Temperament and Tuning

Here is a very helpful article that is part book review and part introduction to tuning theory.

The author is Jan Swafford (b. 1946) who is an American composer and author who teaches compostion, theory and musicology at the Boston Conservatory and writing at Tufts University.

The book under review is How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony (and Why You Should Care) by professor Ross W. Duffin. Swafford pretty quickly leaves behind a real review of the book, and concentrates on explaining some of the issues involved in tuning and temperament in very readable language. Here's an excerpt:

There have been some 150 tuning systems put forth over the centuries, none of them pure. There is no perfection, only varying tastes in corruption. If you want your fifths nicely in tune, the thirds can't be; if you want pure thirds, you have to put up with impure fifths. And no scale on a keyboard, not even good old C major, can be perfectly in tune. Medieval tunings voted for pure fifths. By the late Renaissance the tuning systems favored better thirds. The latter were various kinds of meantone temperament. In meantone, most of the accumulated fudges were dumped onto two notes, usually G# (aka A flat) and E flat. The shivery effect of those two notes played together in meantone temperaments earned it the name "wolf," which, like its namesake, was regarded with a certain holy fear.

Enjoy the article.

And FYI: the choir anthem for Sunday: it's in A-flat major. But nary a howl to be heard anywhere!