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12 notes tuned in equal temperament is a workable compromise between musical expressiveness, harmonic ratio accuracy, readability, and finger precision. It's a
by TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
12 notes tuned in equal temperament is a workable compromise between musical expressiveness, harmonic ratio accuracy, readability, and finger precision.
It's also an established standard, which is a huge deal because it means you have access to a huge established repertoire.
A 31-TET acoustic piano would be huge, extremely complicated, and probably unplayable. Smaller instruments mostly just aren't practical. In theory you can play with more precision on fretless instruments (including strings), but it's hard enough to get beginners to pitch 12-TET accurately.
Electronic microtonal keyboards exist, but they require extra learning and the music you can make with them isn't compelling enough to justify the complexity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZozXzKOf8o&t=94s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZozXzKOf8o&t=94s
- shams93 4y agoThats a decent explanation but in other cultures like Turkish music you have 9 other notes in the space of one half step so losing those extra notes will make the music sound like faked Turkish music without those extra pieces.
- dmarchand90 4y agoThere used to be a lot of tempers floating around. For example a lot bach's music is not really supposed to be played in modern equal temper https://www.ethanhein.com/wp/2020/what-does-the-well-tempered-clavier-sound-like-in-actual-well-temperament/#:~:text=The%20main%20tuning%20system%20in,fifths%2C%20the%20worse%20everything%20sounds https://www.ethanhein.com/wp/2020/what-does-the-well-tempere....
- analog31 4y agoI consider the 12 tone scale to be a technology. The historical temperaments were compromise solutions to the problem of getting a useable scale within the skills and patience of the musician. A harpsichord had to be tuned before every performance, by the musician.
- dmarchand90 4y agoI can't find a public source, but in "the great courses " series on bach they mention that he had written notes on the 'feeling' each of the many different tempers could give and in a sense we have lost some flexibility in our ability to compose music
- WalterSear 4y agoIt's still twelve notes.
- TakeBlaster16 4y agoI think 19-TET is the most viable alternative to 12-TET. It fits in a standard piano form factor by adding a few black keys, and uses the same note names everyone is used to. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:19_equal_temperament_keyboard.png https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:19_equal_temperament... And it sounds really unique! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJfTu1Y2H44 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJfTu1Y2H44
- diydsp 4y ago22-TET is a sweet spot in the curve of "Average Error Distance From Harmonic Interval" http://www.gweep.net/%7Eshifty/portfolio/musicratios/index.html http://www.gweep.net/%7Eshifty/portfolio/musicratios/index.h...
- gnulinux 4y agoNot a musician, but as a hobbyist composer and music theory enthusiast, I think anything more than 24-TET is overkill in terms of daily practice. I don't think there is sufficient expression to adding anything more than quartertone to justify making your theory and practice so much more complicated. 24-TET is convenient because all your 12-TET theory works exactly the same, except now you have quartertone, in addition to semitone. This gives really interesting intervals, although not all of them will be usable in practice. In terms of instrument practice, 19-TET is a good middle ground since it maps unambiguously to 12-TET while introducing useful and expressive intervals such as septimal minor third.
- elihu 4y ago41-EDO is surprisingly playable on guitar, if you omit half the frets. The trick is to tune the strings so that each string only has half the notes, but the notes that aren't there are available on neighboring strings. It seems like it shouldn't work, but it does. https://kiteguitar.com/ https://kiteguitar.com/ https://kiteguitar.com/theory/fretboard-charts-downmajor-tuning/ https://kiteguitar.com/theory/fretboard-charts-downmajor-tun...