Thank you for your cogent thoughts. I'd add only that unnoticed and consciously imperceptible differences might still affect listener response, especially cumulatively over the duration of a piece of music. Has this been tested? I imagine not many wind and string players and singers intentionally (rather than intuitively or automatically) inflect leading tones, etc., or are always aware they're doing it. The fact that we have little problem accommodating pitch inflection by orchestral instruments and singers indicates that in- and out-of-tuneness aren't absolutes; rather, they're largely culturally determined and relative. That's one reason (xenophobia's another) why much Asian music sounds out of tune to Western ears. I'm afraid our rigidly fixed-pitch keyboard instruments don't foster appreciation for such subtlety, and I wonder whether sitar and di players would be more sensitive to deviation from ET than most pianists are. Laurence > > Well, I 'm not sure we know a whole lot about what results are actually > euphonic, other than as a matter highly individual personal opinion. > And the more precisely one tries to define ET, the less clear it all > becomes. Most of the talk about using aural means to adjust ETD generated > tunings is actually adjustment of what is closer to scientific ET to make > the predicted beat rate progressions happen on an instrument with uneven > inharmonicity. Real, scientific ET would be setting an ETD at 0.0 for all > notes and tuning fundamentals. What tuners aim at is a "virtual reality" > creation, what we might call "aural ET.". > I do think it is a very interesting question whether a precise "aural ET" > is preferable aesthetically to a somewhat randomly imprecise one, or to a > subtly adjusted one in which adjustments are made according to a planned > pattern. Experience suggests that the difference is pretty subtle, > unnoticeable to most people until the parameters become quite wide (for a > piano tuner). > BTW, we should bear in mind that acousticians say the least perceptible > difference of pitch is in the realm of 6 cents or so, varying somewhat up > and down the pitch range. This has been established by a number of > independent tests, in which the subjects are to say which of two pitches > is higher than the other. This is, of course, two pitches played > separately in sequence. And I haven't been able to find out anything > about the type of subject selected for the tests (I know I can hear > smaller differences in most circumstances). But it is very suggestive, > and puts our agonizing over tenths of a cent into perspective. > Regards, > Fred Sturm > University of New Mexico > fssturm at unm.edu > > > > >
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC