I just recorded a new song, and it’s a perfect example of how equal temperament and just intonation can get along together. Here’s the cut: Reading this blog might give you the impression that I’m “against” equal temperament and “for” just intonation, or untempered music. True, discovering untempered music has been like sailing to…
At the very end of the chorus, Be Love showcases one of my favorite notes, the 7b3. Most of the notes of the inner lattice can be approximated on the piano, but not the septimal minor third. It’s in between the keys. Blues pianists can evoke it by trilling between 2 and b3, but only variable-pitch instruments…
It would be natural to read these posts and wonder why I’m so passionate about intonation, and why I’m going to so much trouble to explore it in this blog and in real life. After all, we’re talking about tiny differences in tuning here, why be so picky when it’s the heart that counts? It’s…
When I first learned to play guitar, I would sit on the couch late at night and pluck the low E string, again and again, and just listen to the beauty of the sound as it died away. That low E note is not just a simple vibration. The full length of the string is…