AW.: Re: AW.: Re: Re: Pythagorean tuning and Ives

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Pythagorean is Ives's choice, no one elses. Wanting to hear Ives in Just
Intonation or even 22-tone equal temperament would be a choice. To say that
C# is higher than Db is key to Ives's tuning conceptual model.

Question: how would a B# be an eighthtone higher than a C natural in just
intonation?

Johnny Reinhard
AFMM
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In the passage from the _Memos_ cited by Dan Stearns, Ives gives three
possibilities for tuning in general: 12tet, a tuning where the leading tone
is different in ascending and descending passages, and a tuning that seems to
be pythagorean. The second tuning _could_ be a form of just intonation where
the leading tone is raised to the pythagorean value.

Need I add that nowhere does Ives give an explicit instruction for the
intonation in _The Unanswered Question_? Your performing version was but one
of several possibilities and -- barring some contact with the composer
himself -- the choices, however attractive they may be, were indeed your own.
To claim more than that is unwarranted by the evidence available.

Daniel Wolf