An Introduction to Historical

Tunings
By Kyle Gann
1. Tuning in Pre-20th Century Europe
2. Meantone Tuning
3. Werckmeister III and Bach's W.T.C.
4. Well Temperament and 18th-Century Music
5. A Word about Pythagorean Tuning
6. Conclusion
Just Intonation - a whole other subject

1. Tuning in Pre-20th Century Europe

Those who attack equal temperament, the tuning of our modern pianos - as I
do on my Just Intonation Explained page - seem to be attacking the great
European musical tradition itself. After all, the music of Bach, Mozart,
Beethoven, et al, was written for 12 equally-spaced pitches to the octave,
right? And if we change our tuning, that music would no longer be playable as
it was intended to be heard, right?

Dead wrong.

Equal temperament - the bland, equal spacing of the 12 pitches of the octave -
is pretty much a 20th-century phenomenon. It was known about in Europe as
early as the early 17th century, and in China much earlier. But it wasn't used,
because the consensus was that it sounded awful: out of tune and
characterless. During the 19th century (for reasons we'll discuss later),
keyboard tuning drifted closer and closer to equal temperament over the
protest of many of the more sensitive musicians. Not until 1917 was a method
devised for tuning exact equal temperament.

So how was earlier European music tuned? What are we missing when we
hear older music played in 20th-century equal temperament?

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2. Meantone Tuning
Let's start with Europe's most successful tuning, if endurance can be equated
with success. Meantone tuning appeared sometime around the late 15th
century, and was used widely through the early 18th century. In fact, it
survived in pockets of resistance, especially in the tuning of English organs,
all the way through the 19th century. No other tuning has survived in the west
for 400 years. Let's see what meantone offered.

Every elegant tuning has a generating principle. The generating principle

behind meantone was that it was more important to preserve the consonance
of the major thirds (C to E, F to A, G to B) than it was to preserve the purity of
the perfect fifths (C to G, F to C, G to D). There are acoustical reasons for
this, namely - though I wouldn't want to go into the math involved - that the
notes in a slightly out-of-tune third, being closer together than those in a fifth,
create faster and more disturbing beats than those in a slightly out-of-tune
fifth. (I can confirm this from experience with my own Steinway grand, which
I keep tuned to an 18th-century tuning.) The aesthetic motivation for
meantone was that composers had fallen in love with the sweetness of the
major third, and were trying to get away from the medieval austerity of open
perfect fifths.

In a purely consonant major third, the two strings vibrate at a frequency ratio
of 5 to 4. For example, if

A
vibrates at
440 cycles per second,

then

C#
vibrates at
550 cycles per second.

Or if G vibrates at 100 cycles per second, then B vibrates at 125, and so on. (If
you'd like this explained in more detail, visit my Just Intonation
Explained page.) The size of a pure 5:4 major third is 386.3 cents, a cent being
one 1200th of an octave, or one 100th of a half-step. Since an octave is 1200
cents, by definition, it is easy to see that three pure major thirds (3 x 386.3
cents = 1158.9) do not equal an octave. That's the whole problem of keyboard
tuning, where you're limited to 12 steps per octave. Where do you put the gaps
in your chains of perfect major thirds?

A pure perfect fifth is a 3 to 2 frequency ratio; if

A
 vibrates at
440 cycles per second,

then

E
vibrates at
660 cycles per second.

A pure perfect fifth should be 702 cents wide, which is just about 7/12 of an
octave; our current equal-tempered tuning accomodates perfect fifths (at 700
cents) within 2 cents, which is closer than most people can distinguish, but the
thirds (at 400 cents) are way off, and form audible beats that are ugly once
you're sensitized to hear them.

Let's look at the meantone solution. There was no one invariable meantone tuning; before the
20th century, tuning was an art, not a science, and each tuner had his own method of tuning
according to his own taste. The following is a chart of a meantone tuning defined in 1523 by
Pietro Aaron.

Pitch: C C# D Eb E F F# G G# A A# B C
Cents: 0 76.0 193.2 310.3 386.3 503.4 579.5 696.8 772.6 889.7 1006.8 1082.9 1200

(I adapt this chart, and ones following below, from an invaluable book, the
bible of historical keyboard tuning: Owen Jorgensen's Tuning: Containing the
Perfection of Eighteenth-Century Temperament, the Lost Art of Nineteenth-
Century Temperament, and the Science of Equal Temperament , Michigan State
University Press, 1991.) Now let's look at the sizes of the major thirds and perfect fifths on each
pitch:

Major third Cents Perfect Fifth Cents

C-E 386.3 C-G 696.8
Db - F 427.4 Db - Ab 696.6
D - F# 386.3 D -A 696.5
Eb - G 386.5 Eb - Bb 696.5
E - G# 386.3 E-B 696.6
F -A 386.3 F-C 696.6
F# - A# 427.3 F# - C# 696.5
G-B 386.1 G-D 696.4
Ab - C 427.4 Ab - Eb 737.7
A - C# 386.3 A-E 696.6
Bb - D 386.4 Bb - F 696.6
B - D# 427.4 B - F# 696.6

A major third and perfect fifth on the same pitch, of course, make up a major
triad, the most common chord in European music from 1500 to 1900 - the
meantone era. Let's look at what kind of major triads we have in meantone
tuning.

The major thirds that are about 386 cents wide will be sweet, consonant,
attractive. Eight pitches have virtually perfect major thirds on them - all
except Db, F#, Ab, and B, whose major thirds are all about 427 cents. A third
of 427 cents sounds like this: WAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWA...!!! and is
unusable for normal musical purposes. (Trust me on this.) All of the fifths are
about 696 cents except for one, that on Ab, which is 737 cents and sounds
terrible. The fifths would sound better at 702 cents, but at 696 or 697 you
don't really notice the difference, especially if the chord is filled in with that
perfect major third to smooth over the discrepancy. This is where the practice
originated in European music of never having an open fifth sounding by itself
without a third filling it in: the spare perfect fifth isn't quite consonant, and
that fact becomes obvious if the third isn't there.

