Saturday, November 07, 2009
Equal temperament v. just intonation
I've been learning a bit of music theory on the mountain dulcimer discussion boards I post on. tonight one of the folks at Everythingdulcimer.com recommended this book: How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony, and Why You Should Care. Looks interesting and affordable.
Essentially, "just intonation" is the perfect tuning for playing in any particular key, while "equal temperament" is slightly-less-than-perfect but allows transposition from one key to another. Mainstream western instruments have been built in equal temperament for the last 150 years or so, but folk instruments like my mountain dulcimer have only begun to be built that way within living memory. Maybe 99% of modern MDs are equal-tempered, but if you can find one made before Jean Ritchie took hers to New York in the late 40s, or better, before the folk schools in the southern mountains began encouraging the local craftsmen to build more of them for sale, after the turn of the 20th century, you'd find it tuned a little oddly ... and despair of playing it along with an even tempered guitar. Makes me want to get hold of a just-intoned MD just to see what it would sound like.
Essentially, "just intonation" is the perfect tuning for playing in any particular key, while "equal temperament" is slightly-less-than-perfect but allows transposition from one key to another. Mainstream western instruments have been built in equal temperament for the last 150 years or so, but folk instruments like my mountain dulcimer have only begun to be built that way within living memory. Maybe 99% of modern MDs are equal-tempered, but if you can find one made before Jean Ritchie took hers to New York in the late 40s, or better, before the folk schools in the southern mountains began encouraging the local craftsmen to build more of them for sale, after the turn of the 20th century, you'd find it tuned a little oddly ... and despair of playing it along with an even tempered guitar. Makes me want to get hold of a just-intoned MD just to see what it would sound like.
# posted by redlion @ 9:52 pm 
