Timeline for Why are there twelve notes in an octave?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
21 events
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| Sep 26 at 6:51 | comment | added | phoog | "They only really [were] the dominating temperaments for around 100 years": what does "they" refer to here? And what do you think the preferred temperament of J. S. Bach was? It was neither equal nor just. In the 18th century there were several near equal ("circulating") temperaments, so I suppose that what you mean, but they did not follow "just intonation" -- there were three centuries of meantone temperaments, which are closer to just but certainly not just, and before that there was Pythagorean temperament in the Guidonian gamut, which is 3-limit just but has only 8 tones per octave. | |
| Dec 19, 2019 at 11:19 | comment | added | Lennart Regebro | @ggcg "Basically, notes sound harmonious if the frequency of the notes is close to a simple interval, like 3/2 or 5/4." | |
| Dec 18, 2019 at 20:20 | comment | added | user50691 | A piece of missing info is that the scale tones have ratios that are close to the natural harmonics of the vibrating systems that create sound and also the harmonics produced in the inner ear (also an acoustic system). "In tune" sounding notes are driven partly by the matching or alignment of harmonics (more so for consonant intervals). a 13TET scale for example would probably not hit a single pair of consonant tones, whereas a 24TET would have 12TET embedded within it. | |
| Oct 9, 2019 at 9:40 | comment | added | Lennart Regebro | Yes, it skips all the attempts of fixing the just intonation problem until equal temperament became the accepted solution, as those didn't add to the answer. And although there were hold-outs in the 19th century, the switch to equal temperament was for the most part completed by the end of the 18th century. They only really was the dominating temperaments for around a 100 years (and of course the preferred temperament of JS Bach). | |
| Oct 8, 2019 at 3:38 | comment | added | phoog | "But just tuning has a problem: you can basically only play the scale that the instrument is built for, because the intervals between the notes are different": actually, if you're playing music with harmonies of the sort that emerged during the European Renaissance, you can't even use just intonation if you stick to a single key, unless you avoid certain chords in that key. This answer skips the important and long-lasting period of unequal temperaments, which lasted from the beginning of the 16th century into the 19th, before the revival in the 20th. | |
| S Dec 12, 2017 at 10:32 | history | suggested | CommunityBot | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
'integral' replaced with 'integer' where it was clear the latter was intended.
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| Dec 12, 2017 at 1:52 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S Dec 12, 2017 at 10:32 | |||||
| Dec 22, 2016 at 0:45 | comment | added | endolith | Here's an image of just vs ET side by side flic.kr/p/7rNope | |
| S Oct 24, 2013 at 19:02 | history | suggested | rotarydial | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Minor grammatical correction: "humanities" to "humanity's"
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| Oct 24, 2013 at 18:37 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S Oct 24, 2013 at 19:02 | |||||
| S Jul 12, 2013 at 20:03 | history | suggested | Hannele | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
word choice, flow
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| Jul 12, 2013 at 19:43 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S Jul 12, 2013 at 20:03 | |||||
| Jul 23, 2012 at 20:29 | comment | added | Lennart Regebro | That's the whole point. Small integer rations = harmonic sound. I don't see what is modern with that. :-) And how do you know people knew it before Pythagoras if they didn't write it down? | |
| Jul 23, 2012 at 18:10 | comment | added | endolith | Actually this was known before Pythagoras. He was just the first whose followers wrote it down. Also, modern theory shows that small integer ratios are only applicable to harmonic sounds. Inharmonic sounds or sounds with only odd harmonics produce different scales. | |
| Jun 4, 2012 at 23:58 | comment | added | Ulf Åkerstedt | Among odd (no pun intended) scales there is also the Bohlen-Pierce scale that is built upon odd number ratios. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohlen%E2%80%93Pierce_scale | |
| S Sep 21, 2011 at 10:23 | history | suggested | Shimmy Weitzhandler | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
grammar edit
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| Sep 21, 2011 at 8:03 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S Sep 21, 2011 at 10:23 | |||||
| Apr 30, 2011 at 8:47 | comment | added | ogerard | there was a lot of practical and theoretical exploration going on for centuries but equal temperament came specifically out of the standardization of keyboard instruments (especially church organs), the question of fretted instruments and the renewal of a mathematical approach of tonality (see Mersenne treatise for instance) | |
| Apr 28, 2011 at 6:25 | vote | accept | Agares | ||
| Apr 26, 2011 at 20:34 | history | edited | Lennart Regebro | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 61 characters in body; added 10 characters in body
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| Apr 26, 2011 at 20:20 | history | answered | Lennart Regebro | CC BY-SA 3.0 |