty of vocal/string works like this. I have not heard a lot of vocal works on a Pythagorean tuning or something, or something more exotic like shifting the base key of the tuning on the fly. By contrast, historically, music was simply in another tuning. All of it, including vocal. It sounds strange to modern ears in a way that "equal temperament plus slight tweaks for a perfect 4th/5th" doesn't sound weird to anybody.