So meantone tuning gives us eight usable major triads: on C, D, Eb, E, F, G,

A, and Bb. If you're writing a piece in meantone, those are the major triads
you have available. Look through some 16th-century keyboard music: how
many F#-major and Ab-major triads do you see? Probably none, and if you do
see some, it means the composer was counting on a meantone tuning centered
around some pitch other than C. If you want to use I, IV, and V chords in your
piece, you can write in the keys of C, D, F, G, A, or Bb major. If you're
writing in A major, you can't go to the V/V chord (B major), because it sounds
awful. Renaissance and early Baroque music tends to be in a few keys
grouped (in the circle of fifths) around C, usually C, F, G, D, Bb, or A. Ever
wonder why Palestrina and Orlando Gibbons and Heinrich Schutz didn't get
around to composing in F# major or Ab major? They couldn't, it sounded
terrible in their tuning. (There were a few purely vocal early works that went
through triads in diverse keys, such as Josquin's motet Absalon fili mi and Di
Lasso'sProphetiae sybyllarum, the tuning and even notation of which have
been subjects of much 20th-century controversy.)

Before we leave the subject of meantone, lets look at the available minor triads:

Minor third Cents Perfect Fifth Cents

C - Eb 310.3 C-G 696.8
C# - E 310.3 C# - G# 696.6
D-F 310.2 D -A 696.5
Eb - Gb 269.2 Eb - Bb 696.5
E-G 310.5 E-B 696.6
F - Ab 269.2 F-C 696.6
F# - A 310.2 F# - C# 696.5
G - Bb 310.0 G-D 696.4
G# - B 310.3 G# - D# 737.7
 A-C 310.3 A - E 696.6
Bb - Db 269.2 Bb - F 696.6
B-D 310.3 B - F# 696.6

A pure minor third is supposed to have a frequency ratio of 6:5. For example, if C# vibrates at
550 cycles per second, E should vibrate at 660. A 6:5 ratio interval is 315.64 cents wide. None
of the minor thirds in this meantone are quite that wide, but most of them are 310 cents,
which is, pardon the expression, close enough for jazz. (Actually, a narrow 7/6 minor third,
often used by La Monte Young, is 266.8 cents, invitingly close to that 269; but 7/6 is an interval
that was never recognized by European theory, though used in jazz and Arabic music among
others.) Therefore the minor triads on C, C#, D, E, F#, G, A, and B are acceptable. (Not the one
on G#, despite its OK minor third, because it has that wildly beating fifth.) If you think about it,
these triads define the relative minor of the major keys implied by the major triads above:

Major: C D Eb E F G A Bb
Minor: A B C C# D E F# G

These 16 triads, 8 major and 8 minor, constitute the harmonic vocabulary of

Renaissance and early Baroque music. Don't believe me? Look through a
16th- or 17th-century keyboard collection, such as the Fitzwilliam Virginal
Book.

One important keyboard work from the early 17th century (a real masterpiece,
in fact) is Orlando Gibbons's Lord Salisbury Pavane. It's in A minor. If you
look at it (it's in the Historical Anthology of Music), Gibbons several times
goes to the major triads on F, G, and C (which are in A natural minor), E (in
the harmonic major), and D (not in A minor). He never, however, uses a B
major (V/V) or F# major (V/ii) triad, even though V/V is not rare and V/ii not
unthinkable in a minor key. He avoids them because they don't really exist in
the tuning of his harpsichord. Had Gibbons begun in the key of C minor, he
would have had to write a different piece, because instead of moving from A
minor to F major, he would have had to move from C minor to Ab major, and
Ab major, strictly speaking, didn't exist on his harpsichord.

Because it determines what sounds good, tuning has a pervasive influence

on compositional tendencies. Every piece of pitched music is the expression
of a tuning. Meantone encouraged composers to use major and minor triads, to
avoid open perfect fifths without thirds, and to not stray more than three or
four steps in the circle of fifths away from a central key. Renaissance and
early Baroque music played in meantone sounds seductively sweet and
attractive. By playing it in modern equal temperament, we do violence to its
essential nature. Perhaps that's why this repertoire is no longer often heard. It's
been painted over with the ugly gray of equal temperament.

One last point: Why is it called meantone? Because it splits the difference on
where to place certain pitches. If C and E are tuned as a perfect major third of
386 cents, D should be tuned at 204 cents (9/8) for the key of C, but at 182
cents (10/9) for the key of D. Tuned at 193, D is right in the middle, halfway
between C and E, and halfway between the two points it needs to be in for the
various common keys; 193 is the mean between 182 and 204. Meantone
temperament sacrificed the seconds, which were mainly melodic intervals
rather than harmonic ones anyway, to achieve beautiful thirds.

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3. Werckmeister III and Bach's W.T.C.

If you are or were ever a college music student, you probably read, or were
told, that Johann Sebastian Bach wrote his collection of preludes and
fugues The Well-Tempered Clavier in all 24 major and minor keys in order to
demonstrate equal tempered tuning.

If so, you were misinformed.

Bach did not use equal temperament. In fact, in his day there was no way to
tune strings to equal temperament, because there were no devices to measure
frequency. They had no scientific method to achieve real equal-ness; they
could only approximate.

Bach was, however, interested in a tuning that would allow him the possibility
of working in all 12 keys, that did not make certain triads off-limits. He was a
master of counterpoint, and chafed and fumed when the music in his head
demanded a triad on A-flat and the harpsichord in front of him couldn't play it
in tune. (In fact, he used to torment his organ tuner by playing sour Ab-major
triads when the old man came in to work.) So he was glad to see tuners
develop a tuning that, today, is known as well temperament. Back then, they
did call it equal temperament - not because the 12 pitches were equally
spaced, but because you could play equally well in all keys. Each key,
however, was a little different, and Bach wrote The Well-Tempered Clavier in
all 24 major and minor keys in order to capitalize on those differences, not
because the differences didn't exist.

In any case (according to Jorgensen), the error that Bach wrote the W.T.C. in
order to take advantage of what we call equal temperament crept into the
1893 Grove Dictionary, and has since been uncritically taught as fact to
millions of budding musicians. Lord knows how long it will take to get that
error out of the universities. It's still in all kinds of reference books.

