3 ms·

There are many other tunings you could use, Just Intonation, for one example. Although I agree it’s strange to say that. Like saying ‘We’re driving there, in a

by kfrncs 6y ago

There are many other tunings you could use, Just Intonation, for one example. Although I agree it’s strange to say that. Like saying ‘We’re driving there, in a car, with four wheels.’ Some more info, if you’re curious: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_tuning#Tuning_systems https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_tuning#Tuning_system... I have a synthesizer with a ton of different tunings on it. I flipped through them once. Some are interesting, but they mostly just sound _bad_.

strogonoff 6y ago
> Although I agree it’s strange to say that. Like saying ‘We’re driving there, in a car, with four wheels.’ I don’t think it’s strange, I was legitimately curious about author’s subjective take as to which tuning is best under circumstances where key isn’t known in advance. JI is tricky since it highly depends on the key, and ET doesn’t sound good[0]. [0] It’s ironic a lot of modern popular music is very limited in tonal range, yet uses ET where a lot of micro-dissonances were introduced specifically to support complicated progressions and modulations without re-tuning a piano.
TheRealPomax 6y ago
Most of them sound bad because you --through no fault of your own-- have no idea how to use them, and no idea how to listen to them. Very few people are exposed to anything beyond ET and even when they are, they are rarely taught their historical use, with pieces appropriate to them, so that they can learn to understand them, and through understanding, appreciate and possibly even use them. There's almost nothing about tuning systems that is inherently bad "because our ears", the closest to a real argument you could make is that resonant harmonics are good, but that doesn't really help us much: natural harmonics only give us a "good" tuning for one specific root note, and leaves so many notes unavailable that you'd be locked into a single natural harmonic key. Whatever pitch you come up with for any other note really is just an arbitrary (although usually at least informed by something), choice. (Heck, starting with harmonics is itself already a choice, there is literally no reason to use that if your music is locally intervalic, where you don't get to skip up and down by intervals of an octave or more) There's so many centuries of documented musical history, most of it not (to use a phrase that's rapidly become cliche) part of 18th century western musical canon. What you grew up with is what you're used to, and thus is what you're comfortable with, and thus is what you consider "good". So be careful calling things you're not used to "bad": you're not used to it, so it's almost guaranteed to make you uncomfortable, and you'll be tempted to call it bad, and you should always try to catch yourself before that last step =)

by kfrncs 6y ago

strogonoff 6y ago

> Although I agree it’s strange to say that. Like saying ‘We’re driving there, in a car, with four wheels.’ I don’t think it’s strange, I was legitimately curious about author’s subjective take as to which tuning is best under circumstances where key isn’t known in advance. JI is tricky since it highly depends on the key, and ET doesn’t sound good[0]. [0] It’s ironic a lot of modern popular music is very limited in tonal range, yet uses ET where a lot of micro-dissonances were introduced specifically to support complicated progressions and modulations without re-tuning a piano.

TheRealPomax 6y ago

Most of them sound bad because you --through no fault of your own-- have no idea how to use them, and no idea how to listen to them. Very few people are exposed to anything beyond ET and even when they are, they are rarely taught their historical use, with pieces appropriate to them, so that they can learn to understand them, and through understanding, appreciate and possibly even use them. There's almost nothing about tuning systems that is inherently bad "because our ears", the closest to a real argument you could make is that resonant harmonics are good, but that doesn't really help us much: natural harmonics only give us a "good" tuning for one specific root note, and leaves so many notes unavailable that you'd be locked into a single natural harmonic key. Whatever pitch you come up with for any other note really is just an arbitrary (although usually at least informed by something), choice. (Heck, starting with harmonics is itself already a choice, there is literally no reason to use that if your music is locally intervalic, where you don't get to skip up and down by intervals of an octave or more) There's so many centuries of documented musical history, most of it not (to use a phrase that's rapidly become cliche) part of 18th century western musical canon. What you grew up with is what you're used to, and thus is what you're comfortable with, and thus is what you consider "good". So be careful calling things you're not used to "bad": you're not used to it, so it's almost guaranteed to make you uncomfortable, and you'll be tempted to call it bad, and you should always try to catch yourself before that last step =)