some of the results of using equal temperament

Using equal temperament results in many artifacts. Here are some of them.

tuning a guitar

• if you play guitar, you may have noticed that if you tune the strings so that the guitar sounds good when you play the E chord, the C chord won't sound in tune. That's because it isn't.
• if you then tune the guitar so the C chord sounds good, the E chord will sound out of tune
• that's because when you tune a guitar so that a particular chord will sound in tune, you are tuning using the just intonation system.
  • when you tune the strings so that the C chord sounds 'right', you're tuning the guitar to the key of C
  • when you tune the strings so that the E chord sounds 'right', you're tuning the guitar to the key of E

unaccompanied vocal music

• many people have noticed that there is something very different about unaccompanied vocal music
  • this difference is just intonation, which sounds different only because we hear equal tempered music most of the time
  • when people sing together without using a piano or organ or synthesizer or guitar, they uncounsciously tune their voices in just intonation

music accompanied by a drone

• many kinds of traditional music use, as the only pitched accompaniment, a drone
• a drone is scale step 1 of the natural scale, played either continuously or repetitively
• examples
  • bagpipe music
    • one or more of the pipes never changes pitch
    • music from India, the Middle East and the Balkans
  • when musicians sing against a drone, they unconsciously tune their voices in just intonation
  • instruments used in these traditions are tuned to the natural scale

bending the strings of a guitar

• when guitar players bend the strings of their guitar, they unconsciously tune to just intonation

consonance/dissonance in just intonation vs. equal temperament

Western music in the modern period is the only music anywhere at any time that has not used just intonation.