The theorist who came up with the easiest way to tune the kind of well
temperament Bach needed was the German organist Andreas Werckmeister
(1645-1706), whose most famous tuning, dating from 1691, is known as
Werckmeister III. A table for Werckmeister III is as follows:

Pitch: C C# D Eb E F F# G G# A A# B C
Cents 90.22 192.1 294.13 390.22 498.04 588.2 696.0 792.1 888.2 996.0 1092.1 120
0
: 5 8 5 5 5 7 9 8 7 9 8 0

Notice that we've moved considerably closer to equal temperament; no pitch is more than 12
cents off. The following perfect fifths are 3/2 ratios of 701.955 cents each: Gb - Db - Ab - Eb - Bb
- F - C, as well as A - E - B. The Pythagorean comma is distributed among the remaining fourths,
C - G - D - A and B - F#, each of which is 696.09 cents. Let's look at the triads we now have on
each pitch, organized for clarity's sake following the circle of fifths:

Major third Cents Perfect Fifth Cents Minor third Cents

C-E 390.225 C-G 696.09 C - Eb 294.135
G-B 396.09 G-D 696.09 G - Bb 300.0
D - F# 396.09 D -A 696.09 D-F 305.865
A - C# 401.955 A-E 701.955 A-C 311.73
E - G# 401.955 E-B 701.955 E-G 305.865
B - D# 401.955 B - F# 696.09 B-D 300.0
F# - A# 407.82 F# - C# 701.955 F# - A 300.0
Db - F 407.82 Db - Ab 701.955 C# - E 300.0
Ab - C 407.82 Ab - Eb 701.955 G# - B 300.0
Eb - G 401.955 Eb - Bb 701.955 Eb - Gb 294.135
Bb - D 396.09 Bb - F 701.955 Bb - Db 294.135
F -A 390.225 F-C 701.955 F - Ab 294.135

As you look down the columns, you can get an idea of the quality of each
triad. Note that no perfect fifth is narrower than 696 cents, nor wider than 702;
this is what renders all 12 (or 24 keys) usable. The closest major thirds to
perfect are C-E and F-A. G-B, D-F#, and Bb-D are each 396.09 cents, still
sweeter than equal temperament. A-C#, E-G#, and Eb-G are around 401 cents,
close to equal temperament; they therefore have a rather bland, neutral quality.
The major thirds on F#, Db, and Ab are 408 cents wide, the same size as in
Pythagorean tuning (for which, see below), and not very attractive. Again, the
best minor triads are grouped around A minor, with the minor third A-C, at
312 cents, coming closest to the optimum of 316 cents.

So what is the effect of Werckmeister III? Can the ear really hear a difference
from equal temperament?

I've done experiments with students at Bard and Bucknell, playing preludes
from the W.T.C. in different keys on a sampled piano tuned to Werckmeister
III; say, playing the C major prelude in B, C, and D (computer-sequenced, so
that the quality of the transposed performances wasn't a factor). Especially at
Bard, the students could invariably pick which was the appropriate key
for each prelude. In keys with poor consonances, like F# major, Bach will
pass quickly by the major third, and the slight touches of dissonance give the
prelude a bright, sparkly air. In more consonant keys, as in the C major
prelude, the tonality is much more mellow, and Bach can afford to dwell on
the tonic triad. Each key has a different color (as opposed to the uniform color
of all keys in equal termperament), and even (or especially!) the unpracticed
ear can hear appropriate and inappropriate correspondences between the
character of each prelude and the color of each key. Of course, there are
preludes that sound fine in more than one key; but it's disconcerting to move a
prelude to a distant key, such as from Bb to B, or C# minor to Eb minor.

Playing Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier in today's equal temperament is like

exhibiting Rembrandt paintings with wax paper taped over them.

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4. Young's Well Temperament and Classical-Era Music

I keep my own grand piano tuned to Thomas Young's well temperament of
1799. Some synthesizers offer an alternate temperament called Vallotti-Young;
the Young referred to is Thomas Young (not, of course, La Monte). Jorgensen
considers Young's Well Temperament to be the most elegant well
temperament, with a fluid variety of tonal colors and a symmetry that matches
the piano keyboard: all intervals are symmetrical around D and G# - that is,
D-F# and D-Bb are the same size, G#-F# and Ab-Bb the same size, and so on.
The chart is as follows:

Pitch: C C# D Eb E F F# G G# A A# B C
Cents: 0 93.9 195.8 297.8 391.7 499.9 591.9 697.9 795.8 893.8 999.8 1091.8 1200

This is even closer to equal temperament; even so, when I switched to it, my
piano tuner had to return twice within two months before it began to stabilize.
(You'd be surprised how exactly your piano's soundboard can remember a 6-
cent difference.) Let's look at the quality of the triads:

Major third Cents Perfect Fifth Cents Minor third Cents

C-E 391.7 C-G 697.9 C - Eb 297.8
G-B 393.9 G-D 697.9 G - Bb 301.9
D - F# 396.1 D -A 698 D-F 304.1
A - C# 400.1 A-E 697.9 A-C 306.2
E - G# 404.1 E-B 700.1 E-G 310.3
B - D# 406 B - F# 700.1 B-D 304
F# - A# 407.9 F# - C# 702 F# - A 301.9
Db - F 406 Db - Ab 701.9 C# - E 297.8
Ab - C 404.2 Ab - Eb 702 G# - B 296
 Eb - G 400.1 Eb - Bb 702 Eb - Gb 294.1
Bb - D 396 Bb - F 700.1 Bb - Db 294.1
F -A 393.9 F - C 700.1 F - Ab 295.9

This is a subtle tuning, quite usable in all keys, and the differences from equal
temperament are more evident to the pianist playing in it than to the listener.
The best major thirds are grouped in the circle of fifths around C-E, whereas
the perfect fifths become more perfect in the black keys, which all have fifths
of 702 cents. This gives the keys related to C a sweet, gentle quality, the
black-note keys an austere, noble quality, and middle keys like Eb and A a
neutral, ambiguous quality.

Certain keys are warmer than others; F# minor, for instance, imparts a lush
quality to the slow movement of the Hammerklavier Sonata. Db major is
surprising, almost too harsh, and if I happen to play Db and F alone on the
keyboard the buzzy beats make me jump as though I had played a wrong note.
I'm surprised, when I play the slow movement of
Beethoven's Appassionata Sonata that he chose this bright key for such a
mellow movement. (It makes me wonder if his deafness made him forget
about the varying qualities of the keys.)

