Notes+W3D1+(Tuning+Schemes,+Pitch+Systems)

====I suggested that we think of Pythagorean Tuning (PT), Just Intonation (JI), and Equal Temperament (ET), not at the level at which they //differ//, but at the higher level at which they are just "variations on a theme." All three can be thought of as just different __tuning schemes__ for the same underlying __pitch system__, a system of twelvefold octave division that is, for better or worse, built into many – most? – of our musical instruments. Some tuning schemes are better suited for some instruments, others for other instruments, but ultimately, they can all play the same music together, so can't we all just get along? Or more seriously, doesn't this suggest that describing what is going on with pitch systems in terms of ratios is operating //at the wrong level of description//? [More on this later in the quarter.] ====

====The instruments that are not constrained in this way, such as human voices and (fretless) stringed instruments, can be used to investigate issues in intonation choice, the surface scratched by the Rakowski (1990) study [**Possible Project Here - PPH]. One might, I hinted, go about this in a way that was less "interval-centric" than the way Rakowski did. But ultimately it's a good thing that "tuning theorists" don't try to legislate performance practice ... no wonder performers hate theorists who do this – how imperialistic! Let the performer – and the perceiver – tell //us// what's "in tune"; //we// shouldn't be telling //them//. ====