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Comment by acjohnson55 | Hacker News Reader

Wouldn't that be nice, rather than whining about numbers?

It's an informative article, but the reality is that nobody cares. And I mean "nobody" in the approximate sense of 99.9% of music listeners. The reality is that our brains are more than happy to glue these nasty thirds to their hypothetical frequencies. Sure, they have a little roughness to them, but it's not a big deal, especially considering that most piano music from the 18th and 19th century is composed not to highlight the weaknesses of temperaments.

Also, equal temperament isn't quite the final word on piano tuning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stretched_tuning

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It's probably true that 99.9% of music listeners don't know, don't care, and can't tell the difference. But a few of us care a lot, and it's sometimes very important. I've been recently obsessed with barbershop quartet music, where the tuning of chords is absolutely pivotal. The alignment of overtones from justly tuned chords is, if you ask me, the entire point of the genre. The "ringing" produced from the aligned overtones is, I would guess, noticeable to a large portion of people with rudimentary music education.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbershop_music#Ringing_cho...

Two examples of fairly audible ringing (probably start a little before my timestamps to get a little context):

http://youtu.be/KpBRetTqnqQ at 3:07

http://youtu.be/z9L4QEptVRo at 4:23

You make a good counterpoint, for barbershop. It's definitely a form designed to bring out the effect of these microintervalic adjustments. Of course, those cords are sung in just intonation, not well temperament :)

I probably could have phrased my comment a little bit more delicately, but my point was in reaction to the article, not the overall concept of tunings and temperaments. What drives me nuts are these "you're doing it all wrong" types articles about something that really makes very little difference to most people. Especially this one, in which the author really didn't bother to provide any auditory demonstration of a purely auditory phenomenon.

I get what you're saying. I'm a classically trained pianist (and this may be the problem) who has recently taken up the cello. When I'm tuning my instrument, a note on an open string appears to my tuner to easily fluctuate by 4-6 cents. (That is +/- ~2-3 cents.) The article mentions that the tunings often vary by just about this amount. (Some were larger, but many were not.) My ear certainly doesn't hear the fluctuation in pitch that much, and I'm trained (spent 2 years in music school at the university level, had honors theory). When I'm fingering a note, it can vary by even more, even when I don't think I'm moving my finger at all. It seems to me that typical listeners would have a hard time discerning those differences, though I suppose the differences are amplified when played with other notes.

    in the approximate sense of 99.9% of music listeners.

The best thing about the Internet is that connects the other .1% that actually care, and the rest of humanity that has no appreciation of good music can ignore it. And really, the great composers of the future will be part of that tiny minority.

Seriously though, it would be amazing to have mainstream acceptance and performance of classical works in their intended tunings. That would be cool. Half the stuff just doesn't sound right in equal temperament.

I wouldn't call it "no appreciation of good music". The minutiae of a specific genre/era of music is a niche interest even among musicians. Doesn't mean it's not interesting, but it's definitely a niche.

>It's an informative article, but the reality is that nobody cares. And I mean "nobody" in the approximate sense of 99.9% of music listeners.

The article, like everything else in life, is for those who do care.

To make matters worse, or maybe better, most non keyboard instruments have no sensible temperament whatsoever. Even fretted instruments are a compromise.

Most non keyboard instruments have ways to adjust the pitch slightly per interval while playing, allowing experienced players to play all intervals perfectly.

Yes. I played flute as a kid, and I remember C-sharp in particular as being troublesome. Today I play double bass, and of course intonation is a significant factor in technique. Also, good players will push the notes up and down for effect.

I've seen some crazy guitar fretboards that try to make up for this, with really jagged frets.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRsSjh5TTqI

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