Nineteenth-century musicians used to argue about what colors the various

keys represented; whether Eb major was gold, for example, and D major red.
Twentieth-century musicians have dismissed such arguments as sentimental
nonsense, but when you play 19th-century music in well temperament, you
begin to hear the differences of color. Is it far-fetched to suggest that Mozart
and Beethoven wrote keyboard music with certain key-colors in mind, and
that we miss subtle but pervasive qualities in the music when we homogenize
it into equal temperament?

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5. A Word about Pythagorean Tuning

Before the advent of meantone tuning, the French academy at Notre Dame (13th and 14th
centuries) followed a medieval tradition since Boethius (4th century) in decreeing that only a
series of perfect fifths could make up a scale; their ratio was 3/2, and 3, after all, was the
perfect number, connoting the Trinity among other things. Thus the Pythagorean scale is a just-
intonation scale on a series of perfect fifths, all the ratio numbers powers of either 3 or 2:

Pitch: C C# D Eb E F F# G G# A A# B C
2187/204 32/2 81/6 729/51 128/8 27/1 243/12
Ratios: 1/1 9/8 4/3 3/2 16/9 2/1
8 7 4 2 1 6 8
203. 996.
Cents: 0 113.7 294.1 407.8 498 611.7 702 792.2 905.9 1109.8 1200
9 1
This was an appropriate scale for a music in which perfect fifths and fourths
were the overwhelmingly dominant sonority, and in which the pitches C#, F#,
and G# hardly appeared if at all. Though used, the thirds were theoretical
dissonances, and therefore avoided at final cadences: the major third, 81/64,
was 408 cents wide, and the minor third, 32/27, 294 cents. As Margo Schulter
has convincingly written me, however, those wide thirds do provide a
compelling pull to the perfect fifths they usually resolve outward to; that is, in
a cadence typical of Guillaume de Machaut (c. 1300-1377), a D and F# 408
cents apart will move outwardly to C and G. Gradually, especially under the
English influence of John Dunstable and others, the thirds began to be
redefined as 5-related intervals, 5/4 and 6/5, precipitating the necessity of
meantone tuning and a revolution in musical style that led to the Renaissance.
Since equal temperament has close-to-perfect fifths (700 cents compared to a
perfect 702), much music written in Pythogorean tuning doesn't fare too badly
in equal temperament. The Hilliard Ensemble observes Pythagorean tuning in
its recordings of the Machaut Notre Dame Mass (Hyperion) and the organum
of Perotin (ECM).

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6. Conclusion
I wish I could offer a wider disography of recordings in historical tunings.
Luckily, a few recordings in documented historical temperaments have
appeared in the last few years:

Enid Katahn, piano; Edward Foote, piano tuner: Beethoven in the

Temperaments - Gasparo GSCD-332 (Moonlight Sonata, theWaldstein, and
the Pathetique in late-18th-century temperaments)

Enid Katahn, piano; Edward Foote, piano tuner: Six Degrees of

Tonality - Gasparo GSCD-344 (Scarlatti, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Chopin,
Grieg, in a variety of meantone and well temperaments)

J.S. Bach: Well Tempered Clavier, Robert Levin, keyboards - Hanssler

116 (in Werckmeister temperament)

And Francis Markey has written from Uppsala, Sweden, to tell me that many
recordings of Renaissance-and-earlier brass music are played in just
intonation. The same is more or less true, of course, of many string quartet
recordings and old-fashioned barbershop quartets. Then, there are the Hilliard
Ensemble recordings in Pythagorean tuning given above. It may be that some
of the many original-practice harpsichord recordings and European organ
recordings use meantone. I haven't run into any that document their tuning.
This whole subject has been so well hidden by the universities and musical
authorities that very few musicians even realize how arbitrary, recent, and
misleading our current universal tuning is. I was introduced to the subject by
pianist Phillip Bush, who played a concert in New York a few years ago
featuring Renaissance music in meantone and Beethoven in well
temperament. For those further interested, I highly recommend Owen
Jorgensen's four-inch thick Tuning compendium (Michigan State University
Press, 1991). And I hope this will spark some interest that will lead to further
experiments in reclaiming the original beauty of Europe's musical past.

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Copyright 1997 by Kyle Gann

Just Intonation Explained

By Kyle Gann
1. How Fractions Denote Pitches
2. How to Play with Intervals
3. How Is This Different from Our Normal Tuning?
4. What Does Music in Pure Intervals Sound Like?
An Introduction to Historical Tunings - a whole other subject
Anatomy of an Octave: a reference chart of several hundred intervals within
an octave
My Idiosyncratic Reasons for Using Just Intonation (as opposed to high-
number equal temperaments)

1. How Fractions Denote Pitches

In the notation of just-intonation (pure) tuning, pitches are given as fractions,
which are actually ratios between the named pitch and a constant fundamental.
For example, if C is the reference pitch (if we're in the "key of C"), then

C
is denoted as
1/1.

Any C in the scale can then be denoted as 1/1. Or, the C an octave above a
particular C can be denoted as 2/1, since a 2-to-1 ratio between frequencies is
an octave.
In order to define pitches by fractions, some arbitrary pitch needs to be
defined as 1/1. E-flat can be 1/1, or F-sharp, or A-flat - it doesn't matter. For
now, we'll use 1/1 = C.

These ratios are always ratios between the rate of vibration of two tones. For
example,

if one pitch vibrates at 200 cycles per second,

and another pitch vibrates at 400 cycles per second,
then the two pitches make an octave, the most basic of musical intervals.
We can call the first, lower pitch 1/1, and the second, higher pitch 2/1.

(An interval is simply the distance between any two pitches in perceived
pitch-space.)

The confusing thing for most people is that fractions denoting octaves are
equivalent. That is, 1/1 is the same pitch as 2/1, and also the same pitch as 4/1.
We're used to eight different keys on the piano all being called by the same
letter - C - but we're not used to fractions behaving this way: 1/1 = 2/1 = 4/1.
In just intonation, that's the way it is. Fractions in tuning are usually written in
such a way as to bring them between 1/1 and 2/1, multiplying or dividing by 2
when necessary. That is,

the fractions 3/4 and 7/2

will usually be written as
3/2 and 7/4,
because those fractions are equivalent by multiplication by 2,
and the latter pair are between 1/1 and 2/1.

