Equal temperament vs instrument harmonics in music

In summary, the app demonstrates how the fundamental frequencies of different notes on a musical instrument are related to each other in such a way as to allow them to get as close as possible to integer harmonics. It uses equal temperament tuning and shows how the traditional major scale has seven notes that are not harmonically related to each other. The app also demonstrates how the beat frequencies of different notes on a musical instrument can make them sound 'off'.
  • #36
Algr said:
The composer/transcriber would have to choose which version of the chord is intended each time.

The recent posts are in response to this, where the keyboard is supposed to replace a composer.

Laughner said:
So if today's processor speeds were applied, there is no reason not to have every chord sound as good on a keyboard as it does on a string
 
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  • #37
Bob Walance said:
The fundamental frequencies of the notes are separated by a factor of 2^(1/12),
They have a ratio of ##2^{\frac{1}{12}}##.
 
  • #38
pbuk said:
The recent posts are in response to this, where the keyboard is supposed to replace a composer.
But it started with my comparison to 19-tet, which does not involve the keyboard making choices about what notes are intended:
Algr said:
I wonder if instead of trying to use 19-tet or other strange solutions, one could deal with the wolf interval by programming synths to change from one tuning to another as soon as the problematic chord was about to be played. What would we call that? Super-Pythagorean tuning?
If the keyboard were retuning based on what notes were being played at the time, it could easily get stuck in a situation where it had to retune a note that was already playing. That could be a secondary issue behind this:
Svein said:
By the way, a Norwegian composer (Eivind Groven) had special organ made that analyzed the chords and changed the just temperament base to match the chords. Since it was built using electromechanical relays, you could not play very fast on it, but it was an interesting experiment for its time.
 
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