6 ms·

IIRC the system Bach was pushing wasn't actually equal temperament, but "well temperament" which was some sort of compromise between equal temperament and havin

IIRC the system Bach was pushing wasn't actually equal temperament, but "well temperament" which was some sort of compromise between equal temperament and having pure fifths everywhere. The result was that all twelve keys sounded acceptable, but some keys had purer fifths or thirds than others. Some musicians/scholars say that Bach composed the different preludes and fugues specifically to use the resulting different characters of the different keys to the best possible advantage. I can't speak to this personally, I keep my piano at equal temperament ;) (Big fan of your videos btw)

joegahona 4y ago
This is my understanding too. I have a Kurzweil K2500 keyboard from around 1999 that has a bunch of the alternate tunings, including three from that era. The Bach-era tunings weren't what we know of as "equal temperament." Truly equal temperament didn't come around until well after Beethoven was dead. I've always interpreted the "Well-Tempered" in Bach's title to mean that he was brining out the strength of each key. Some of those keys sound really "out of tune" to modern ears -- I have a friend with perfect pitch who legit can't listen to them. Owen Jorgensen's "Tuning the Historical Temperaments by Ear" is good bedtime reading on this topic, if you have a couple hundred bucks burning a hole in your pocket. https://www.amazon.com/Tuning-historical-temperaments-ear-eighty-nine/dp/091861600X https://www.amazon.com/Tuning-historical-temperaments-ear-ei...
- wizofaus 4y ago
  > Truly equal temperament didn't come around until well after Beethoven was dead Source for that? The concept and practice certainly existed well before Beethoven's time but it's less clear at which point it became the norm. Even the wikipedia article on 12 TET has "citation needed" for the claim that it happened in the early 19th century.
  - joegahona 4y ago
    I don't remember where I learned this, but what you said is more accurate than what I said -- the concept was definitely known well before Beethoven, but my understanding is it wasn't the standard tuning on keyboard instruments until much later, and came to its fruition with all the atonal music of the early 20th century. I think composers even went so far as to assign emotions/moods to various keys based on each key's sound. E.g. "E-flat major is austere, D-minor is sad," etc. Might be worth reading: - https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Effects_of_Unequal_Temperament_on_Ch.html?id=O6b2tgAACAAJ https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Effects_of_Unequal_... - https://www.proquest.com/openview/b22142f819768ae82464aa2679f4ef68/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y https://www.proquest.com/openview/b22142f819768ae82464aa2679...
    - wizofaus 4y ago
      I still feel that way about certain keys, even playing on an exactly equal tempered keyboard. I don't think the degree to which certain intervals might vary between keys is necessarily the important factor.
      - joegahona 4y ago
        Those descriptors ("austere," etc.) have always struck me as subjective -- I'm not one to tell people what mood they're getting from certain keys. But a root major chord will have a much different feel in, e.g., C#-major on an 18th-century tuning than in equal temperament. I have this CD [1] in a box somewhere but can't find it on Youtube. It's a few Beethoven sonatas in the temperament he would've used. Just sounded out-of-tune to me in certain parts (especially during the Waldstein), but I don't have perfect pitch. The booklet that came with that CD is really helpful in understanding all this, and I think that might be where I learned about that Owen Jorgensen tome. There's no shortage of similar experiments on Youtube. This one [2] has a wild one in just intonation, but I doubt that temperament was still used when Mozart was composing. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Beethoven-Temperaments-Historical-Tunings-Concert/dp/B000003XY5 https://www.amazon.com/Beethoven-Temperaments-Historical-Tun... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzsEdK48CDY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzsEdK48CDY
        wizofaus 4y ago
        Thanks for that link, I don't know if it demonstrates "just intonation" though? But the 1/4 Comma Meantone tuning just sounds horrible the moment a diminished chord comes into the picture.
        joegahona 4y ago
        You're right, I mis-typed -- it's meantone, not just intonation. Someone elsewhere on this HN thread argues that's the tuning Mozart himself would've been using for that piece, which is bizarre to think about once you hear it on Youtube like that! This is truly a fascinating world. People who argue that we should be using the original temperaments that composers used do have an argument. Imagine, for example, if Shakespeare were "tuned" to be in modern UK English rather than the English of its time.