For many people, this is the hardest aspect of tuning theory: getting used to
the idea that

5/12 = 5/6 = 5/3 = 10/3 = 20/3

If one pitch vibrates at 200 cycles per second and another at 300 cycles per
second, we have a 3/2 ratio. This is what musicians commonly call a "perfect
fifth": C to G. If we are in the key of C, then

1/1 denotes C,
and
3/2 denotes G.

The ratio 3/2 simply means that one pitch vibrates 3/2 as fast (three halves as
fast) as the other.
The fraction or ratio 5/4 gives us what musicians call a "major third," that is, E in the key of C.
(The E string vibrates 5/4 as fast as the C string.) Notes that have these simple arithmetical
relationships sound good (consonant) together; the ear registers their harmoniousness.
("Harmony" and "arithmetic" are derived from the same root.) Ever since Ptolemy in the
second century A.D., our major scale has been an approximation of the following ratios:

C D E F G A B C
1/1 9/8 5/4 4/3 3/2 5/3 15/8 2/1

Listen to the scale here

Whenever you sing "Way down upon the Swanee River" - E D C E D C C' A
C' - your voice and ear are unconsciously measuring these ratios to the tonic
pitch: 5/4, 9/8, 1/1, 5/4, 9/8, 1/1, 2/1, 5/3, 2/1, and so on. Didn't know your ear
could calculate exact ratios between frequencies, did you? It can, with
astonishing accuracy.

Naturally, there are an infinite number of fractions, and every single fraction between 1/1 and
2/1 pinpoints a potential note in a scale. For example, we could expand Ptolemy's scale above
to complete a chromatic scale of 12 pitches:

C C# D Eb E F F# G Ab A Bb B C
1/1 16/15 9/8 6/5 5/4 4/3 45/32 3/2 8/5 5/3 9/5 15/8 2/1

Although 12 is something of a natural limit for the number of pitches in an octave, it is by no

means sacrosanct. A virtual infinity of other pitches is possible, and many are in common use in
non-Western musics (and increasingly, in American music as well), such as 9/7, 21/16, 7/6, 7/4,
11/8, 243/128, and so on and so on and so on. In 1588, in an attempt to have a wide range of
chords perfectly in tune, Gioseffo Zarlino designed a harpischord on the following model, with
16 pitches per octave:

C C# D- D Eb- Eb E F F#- F# G G# A Bb- Bb B C

1/1 25/24 10/9 9/8 32/27 6/5 5/4 4/3 25/18 45/32 3/2 25/16 5/3 16/9 9/5 15/8 2/1

Listen to the scale here

This is somewhat similar in concept to my own tuning for my synthesizer

piece Fractured Paradise. It has been the intention of many recent composers,
my teacher Ben Johnston included, to pick up tuning experimentation again at
the point it was dropped around 1600. Johnston's notation of microtones
begins with the 16th-century Italian definitions of intervals and continues
from there.

(Return to top menu).

2. How to Play with Intervals

How can we tell what kind of interval a fraction designates?

Scientists have devised a standard unit for measuring the size of perceived
intervals resulting from two frequencies vibrating at a given ratio. This unit is
called a cent because it equals 1/100th of a half-step. A half-step is the
smallest interval between two notes on the piano. There are 12 half-steps in an
octave, and so one octave = 1200 cents. By definition.

This means that all of our normal intervals on the modern piano are divisible
by 100 cents. For example, what musicians call a

half-step (C up to Db) = 100 cents

whole step (C to D) = 200 cents
minor third (C to Eb) = 300 cents
major third (C to E) = 400 cents
perfect fourth (C to F) = 500 cents
augmented fourth (diminished fifth, C to F#) = 600 cents
perfect fifth (C to G) = 700 cents
minor sixth (C to Ab) = 800 cents

You can figure out the rest.

There is a rather complicated formula for figuring out how many cents large
an interval is:

Divide 1200 by the logarithm of 2.

If you use base 10 logarithms (any base is permitted), 1200/log 2 =
3986.3137...
For any ratio n/p,
the number of cents in the interval is

log (n/p) x 1200/log 2

If you're using log 10, then

cents = log (n/p) x 3986.3137...

Using this formula, we can obtain the following interval sizes:

16/15 = 111.73... cents

9/8 = 203.91 cents
8/7 = 231.17... cents
7/6 = 266.87... cents
6/5 = 315.64... cents
11/9 = 347.4... cents
5/4 = 386.31... cents
9/7 = 435.08... cents
 1323/1024 = 443.52... cents
21/16 = 470.78... cents
4/3 = 498 cents
7/5 = 582.51... cents
3/2 = 702 cents

And so on, and so on. (Find a reference chart of several hundred intervals
within an octave, given with ratios and cents, at Anatomy of an Octave.)

The smaller the numbers in an interval's ratio, the more consonant (sweet-
sounding) it is, and the more useful it is for purposes of musical intelligibility.
(There are times, of course, when unintelligibility is desirable.) The most
consonant interval besides the unison (1/1) is the octave (2/1), next the perfect
fifth (3/2), then the perfect fourth (4/3 - even though European music long
treated this interval as a dissonance), then the major sixth (5/3), then the major
third (5/4), minor third (6/5), and so on. (6/4, of course, reduces to 3/2.)

Using slightly larger numbers, we get a variety of interval sizes among pitches whose ratios are
still simple enough to learn to hear. For instance, here is a series of major seconds, ranging
from one a quarter-tone flat to one a sixth-tone sharp:

Ratio: 11/10 10/9 9/8 8/7

Cents: 165 182 204 231

Click here to listen

Likewise, there are several simple thirds, ranging from a bitterly narrow 7/6 minor third to a
"normal" 6/5 minor third to an "undecimal" (11-related) "neutral" third (in-between major and
minor) of 11/9, to a normal major third of 5/4, to a wide 9/7 major third:

Ratio: 7/6 6/5 11/9 5/4 9/7

Cents: 267 316 347 386 435

Click here to listen

Notice that the two 7-related thirds, 7/6 and 9/7, are at 267 cents and 435 cents
- each of them about a third of a half-step away from 12-pitch equal
temperament. This means that dividing your octave into 36 equal steps will
accommodate a lot of 7-related intervals. Also notice that the 11-related
intervals, like 11/10 and 11/9, are very close to quarter-tones. A quarter-tone
scale allows for close approximations of a lot of 11-related intervals.

