Tuning ET vs. JI

Graham Breed writes:

> If you're tuning a digital synth to an ET scale, all you need to
> do is one division, and from then on it's just addition. This
> is easier than all that multiplying of fractions you need to work
> with JI -- unless you use ratio space axes. My point is that
> there's no reason why you can't do all your work in a logarithmic
> scale, and then an ET is the simplest scale to define. Most of
> the work in microtonality now is done with electronic synthesis
> rather than dividiing up strings.

I see now that we're on slightly different tracks - the classic situation of
two sides that are both right if you consider that they're facing different
directions! I believe that you're talking about the application of a tuning
to an instrument, which is decidedly easier with ET, and, some would say, the
primary reason that ET was chosen for Western music in the first place. I'm
still stuck on the abstract, theoretical questions. Like, which ideal tuning
goal, if even it could be applied, is most likely to yield melodies and
harmonies to which the human body and soul should most readily resonate.
It's a sticky question, I know, and maybe founded partly on misconceptions
hidden in the depths of my cosmology. I'm open to that, and open to
criticisms on that basis. So far, it seems to me to be a worthy pursuit.
More on this in the next posting.

>JI comes from the harmonic series, which is a
>quantization of linear frequency space.

Lost ya there. Doesn't "quantization" denote equal divisions? E.g., in what
sense are the two spaces in 1:1, 9:8, 5:4 equal, or based on equal divisions
of linear frequeny space, whatever that means? Strange as it might seem,
after years of picturing frequency space logarithmically, I can't get myself
to visualize it linearally - it doesn't seem to make any sense that way.

David J. Finnamore
Just tune it!

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