Judging Effect of Temperaments

One of the main difficulties in judging of the effect of temperaments in
actual music is that so much depends on the inspiration of the composer,
and the culture and nature of his audience. It is possible to be
atrociously mechanical and boring in 19-tone equal, and inspired in
12-tone equal. I do _not_ believe it is possible to be inspired in 13-
or 20-tone equal; the lack of even the shadow of any possible musical
order is too great. Other systems such as 24- or even 22- or 29-tone
equal, fall somewhere in between. They are poor systems, and have but a
fraction of the usable resources of the 19-tone equal (29- and 22-tone
equal are much poorer in resources even than 12-tone equal), yet a (very
ill-advised) genius might get something out of them. He would be the
first, greatest, last and only member of his school. The Indian
instrumentalists have waged a losing battle - nowadays almost totally
lost - on behalf of a close approximation to 22-tone equal for more than
2000 years, so Paul Ehrlich is not without precedent in his fondness for
this system. This is as far as the most charitable informed person can
go in the way of an open mind. To go further is merely to pave the way
for an instinctive retreat into the 12-tone equal, which is where the
efforts of the Western microtonalists have hitherto led.


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From: Gregg Gibson
Subject: Just Interval Progressions
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