Here is a sequence of fourths leading into tritones and then fifths, actually the
same sequence I use as drones in the Battle Scene of Custer and Sitting Bull:

Ratio: 21/16 4/3 27/20 11/8 7/5 10/7 16/11 40/27 3/2
 Cents: 470.8 498.0 519.6 551.3 582.5 617.5 648.7 680.5 702.0

Click here to listen

By the way, it's really not so difficult to learn to recognize these intervals by
ear. When I first started out with this in 1984, I would tune a synthesizer to the
intervals I wanted to learn - I started out contrasting 10/9 and 9/8 - and then let
the intervals run in a loop on tape (later computer-sequenced) as I was going
about my daily business, letting myself pick up the differences in character
with my peripheral hearing. Today, if I'm composing in just intonation and I
accidentally use a pitch as much as five cents off from the one I wanted, I
catch the mistake by ear almost immediately - because I recognize that
the character of the interval is not the one I wanted. (And no, I don't have
perfect pitch.)

So what about the larger numbers, like 1323/1024 and 243/128? Why do such
intervals exist at all?

Usually because they are derived intervals that are useful for modulating to
different tonics, or transposing chords. I'll explain in a roundabout way:

Another of the biggest mental blocks for people starting out with tuning
theory is that, to add two intervals together, you have to multiply their
ratios. For example,

a major third (5/4) plus a minor third (6/5)

does not equal
5/4 + 6/5 (which would be 49/20)

a major third (5/4) plus a minor third (6/5)

equals
5/4 x 6/5 = 6/4 = 3/2,
which is a perfect fifth.

a major third plus a major third equals

5/4 x 5/4,
which equals
25/16 - an augmented fifth of 772.63... cents

In just intonation, an augmented fifth is a different interval from a minor sixth.

A minor sixth is

a perfect fourth plus a minor third, or

4/3 x 6/5,
 which equals 24/15 = 8/5:
a minor sixth of 813.69... cents.

Here's a demonstration of how different 25/16 is from 8/5

So, for some musical purposes, we might want a pure minor seventh of

7/4

And above that 7/4 we might want to have a perfect fifth available:

7/4 x 3/2 = 21/8 = 21/16

Remember, we want to multiply or divide by 2 when necessary to get our

fraction between 1/1 and 2/1. And above that 21/16, we might want a whole
step:

7/4 x 3/2 x 9/8 = 189/64 = 189/128

That's a simple harmonic structure, but already the numbers are getting pretty
big. And the most complex number in La Monte Young's The Well-Tuned
Piano, 1323/1024, is the result of taking a minor seventh

7/4

and the going up another minor seventh

7/4 x 7/4 = 49/16 = 49/32

and then going up a perfect fifth

7/4 x 7/4 x 3/2 = 147/32 = 147/128

and then going up two more perfect fifths

7/4 x 7/4 x 3/2 x 3/2 x 3/2 = 1323/128 = 1323/1024

That's not a very complicated musical relationship for a composer to think in,
but the numbers get complicated if you're trying to think of it in just
intonation. And actually, that pitch is the least often used in The Well-Tuned
Piano, and doesn't appear on the recorded version at all.

(Return to top menu).

3. Why Is This Different from Our Normal Tuning?

You've probably noticed that, while the intervals on our modern piano are all
divisible by 100 cents - 200 cents, 300, 400.... - none of the above intervals is
divisible by 100. Two of them are close: 4/3 (498 cents) and 3/2 (702 cents)
are very close to 500 and 700, which are divisible by 100. 9/8 (204 cents) is
almost as close.

Our modern system of tuning, called equal temperament, is a compromise. We

divide the octave into 12 equal intervals not because it sound better that way - it doesn't at all,
it's slightly buzzy with audible beating between sustained pitches - but so we can transpose any
music to any key. To see why just intonation makes transposition and modulation difficult (at
least within the confines of a 12-pitch keyboard), let's look again at Ptolemy's major scale, with
each note's cents-distance from the tonic filled in (rounded off to the nearest cent):

Pitch: C D E F G A B C
Ratio: 1/1 9/8 5/4 4/3 3/2 5/3 15/8 2/1
Cents: 0 204 386 498 702 884 1088 1200

You can play this scale here

That's a fine scale for playing in the key of C. The major third above C is 386 cents, the perfect
fifth is 702 cents - it'll sound great. But let's move to the key of D and recalculate the intervals
in cents above D:

Pitch: C D E F G A B C
Ratio to C: 1/1 9/8 5/4 4/3 3/2 5/3 15/8 2/1
Ratio to D: 8/9 1/1 10/9 32/27 4/3 40/27 5/3 16/9
Cents: -204 0 182 294 498 680 884 996

You can play this scale, from D to D, here

The perfect fifth from D to A is now only 680 cents wide instead of an
optimum 702, and it sounds awful. You may have noticed it has a wow-wow-
wow growl to it, which you can hear in isolation here, that explains why such
fifths have always been called "wolf" intervals. (Here you can hear it
contrasted with a simpler 3/2 fifth.) You might occasionally want that sound
for a scary moment, but you generally can't use it as a point of stability. In
addition, the D-to-F interval is 32/27 (294 cents) instead of an optimum 6/5
(316 cents), so that minor third will sound a little pinched and harsh as well. A
keyboard tuned perfectly to C like this will sound lovely as long as you don't
venture beyond the I, IV, and V chords of C (C, F, and G major triads), but the
minute you try a ii chord (D) you're in trouble, as you can hear in the twangy
fifth chord of this chord progression (which would sound even worse on an
acoustic piano). And as for playing in more distant keys like A-flat and E
major and F# - forget it.

So we compromise. We jiggle all of the pitches around until all the perfect
fifths are equal, all 700 cents, which after all is pretty close to 702. All the
major thirds, though, are 400 cents instead of 386, which is pretty sharp. We
don't notice how bad our major thirds sound because our culture has been
awash in equal-tempered intervals since the turn of the last century. We grow
up desensitized to the buzz that equal-tempered intervals make, a buzz you
can hear quite clearly by sitting at a piano and playing two low-register notes
an octave and a major third apart, or a major sixth apart. (Those are
particularly obvious examples. In fact, piano tuners count the beats per second
in those intervals to tell when they've tuned a piano "correctly.")

