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From: mcmillan@eosp1.UUCP (Tobias D. Robison)
Newsgroups: net.music
Subject: Re: Tempered scales
Message-ID: <665@eosp1.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 10-Mar-84 23:21:04 EST
Article-I.D.: eosp1.665
Posted: Sat Mar 10 23:21:04 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 11-Mar-84 07:03:10 EST
References: <6082@decwrl.UUCP>
Organization: Exxon Office Systems, Princeton, NJ
Lines: 21

To put it more simply, when playing or hearing harmonic music,
humans clearly prefer untempered intervals.  A singer or string instrument can
easily play untempered pitches, and can easily shift to other untempered
scales when the music modulates.  Wind players can do this only with great
difficulty, and the piano (and similar instruments) can only be tuned for
one untempered scale (and a very limited modulation capability) at one time.
Therefore, musicians are trained to play temepered scales.  However,
untempered sounds can be much sweeter, and certainly occur in unaccompanied
vocal music.

One summer I tuned a harpsichord to an untempered scale, and played quite
a bit of baroque music on it.  I liked the sound very much, but I had to be
very selective about the keys (and degree of modulation) of the music I
played.
					- Toby Robison
					allegra!eosp1!robison
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					(NOTE! NOT McMillan; Robison.)