{"id":499,"date":"2012-12-05T10:36:44","date_gmt":"2012-12-05T18:36:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/?p=499"},"modified":"2017-08-18T09:10:37","modified_gmt":"2017-08-18T16:10:37","slug":"untempered-vs-tempered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/?p=499","title":{"rendered":"Untempered Vs. Tempered"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve been listening to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/?p=490\">yesterday&#8217;s<\/a>\u00a0chord progression showing off the b7.<\/p>\n<p>I think it offers an excellent opportunity to hear the difference between equal temperament and just intonation.<\/p>\n<p>Equal temperament works by implying or evoking a note rather than playing it exactly. There are dozens of singable notes per octave; ET represents them all with just twelve tones.<\/p>\n<p>Some ET notes are close to their just counterparts; the 4 and 5 are close enough to be essentially right on. The major third is not so great. It&#8217;s 0.8% sharp, enough to <a title=\"The Major Third\" href=\"http:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/?p=292\">change the feeling<\/a> it produces.<\/p>\n<p>The ET b7 is even further off, a full 1% flat of the untempered note. For me, this is enough to change its flavor entirely, and dilute its resonance to the point where it&#8217;s just not the same note. I would contend that the real experience of the b7 is not actually available in equal temperament.<\/p>\n<p>Here it is again:<\/p>\n<div class=\"entry-content-asset videofit\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"1 b3 b6 JI\" width=\"720\" height=\"540\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/sqTnOLV7y0g?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>And in ET:<\/p>\n<div class=\"entry-content-asset videofit\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"1 b3 b6 ET\" width=\"720\" height=\"540\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/qy_BPaqRuL0?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>To me, the real b7 sounds triumphant, like its arms are outstretched to the sky after a great victory.<\/p>\n<p>The ET one sounds very different. It&#8217;s not unpleasant, but it sure is different. It it a little sad? The <a title=\"The Minor Third\" href=\"http:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/?p=481\">leaping dance<\/a> is gone. The b3 is flat too. Poor minor, no wonder she&#8217;s sad! A mortal has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sacred-texts.com\/neu\/ftmg\/ftmg03.htm\">seized the hem of her garment<\/a> and made her earthbound, in order to put her in his power and make her a little better behaved.<\/p>\n<p>Now go back and listen to the JI version. My experience is that I hear it a little sharp for a second, and then it settles in and <em>wow<\/em>. This is all subjective; you may hear entirely different things. But this example makes it pretty clear, I think, that JI and ET do not sound the same.<\/p>\n<p>So here we have a note, with a distinct (and unique) personality, that produces a physiological sensation that just isn&#8217;t quite available in equal temperament. There are a lot more of these to come, with strange and beautiful colors. Really getting into JI and the lattice is like getting the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/List_of_Crayola_crayon_colors\">64-color Crayola box<\/a> for Christmas. Orange-yellow <em>and<\/em> yellow-orange, what riches!<\/p>\n<p>One of my favorite phrases in any song comes from the great\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.gregbrown.org\">Greg Brown<\/a>. In\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.lyricstime.com\/greg-brown-eugene-lyrics.html\"><em>Eugene<\/em><\/a>, from\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.redhouserecords.com\/198.html\">The Evening Call<\/a>, he says,<\/p>\n<p><em>The Northwest is good, once you get off I-5 and wander up and down the Willamette dammit, on the back back roads. I know a few people who&#8217;d let me park in their drive, plug in for a night or two, stay up late, and talk about these crazy times &#8212; the blandification of our whole situation. And then back to the woods. A dog is bound to find me sooner or later. Sometimes you gotta not look too hard &#8212; just let the dog find you.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The blandification of our whole situation. Nice one, Mr. Brown. I recommend going back and forth between the last two vids a few times. Deblandification!<\/p>\n<p>By the way,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.gregbrown.org\/gblyricsevening.html\">The Evening Call<\/a>\u00a0is packed with great lyrics and music. Top notch.<\/p>\n<p>Next:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/?p=521\">The Minor Second<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve been listening to yesterday&#8217;s\u00a0chord progression showing off the b7. I think it offers an excellent opportunity to hear the difference between equal temperament and just intonation. Equal temperament works by implying or evoking a note rather than playing it exactly. There are dozens of singable notes per octave; ET represents them all with just&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[120],"tags":[298,12,10,6],"class_list":["post-499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-justintonation","tag-book","tag-equal-temperament","tag-just-intonation","tag-untempered"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=499"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2004,"href":"https:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499\/revisions\/2004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garygarrett.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}