Many recent composers have come to feel that the compromise of equal
temperament was a mistake. They feel that the musical logic of moving from
any key to any other key became a priority at the expense of music's sonic
sensuousness. Harry Partch was the first such composer. He defined his own
scale with 43 pitches to the octave, and invented his own instruments to play
it. Lou Harrison was the next major figure to abandon equal temperament; he
has used many tunings taken from Indonesian gamelans, and also, in his Piano
Concerto, returned to an almost-pure tuning called Kirnberger II from the 18th
century. Other composers to work in pure tuning (just intonation) include
Partch's protegeBen Johnston (my teacher), La Monte Young, Terry
Riley, Pauline Oliveros, James Tenney, Rhys Chatham, Glenn Branca (in
his middle symphonies, Nos. 3, 4, and 5), Ben Neill, Dean Drummond, and
myself (Kyle Gann).

(Return to top menu).

4. What Does Music in Pure Intervals Sound Like?

One of the most exotic scales any major piece of music has ever been based
on is that of La Monte Young's The Well-Tuned Piano, given here:

Notes: Eb E F F# G G# A Bb B C C# D
Ratios: 1/1 567/512 9/8 147/128 21/16 1323/1024 189/128 3/2 49/32 7/4 441/256 63/32
Cents: 0 177 204 240 471 444 675 702 738 969 942 1173

Listen to the scale here

Here is a quiet, transitional excerpt from the piece that uses a variety of the
intervals offered.

Here's an excerpt, the first minute, from Ben Johnston's Suite for Microtonal
Piano (1977), in which the piano is entirely tuned to overtones of C. You can
clearly hear the 11th harmonic halfway between F and F#, and the 31-cent
"flat" seventh harmonic. The scale is as follows:

Notes: C C# D Eb E F F# G Ab A Bb B
 Ratios: 1/1 17/16 9/8 19/16 5/4 21/16 11/8 3/2 13/8 27/16 7/4 15/8
Cents: 0 105 203.9 297.5 386.3 470.8 551.3 702 840.5 905.9 968.8 1088.3

Here's an excerpt from the final scene of my Custer and Sitting Bull, based on
a 31-pitch scale over a G drone. Voice-leading in tiny increments, especially
in the part of the scale from A up to D, is clearly audible.

I've had interesting experiences playing just-intonation music for non-music-

major students. Sometimes they will identify an equal-tempered chord as
"happy, upbeat," and the same chord in just intonation as "sad, gloomy." Of
course, this is the first time they've ever heard anything but equal
temperament, and they're far more familiar with the first sound than the
second. But I think they correctly hit on the point that equal temperament
chords do have a kind of active buzz to them, a level of harmonic excitement
and intensity. By contrast, just-intonation chords are much calmer, more
passive; you literally have to slow down to listen to them. (As Terry Riley
says, Western music is fast because it's not in tune.) It makes sense that
American teenagers would identify tranquil, purely consonant harmony as
moody and depressing. Listening from the other side, I've learned to hear
equal temperament music as a kind of aural caffeine, overly busy and nervous-
making. If you're used to getting that kind of buzz from music, you feel the
lack of it as a deprivation when it's not there. But do we need it? Most cultures
use music for meditation, and ours may be the only culture that doesn't. With
our tuning, we can't.

My teacher, Ben Johnston, was convinced that our tuning is responsible for
much of our cultural psychology, the fact that we are so geared toward
progress and action and violence and so little attuned to introspection,
contentment, and acquiesence. Equal temperament could be described as the
musical equivalent to eating a lot of red meat and processed sugars and
watching violent action films. The music doesn't turn your attention inward, it
makes you want to go out and work off your nervous energy on something.

On a more subtle level, after I've been immersed in just intonation for a couple
of weeks, equal temperament music begins to sound insipid, bland, colorless.
There are only eleven types of intervals available instead of the potential
several dozen that exist in even the simplest just system, and you don't get
gradations of different sizes of major third or major sixths the way you do in
just tuning. On a piano in just intonation, moving from one tonic to another
changes the whole interval makeup of the key, and you get a really specific,
visceral feel for where you are on the pitch map. That feeling disappears in
bland, all-keys-the-same equal temperament. As a composer, I enjoy having
the option, if I'm going to use a minor third interval, of being able to choose
among the 7/6, 6/5, 19/16, and 11/9 varieties, each with its own individual
feeling.
Far beyond the mere theoretical purity, playing in just intonation for long
periods sensitizes me to a myriad colors, and coming back to the equal
tempered world is like seeing everything click back into black and white. It's a
disappointing readjustment. Come to think of it, maybe you shouldn't try just
intonation - you'll become unfit to live in the West, and have to move to India
or Bali.

Does this sound like I have a problem with European music? I don't at all. My
complaint is with the bland way in which European and American musics are
currently tuned. In fact, before the 20th century, European music had its own
wonderful non-equal-tempered tunings, which unfortunately we've
abandoned. To read about them, go to my Introduction to Historical
Tunings page.

(Return to top menu).

In a moment, as promised, some recordings of just-intonation works. But first,

some

Tuning Charts for Kyle Gann's music:

Solitaire
Cinderella's Bad Magic
Triskaidekaphonia (Tuning Study No. 6)
Charing Cross (Tuning Study No. 8)
New Aunts (Tuning Study No. 9)
The Day Revisited
Love Scene for string quartet
Custer: "If I Were an Indian..."
Sitting Bull: "Do You Know Who I Am?"
Sun Dance / Battle of the Greasy Grass River
Custer's Ghost to Sitting Bull
How Miraculous Things Happen (Tuning Study No. 4)
Fugitive Objects (Tuning Study No. 7)
Fractured Paradise (Tuning Study No. 3)
Superparticular Woman (Tuning Study No. 1)
Ghost Town
Arcana XVI (Tuning Study No. 5)

Hear audio samples of some of these just intonation works.

Selected Just Intonation Discography

La Monte Young: The Well-Tuned Piano - Young, piano; Gramavision, 18-
8701-2 (five CDs).

La Monte Young: Just Stompin' (Young's Dorian Blues in G) - Forever Bad

Blues Band; Gramavision R2 79487

Terry Riley: The Harp of New Albion - Riley, piano; Celestial Harmonies
CEL 018/19 (two CDs).

