| New, Posted: June 30, 2010 |
| Bach | Beatles | Beethoven | Blugrass |
| Carly Simon | Chants | Christmas | Country |
| Elton John | Folk | Hymns | Hybrid |
| Jazz | Miscellaneous | Mozart | Rihanna |
| Scott Joplin | Sousa | Standards | Vocal |
| Voice Font | Waltz | World |
Just Intonation and Equal Temperment, a Short History and Status Report |
| In ancient times, all tuning systems were based on just intonation. Musicians had to retune their instruments to change keys. Then tempered tunings were invented that allowed a musician to have an instrument that would only be a little bit out of tune in two keys. Equal Temperment came into widespread use somewhere around 1600 and is the officially dominant form of tuning today. Equal temperment allows a musician to play a little out of tune in any of twelve keys. |
| In practice, however, much of the music we listen to today uses just intonation tunings. Many of the most popular instruments are tunable in real time. The human voice, the violin, and the trombone are all instruments that can be very easily dynamically tuned. |
| Skilled players of the guitar, the saxaphone, and the trumpet and many other instruments can "bend" notes to conform to just intonation tunings and routinely do so. |
| Pianos, organs, and similar instruments can't be tuned in real time, and are not very popular. |
| So we now have a system that uses equal temperment in theory, but in practice is largely based on just intonation tunings |
| When equal temperment was introduced, mechanical musical intruments were imprecise enough that it didn't matter a great deal what tuning system was used, but modern technology is slowly changing all that. |