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From: peters@cubsvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.music
Subject: Re: Tempered scales
Message-ID: <178@cubsvax.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 8-Mar-84 09:49:17 EST
Article-I.D.: cubsvax.178
Posted: Thu Mar  8 09:49:17 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 10-Mar-84 09:18:33 EST
References: <6082@decwrl.UUCP>
Organization: Columbia Univ Biology, New York City
Lines: 16

Just a followup to the subject of temperment.  It is easy (technically)
for vocalists and players of unfretted string instruments to play
in just temperment (the natural harmonic scale).  I used to sing
(many years ago) in the Renaissance Chorus of N. Y.  (anyone out
there remember it?), and our director used to spend great amounts
of time trying to make us sing natural harmonic intervals.  When
you "lock in" to a perfect unison, octave, fourth, or fifth, there's
a resonance effect -- a diminution of the effort to sing the note --
that's almost euphoric.  Problem is, most people with musical training
have grown up with the piano and the well-tempered scale.  Those 
people had a lot more trouble singing true intervals, and doing it
without vibrato, so that the director found it easier to work with
people with only minimal prior training.

{philabs,cmcl2!rocky2}!cubsvax!peters            Peter S. Shenkin 
Dept of Biol. Sci.;  Columbia Univ.;  New York, N. Y.  10027;  212-280-5517