Ivor Darreg

VISUAL ANALOGY FOR TEMPERAMENT

Many people going to the photographer, do not want a needle-sharp picture showing every wrinkle, so the studio obliges by using "soft" lenses or diffusing filters over the camera lens or sometimes actually de-focussing before taking the pictures.

Similarly, the 12-tone equal temperament on organs and pianos and some other musical instruments, blurs and fuzzes up and de-focusses the thirds and sixths, while causing negligible distortion to fourths and fifths. In theory, the octaves are left alone; in practice, there is some sharpening (stretching) of octaves, especially on the piano.

Other possible tempered intonations favor one class of intervals and distort others: e.g. in 31-tone (and 1/4 comma meantone) the major and minor sixth are favored at the expense of the fifth, fourth, and minor third and major sixth. In 19-tone, the minor third and major sixth are not distorted enough that ~nyone could ever hear it, but the fifths, fourths, and major thirds do have noticeable errors.

In just intonation, all intervals are in tune, calm and serene and brilliant; in sharp focus as it were.

The Romantic Period of the 19th century brought us the muddiness of the piano, with bass strings out of tune with themselves; and the blurred after-sound from overuse of the damper pedal. Today's electronic organs and the theatre organs of the 19201s had excessive vibrato and deliberately out-of-tune ranks of pipes.

For a century or so--let us say 1830-1930, the ideal was a vague, out-of-focus situation, which was aggravated by the out-of-tune thirds and sixths of the 12-tone equal temperament. This is proper for a certain important body of music, but our 1980's are the period of precision. Note how painting and sculpture have gone in for "hard edge" and brilliant color.

The tragedy is that our music students are never permitted to hear these just-intonation intervals which are clean and clear and brilliant and in sharp focus. They are given the blurred fuzzy major thirds of ordinary keyboard with frantic buzzy beating, as if this were the Ideal!

It is as though authors were denied the full dictionary and thesaurus, but instead were compelled by law to remain within the 850-word "Basic English" vocabulary. What if all artists had to "Paint By Number"?

Suppression of public knowledge about this state of affairs amounts to unreasonable censorship! There will be enough sensible reasons for the 12-tone equal temperament existing without having to suppress everything else and pretend that it is the ONLY system. Surely alternative tunings are as appropriate and valid in our day and age as alternative lifestyles.

Instruments and recordings now exist which can make the sounds to show you the differences discussed above; it is not necessary to take our word for it.