Tuning JI music

Responding to John deLaubenfels' post, I've synthesized some pieces in JI
where the problems you mentioned - transitions, stacked fourths, diminished
7th chords, and augmented triads cropped up. I've also played
some chords and music on pianos in mean tone temperament which has
two kinds of minor third, 9 approximating 6/5 and 3 approximating 7/6.
I found that in cases where it was impossible to have everything just,
experimenting and listening to results was very helpful and I arrived at
the solution you mentioned for having some notes glide in cases of
modulation as when notes forming 7/4 in one chord form 16/9 in the
next, etc. I found that in cases of four stacked fourths, making the
fourths just and letting the minor third between the ends of the stack be
32/27 - a Pythagorean minor third sounded fine, even when there was
some "bite" of beating between the notes of the 32/27. Fifths or fourths
off by much more than 5 cents begin to get conspicuous quickly in the
kind of music I've worked with - at least they sound conspicuous to me
and to a lot of people. I believe the diminished 7th chords really get a
distinctive "just" sound if they are seen as 4:5:6:7 chords with the root
note 4 altered - raised a semitone - say by 17/16. This happens on the
piano - the diminished 7th chords can sound really neat. It might be
interesting to experiment with the augmented triad. A 7:9:11
frequency ratio chord could really sound good there in certain contexts,
and I suppose would sound out of place compared with an EQT
augmented triad in other places.

You're doing exciting stuff and this is only the beginning.

Dave Hill, La Mesa, CA