Susan Kline speaks of "expressive intonation": >It usually >involves making a semitone smaller in such a way as to increase the desire >to resolve it. The leading tone _leads_ more when it is closer to the tonic. >In the case of the dominant 7th chord, the 7th "yearns" to resolve downward, Nicely put. There is a constant tension in instrumental and choral ensemble music between the melodic imperatives Susan mentions (and which Horace spoke of regarding the violinist in the recording), and the harmonic imperative of, well, truly harmonic intervals. When Travis Gordy speaks, in another letter, about a chord which "rings" in a vocal group, he is probably talking about "just" intonation, in which notes line up in simple mathematical ratios. For instance, the simplest example I can think of involves a pair of instruments or voices on just two notes -- G and B (in C major). The ear wants to hear the G-B third "just" (a 5:4 ratio), which is considerably narrower than a tempered third. In other words, if the G is either a tempered or just fifth above the tonic, the B will be QUITE flat of a tempered B. However, the B is also the leading tone, in which case it wants to be SHARP of the tempered B. This is what I mean by tension. Do you raise the G&B? Then the B will resolve nicely up to C, but the G will have to go a very wide fifth down to C.Do you leave the G alone and RAISE the B beyond a tempered third so the leading tone is closer to the tonic? There is no "right" answer to this dilemma -- there is constant adjustment depending on what comes next, the way the notes are distributed in the chord & in the orchestration, etc. If you listen to a good orchestra play a piece which ends with a standard dominant-tonic cadence, the penultimate third, which contains the leading tone, will usually be wider than the third in the last chord. (This fits with the tension/release thingy anyway). After an extended harmonic progression, too much following of either imperative can cause the ensemble to drift pretty far from the initial pitch level, so there is also a tension between melodic/harmonic adjustments and maintaining the pitch level. A good ensemble is always deciding which of several choices is the "least worst", or when a leading tone is so important that it simply MUST ride roughshod over the purity of harmonic intervals. Ensemble playing/singing is a huuuugely, unimaginably complicated and subtle process, more than most people realize. Fortunately, it takes place quickly and almost automatically, although some decisions have to be made consciously. All this does not apply (to the piano) once we accept the convention of equal temperament. We can apply a well temperament to a piano to favor particular melodic relationships and harmonic structures (only in particular keys, and at the expense of others), but once the decision is made for equal temperament, the half steps are supposed to be pretty much the same size (with awfully tiny allowances for scaling unevenness). This is true no matter how the tuning is done. Susan asks, >Is it possible that the "machine" tuning sounded better to some of the audience because they tune by machine day after day? < This to me implies that the tuner using an ETD would somehow tune a different scale than a strictly aural tuner, and gets deliciously close to another question I would like to see hashed out here, which is, "Do slight irregularities in an aural tuning equal 'warmth' or 'inaccuracy'?" Does the aural tuner desire a different result from an "electronic" tuner? There are certainly still too many variables in a "tuneoff" for absolute answers, but I suspect any differences in preference between two fine tuners would be based on conscious choices of octave width. Interesting thread. Bob Davis
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