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Problems with ancient musical scales

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Re: Problems with ancient musical scales

#3

Post by jancsika »

So people with perfect pitch often complain about headaches when, say, a choir starts to lose pitch. This is because they can hear how the pitches sung by the choir have drifted away from the pitches notated on in the part they are reading from. That knowledge can apparently be quite distracting.

However, I have never heard a student with perfect pitch complain or even inquire about internal inconsistencies in tuning that would lead to comma drift. E.g., "Hey, I was practicing singing C-G-D-A-E-C and I ended up slightly off from the C I started with. What gives?" I've never heard of a student stumbling upon anything like this independent of reading a text about the problems of tuning systems.

Re: Problems with ancient musical scales

#4

Post by humbledrone »

jancsika wrote: post #3

So people with perfect pitch often complain about headaches when, say, a choir starts to lose pitch. This is because they can hear how the pitches sung by the choir have drifted away from the pitches notated on in the part they are reading from. That knowledge can apparently be quite distracting. However, I have never heard a student with perfect pitch complain or even inquire about internal inconsistencies in tuning…

People without perfect pitch (even non-musicians) can often hear that an equal-temperament major triad is a little bit more dissonant than a just-temperament major triad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcCkn0p7HDE.

I don't have perfect pitch, but as a guitarist I often tune my 3rd string to be a little bit flat (relative to equal temperament), because many chords I play have their major 3rd on that string and it sounds better to have it closer to just temperament.

Regarding singing, one of the reasons that Barbershop music has such a beautiful/smooth sound is because the vocalists sing the intervals of chords in just temperament, despite the fact that the bass note moves around in equal temperament. This is covered well by the Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbershop_music.

Re: Problems with ancient musical scales

#6

Post by xyzzy21 »

These are NOT problems - they are simply differences. They happen to not be as "convenient" as the 100% artificial system INVENTED several centuries ago which is not necessarily better than more ancient systems. Equal tempered IS MISTUNED because it's a "forced, contrived system".

In many ways you get more sophisticated expression from older systems because they are more tuned to both empirical physics and biology, rather than abstracted CONSTRUCTED for convenience.

Re: Problems with ancient musical scales

#7

Post by xscott »

humbledrone wrote: post #4
jancsika wrote: post #3

So people with perfect pitch often complain about headaches when, say, a choir starts to lose pitch. This is because they can hear how the pitches sung by the choir have drifted away from the pitches notated on in the part they are reading from. That knowledge can apparently be quite distracting. However, I have never heard a student with perfect pitch complain or even inquire about internal inconsistencies in tuning…

People without perfect pitch (even non-musicians) can often hear that an equal-temperament major triad is a little bit more dissonant than a just-temperament major triad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcCkn0p7HDE . I don't have perfect pitch, but as a guitarist I often tune my 3rd string to be a little bit flat (relative to equal temperament), because many chords I play have their major 3rd on that string and it so…

It's odd - I've messed around with this kind of thing too, and while I can recognize the perfect intervals sound cleaner, I generally prefer some dissonance and waiver in the chords. Depending on the style of music, it just sounds more interesting to me.

Re: Problems with ancient musical scales

#8

Post by atoav »

As someone who grew up with a detuned piano I was kinda shocked how boring a tuned one sounded like. No/minimal beating phantom tones between similar notes. No detuned chorus between the different strings of one tone etc.

Our modern tonal systems make sense, but to me microtonal ones have more spice to them. Even stuff like Aphex Twin constantly uses "incorrect" tunings (analog gear is like that) and this makes up a signifikant part of the sound.

Or listen to stuff by Wendy Carlos. Just otherworldly

Re: Problems with ancient musical scales

#9

Post by hyperjeff »

atoav wrote: post #8

As someone who grew up with a detuned piano I was kinda shocked how boring a tuned one sounded like. No/minimal beating phantom tones between similar notes. No detuned chorus between the different strings of one tone etc. Our modern tonal systems make sense, but to me microtonal ones have more spice to them. Even stuff like Aphex Twin constantly uses "incorrect" tunings (analog gear is like that) and this makes up a…

Especially Carlos’s Beauty in the Beast, one of my fav albums. It seems to have a strong Indonesian influence in places, and I’ve since found similar exotic tunings in music from there.

Re: Problems with ancient musical scales

#10

Post by atoav »

hyperjeff wrote: post #9
atoav wrote: post #8

As someone who grew up with a detuned piano I was kinda shocked how boring a tuned one sounded like. No/minimal beating phantom tones between similar notes. No detuned chorus between the different strings of one tone etc. Our modern tonal systems make sense, but to me microtonal ones have more spice to them. Even stuff like Aphex Twin constantly uses "incorrect" tunings (analog gear is like that) and this makes up a…

Especially Carlos’s Beauty in the Beast, one of my fav albums. It seems to have a strong Indonesian influence in places, and I’ve since found similar exotic tunings in music from there.

That was the one I was thinking about : )
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