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Hey - I'm not off-pitch. That's just intonation! ;-)

Posted by Chris from Lafayette (A) on November 13, 2011 at 13:04:32

In Reply to: As someone who was told he has perfect pitch and is a singer I find 'equal temperament' to be just plain WRONG posted by Timbo in Oz on November 13, 2011 at 02:29:42:

While I (and I think most here) would agree with you that equal temperament is a compromise, I think it's a very GOOD compromise.

Choral singing, even by so-called "professional" choirs is often the weakest element of a performance. You talk as if the pitch of certain choirs is so finely tuned that that they can make a distinction between equal and various non-equal temperaments. While that may be true in certain limited instances, VERY very few choirs are able to keep from drifting off-pitch in a noticeable way, even on some studio recordings. (I'm talking unaccompanied choral singing here.) This is a GROSS phenomenon compared to the differences in pitch associated with equal vs. non-equal temperament. For a particularly offensive example of drifting off pitch, listen to some of the tracks from this album:



In addition, if you're talking about a work such as the WTC, with its modulations to other, sometimes distant, keys, I feel that these key changes can sound pretty ghastly when played in a non-equal temperament system. And where do these wonderful tuning ratios go in the distant keys? They're LOST of course!

Finally, if you look at Bach's preferred instrument for the WTC, which, as some scholars argue, is the clavichord, that's an instrument that can go out of tune at the drop of a hat! Why are we even making a fetish of various tuning systems when other pitch problems are so gross in comparison?

As for Stanford, c'mon Timbo, admit it: you LOVE "The Bluebird"! ;-)

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