joegahona 4y ago

This is my understanding too. I have a Kurzweil K2500 keyboard from around 1999 that has a bunch of the alternate tunings, including three from that era. The Bach-era tunings weren't what we know of as "equal temperament." Truly equal temperament didn't come around until well after Beethoven was dead. I've always interpreted the "Well-Tempered" in Bach's title to mean that he was brining out the strength of each key. Some of those keys sound really "out of tune" to modern ears -- I have a friend with perfect pitch who legit can't listen to them. Owen Jorgensen's "Tuning the Historical Temperaments by Ear" is good bedtime reading on this topic, if you have a couple hundred bucks burning a hole in your pocket. https://www.amazon.com/Tuning-historical-temperaments-ear-eighty-nine/dp/091861600X https://www.amazon.com/Tuning-historical-temperaments-ear-ei...

wizofaus 4y ago
> Truly equal temperament didn't come around until well after Beethoven was dead Source for that? The concept and practice certainly existed well before Beethoven's time but it's less clear at which point it became the norm. Even the wikipedia article on 12 TET has "citation needed" for the claim that it happened in the early 19th century.
- joegahona 4y ago
  I don't remember where I learned this, but what you said is more accurate than what I said -- the concept was definitely known well before Beethoven, but my understanding is it wasn't the standard tuning on keyboard instruments until much later, and came to its fruition with all the atonal music of the early 20th century. I think composers even went so far as to assign emotions/moods to various keys based on each key's sound. E.g. "E-flat major is austere, D-minor is sad," etc. Might be worth reading: - https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Effects_of_Unequal_Temperament_on_Ch.html?id=O6b2tgAACAAJ https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Effects_of_Unequal_... - https://www.proquest.com/openview/b22142f819768ae82464aa2679f4ef68/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y https://www.proquest.com/openview/b22142f819768ae82464aa2679...
  - wizofaus 4y ago
    I still feel that way about certain keys, even playing on an exactly equal tempered keyboard. I don't think the degree to which certain intervals might vary between keys is necessarily the important factor.
    - joegahona 4y ago
      Those descriptors ("austere," etc.) have always struck me as subjective -- I'm not one to tell people what mood they're getting from certain keys. But a root major chord will have a much different feel in, e.g., C#-major on an 18th-century tuning than in equal temperament. I have this CD [1] in a box somewhere but can't find it on Youtube. It's a few Beethoven sonatas in the temperament he would've used. Just sounded out-of-tune to me in certain parts (especially during the Waldstein), but I don't have perfect pitch. The booklet that came with that CD is really helpful in understanding all this, and I think that might be where I learned about that Owen Jorgensen tome. There's no shortage of similar experiments on Youtube. This one [2] has a wild one in just intonation, but I doubt that temperament was still used when Mozart was composing. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Beethoven-Temperaments-Historical-Tunings-Concert/dp/B000003XY5 https://www.amazon.com/Beethoven-Temperaments-Historical-Tun... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzsEdK48CDY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzsEdK48CDY
      - wizofaus 4y ago
        Thanks for that link, I don't know if it demonstrates "just intonation" though? But the 1/4 Comma Meantone tuning just sounds horrible the moment a diminished chord comes into the picture.
        joegahona 4y ago
        You're right, I mis-typed -- it's meantone, not just intonation. Someone elsewhere on this HN thread argues that's the tuning Mozart himself would've been using for that piece, which is bizarre to think about once you hear it on Youtube like that! This is truly a fascinating world. People who argue that we should be using the original temperaments that composers used do have an argument. Imagine, for example, if Shakespeare were "tuned" to be in modern UK English rather than the English of its time.