Re : [tuning] starting out in Just Intonation

Paul Erlich wrote on 18 April:

> True, but I would not want to read Doty, Partch, and Helmholtz without a
> good exposure to some of the arguments against always using strict JI. I've
> seen some good brief examples of those in many varied sources, for example
> the entry under "Temperament" in an 1800's Grove Dictionary.

Paul, where did you find an 1800's Grove Dictionnary? Sir George Grove
himself was born only in 1820.

Anyhow the New Grove Dictionnary from 1980 contains the same kind of
arguments you mentioned, especially in the entry under "Just Intonation" by
Mark Lindley. For sure it's useful to quote some of them:

"In 1955 Kok reported, on the basis of experiments with an electronic organ
capable of performing in variuos tuning systems, that musicians, unlike
normal listeners, heard the difference between equal and mean-tone
temperaments, giving preference to the latter, 'and a fortiori the just
intonation, but only in broad terminating chords and for choral-like music.
However, they ... do not like the pitch fluctuations caused by
instantaneously corrected thirds'.

According to McClure ('Studies in Keyboard Temperaments'), George Bernard
Shaw recalled that in the 1870's the progressions of pure concords on
Bosanquet's harmonum (with 53 pitches in each octave) had sounded to him
'unpleasantly slimy'.

The composer and theorist J.D. Heinichen remarked (Der Generalbass in der
Komposition, 1728) that because keys with two or three sharps or flats in
their signature were so beautiful and expressive in well-tempered tunings,
especially in the theatrical style, he would not favour the invention of the
'long-sought pure-diatonic' keyboard even if it were to become practicable."

This morning I went through the guitarstudies Opus 31, book I, by Fernando
Sor, inspired by Joe Pehrson's enthusiasm for the very first lesson. Keys
are chosen in such a way that these twelve studies could be performed as a
whole: C - a - D - b - G - e - E - A(a)A - C - D - F - d
The harmonic progressions within each study are not complicated and
'retuning' into JI would not give much problems, even if it's not possible
to do the whole serie with only one fret-setting. However, using
Werckmeister III for example would implie a different character for each
key, which I think is musically just as appealing.

As for Shaw's 'unpleasantly slimy', that's really a matter of taste. I can
eat 'natto' (fermented soya-beans) without any problem. Unpleasantly slimy
it is to occidental taste, but a delicacy for all Japanese.

--Wim Hoogewerf

Wim Wrote,

>> True, but I would not want to read Doty, Partch, and Helmholtz without a
>> good exposure to some of the arguments against always using strict JI.
I've
>> seen some good brief examples of those in many varied sources, for
example
>> the entry under "Temperament" in an 1800's Grove Dictionary.

>Paul, where did you find an 1800's Grove Dictionnary? Sir George Grove
>himself was born only in 1820.

I believe the date was 1889. Ralph David Hill sent me a copy.

>"In 1955 Kok reported, on the basis of experiments with an electronic organ
>capable of performing in variuos tuning systems, that musicians, unlike
>normal listeners, heard the difference between equal and mean-tone
>temperaments, giving preference to the latter, 'and a fortiori the just
>intonation, but only in broad terminating chords and for choral-like music.
>However, they ... do not like the pitch fluctuations caused by
>instantaneously corrected thirds'.

>According to McClure ('Studies in Keyboard Temperaments'), George Bernard
>Shaw recalled that in the 1870's the progressions of pure concords on
>Bosanquet's harmonum (with 53 pitches in each octave) had sounded to him
>'unpleasantly slimy'.

All of these objections refer to strict JI of the Partch/Doty type and would
probably not apply to adaptive JI a la Vicentino or deLaubenfels, where the
pitch shifts would be several times smaller.

>As for Shaw's 'unpleasantly slimy', that's really a matter of taste. I can
>eat 'natto' (fermented soya-beans) without any problem. Unpleasantly slimy
>it is to occidental taste, but a delicacy for all Japanese.

I wouldn't want to eat a slimy steak (the point is, slimy is not an
appropriate aesthetic for common-practice Western music. IMHO.).