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Comment by bluGill | Hacker News Reader

Someone introduce the author to microtunings. there is a whole - much more harmonic - world out there. Equal temperment is a harmonic disaster and it is time to end it. (there are advantages to equal temperment but harmony is lost)

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You can use equal temperament with any number of divisions of the octave (or other interval, e.g. Bohen-Pierce tuning's equal division of the "tritave" into 13). Some of these provide excellent approximations of common just intonation intervals, e.g. dividing the octave into 53 gives you fifths that are only 0.07 cents off the just interval, and all other intervals in standard 5-limit Western harmony within 1.5 cents of just. It's simpler to compose with than stacking frequency ratios and in practice sounds equally good.

That is something else to introduce the author to. The author clearly thinks there are 12 notes to an octave, which is by far the most common tuning system but it isn't the only one.

Choral/string music is quite nice - the musicians have an opportunity to bend pitch as locally appropriate to make perfect intervals. I definitely did this when I was singing in a chorus. But piano is still my first love :)

I’m not convinced. Share a microtonal piece that can stand up against something by Chopin or any other great composer.

For that you will have to look outside the west. Consider traditional Arabic maqam music.

With some effort you can find the microtonal chords Chopin was thinking of and prove it yourself. There are of course places where it isn't clear which chord Chopin was thinking of though, so it would be fun to hear different people do this assignment...

To show a microtonal piece that stands up to Chopin requires a composing genius much better than me, so I can't show you it. Such a person may not even exist today.

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