Klarinet Archive - Posting 000406.txt from 2000/08

From: "Kevin Fay (LCA)" <kevinfay@-----.com>
Subj: [kl] Perils of Equal Temperment
Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2000 20:29:02 -0400

Tony Pay noted:

<<<There's another experience I've had that's influencing me to take this
line: if you listen to an organ, which is usually tuned to equal
temperament, playing a simple major chord, and then make the mental shift of
imagining that that chord is instead being produced by an orchestral wind
section, it suddenly sounds much more 'out of tune'. . . . This indicates to
me the possibility that there's some mechanism that chooses one note, or one
instrument, as a standard against which to judge others, and that several
factors may be operating in that choice.>>>

This has been pointed out to me before. Perhaps it's because we actually
don't play in equal temperment? Sure, the instrument makers try their
darndest to start them out that way, but don't we all adjust to get the
"true" intervals, as opposed to the one-size-fits-all approximation that our
keyboard friends must live with?

kjf

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