Kyle Gann's Web page

Greetings,
Kyle writes:
>But I think they

> correctly hit on the point that equal temperament chords do have a

kind of active buzz to them, a level of harmonic excitement and

intensity. By contrast, just-intonation chords are much calmer, more passive;

you literally have to slow down to listen to them. (As Terry Riley

says, Western music is fast because it's not in tune.) <<

I agree with this whole-heartedly! On our "Six Degrees Of Tonality"
CD, Enid Katahn performed the Mozart Fantasie in three tunings, (MT, WT, and
ET). Enid is a very consistant performer, her ability to control timing is
nearly equal to the best drummers on Music row, which is quite high, no pun
intended. (I once saw Kenny Malone do a jingle session. After the first
take, the producer told Kenny that it was 62 seconds long and he needed it to
be exactly 1 minute. Kenny counted it off and the second take came in at 60
seconds! this is art, but I digress).
Enid played the Mozart in MT and WT in 5'54" and 5'53", respectively.
Then she played the same piece in ET and guess what? It came in at 5'39 !!!
She said it was probably because there was no reason to linger at any of the
otherwise harmonious spots, but she had had no conscious feeling that it was
going any faster.

>>Listening from the other side, I've learned

to hear equal temperament music as a kind of aural caffeine, overly

busy and nervous-making. If you're used to getting that kind of buzz

from music, you feel the lack of it as a deprivation when it's not there.<<

After tuning ET for many years, I was amazed to hear it after a weekend
of well-tempered music. For the first time, I was able to recognize what ET
actually sounded like, and "buzzy and nervous" were the first two thoughts to
cross my mind. It is a really cool sound, true, but edgy and sterile at the
same time.

> Far beyond the mere theoretical purity, playing in just intonation

for long periods sensitizes me to a myriad colors, and coming back to

the equal tempered world is like seeing everything click back into black

> and white. It's a disappointing readjustment. Come to think of it,

> maybe you shouldn't try just intonation - you'll become unfit to

live in the West, and have to move to India or Bali.<<

There has been more than a few pianists tell me that they couldn't stand
to have their pianos tuned back to ET after playing in a well-tempered
tuning. The words "bland" and "uninspiring" and "colorless" are often used.

> My beef is with the bland way in which European and American

> musics are currently tuned. In fact, before the 20th century,

European music had its own wonderful non-equal-tempered tunings, which

> unfortunately we've abandoned. <<

Mine too. I believe that the adoption of ET was due to instrument
manufacturers and theorists, not musicians. We got blinded by science and
forgot the organic, emotional, viscereal, aspects of music. Today's world is
a world that suppresses public emotional displays. The audience member that
is weeping in the concert hall is often seen as unstable, or not quite
rational, even though the purpose of music is so often said to be to cause an
emotional response, thus providing an emotional respite in a world of
rationality. A variety of interval sizes, with their various psycho/emotive
properties, promotes these emotional responses in ways that the sameness of
ET cannot.
12 ET's days are numbered, though I don't know if the next step will be
forward into increasing ET's or backwards to the tunings of the 17,18,19th
centuries. Since I am dealing with the instruments of the past, I favor the
latter. It allows me to enlist the help of Ludwig, Amadeus, Franz etal. in
changing the way the world listens to harmony. The Temperament Revival
continues........
Regards,
Ed Foote
Precision Piano Works
Nashville, Tn.