Terry Riley: Shri Camel (Anthem of the Trinity; Celestial Valley; Across the
Lake of the Ancient Word; Desert of Ice) - Riley, just-intonation organ; CBS
MK 35164.

Ben Johnston: Suite for Microtonal Piano, Sonata for Microtonal

Piano, Saint Joan - Phillip Bush, piano; Koch International Classics 3-7369-
2-H1.

Ben Johnston: String Quartet No. 9 - Stanford String Quartet; Laurel LR-
847CD.

Ben Johnston: Suite for Microtonal Piano - Robert Miller, piano; New
World Records, 80203-2.

Toby Twining: Chrysalid Requiem - Toby Twining Music; Cantaloupe CA

21007

Lou Harrison: Piano Concerto - Keith Jarrett, piano; Naoto Otomo

conducting the New Japan Philharmonic; New World NW 366-2.

Michael Harrison: From Ancient Worlds - Harrison, piano; New Albion NA

o42 CD.

Michael Harrison: Revelation - Harrison, piano; Michael Harrison Music

MHM 101

Ben Neill: Green Machine - Neill, trumpet (with computer electronics);

Astralwerks asw 6159-2.

David B. Doty: Uncommon Practice - Syntonic SN63:32.

Brian McLaren: Undiscovered Worlds - MRS CD 029.

Brian McLaren: Music from the Edge, Volume 2 - MRS CD 017.

Kyle Gann: The Day Revisited on Private Dances, New Albion NA 137
Kyle Gann: Custer's Ghost - Monroe Street msm 60104.

Kyle Gann: Ghost Town - New Tone nt 6730.

Copyright 1997 by Kyle Gann

My Idiosyncratic Reasons for Using Just

Intonation
By Kyle Gann
Definitions:

Just Intonation: the practice of choosing pitches

according to whole-number ratios between frequencies,
almost necessarily resulting in scales with unequal scale steps.

Equal Temperament: the practice of dividing the octave

into an equal number of parts, or of making up a scale
from equal-sized steps.

I'm a great fan of both just intonation and various equal temperaments.
Personally, I vastly prefer composing in just intonation, but I am thrilled by
the sound of a lot of music that uses equal temperaments of more than 12
pitches per octave. Artists have to use materials with which they can feel
comfortably creative: for me, that's the ratios of just intonation, but for many
other people, equal scale steps are easier to negotiate. Both are valid, and the
results can sometimes even be practically indistinguishable.

However, microtonal musicians who use equal temperaments often express an

unfortunate assumption about composers who use just intonation: that just
intonationists have some kind of quasi-religious faith in the "purity" of whole-
number-ratio-based intervals. They point out that, for instance, a major third
of 379 cents, such as is found in 19-tone equal temperament, is "close
enough" to a pure 5/4 major third of 386 cents to be indistinguishable in
normal contexts. So they think that nature-worshipping just intonationists go
to absurd lengths to be mathematically accurate beyond the ear's capacity to
care, and that we do so in search of pure, beatless consonances - and that
consequently we apparently like our music all simple and pretty and full of
major triads and uninteresting. (Just intonationists have no complementary
complaint about equal temperaments, as far as I know.)

These ridiculous fallacies come up so frequently that I, as a composer

associated with just intonation, have decided to post an answer to them here
(originally written for the tuning list), in hopes that equal-temperament
microtonalists will have to think twice before tarring us all with the same
brush.

For anyone, no matter whom, to make the assumption that composers who use
just intonation do so from a desire to hear pure, beatless intervals, and only for
that reason, would be presumptuous and naive. For instance, I use just
intonation with synthesizers, and not very sophisticated ones at that. I am
under no illusion that I am going to get beatless consonance. I usually can't
even get a single beatless tone. I've written just-intonation pieces on an Akai
sampler with only a 6-cent resolution and been happy as a clam. I think the
only composer who is really looking for perfectly beatless consonances is La
Monte Young, and he has an extreme synthesizer, extreme ears, and extreme
patience. I don't.

But while I don't insist on pure beatless consonances, I do prefer composing in

just intonation to any equal temperament, no matter how finely divided, for
the following reasons:

1. To give me approximations of the harmonics I want, an equal-tempered

scale would have to have more pitches than I can handle. I have never
succeeded in finishing a piece with more than 31 pitches in it. I don't see how
Partch kept 43 pitches in his head. To get the accuracy I need for 7th and 11th
harmonics, I need to be able to have pitches as close as 15 cents apart. To use
an equal-tempered scale that would give me pitches that close would require
more than 60 pitches per octave, and I only have 128 pitches in my MIDI
controls and 61 keys on my keyboard. Just intonation gives me criteria for
choosing only the pitches I need and leaving out all the rest.

2. I like, and in fact compose according to, the harmonic implications of

fractions and ratios. I like knowing, when I use a 21/16 interval, that the
upper pitch is an implied seventh harmonic of the dominant of the lower pitch.
I like the way a 7/6 minor third not only has a different flavor than a 6/5, but
also a different implied set of related pitches, so that it suggests ways to
harmonize it. I like the way the numbers keep every pitch related to every
other one in the system via a series of implied, interconnected harmonic
series'. The higher the numbers, the more exotic the pitch seems. That's an
interesting thing to work with compositionally. No matter how dissonant and
atonal you get, the gravitational pull of 1/1 keeps you oriented to a fixed point
in the universe.

3. I have never liked the concept of transposability, which is considered

by many the primary virtue of equal temperaments. I don't like the way
(and noticed this even as a child), in some of Mozart's piano sonatas, the
second theme sounds so perfectly placed as to register in the exposition, and
then when it's transposed a fourth up or a fifth down in the recap, it doesn't
sound as good. I've always instinctively agreed with Dane Rudhyar that to
transpose a sonority is to diminish its absolute value as a sonic phenomenon
and reduce it to a set of relationships. Igor Stravinsky said something nearly
identical in his Conversations: "It is very important to me to remember the
pitch of the music at its first appearance: if I transpose it for some reason I am
in danger of losing the freshness of first contact and I will have difficulty in
recapturing its attractiveness." Even within the classical tradition, I tend to
prefer composers who do not transpose material (Satie) to those who
transpose all over the place (Schoenberg). Therefore, the universal
transposability of sonorities in an equal-tempered scale holds no charms for
me. It is actually a deficit. I trust I will not be begrudged a position that
Stravinsky and I hold in common.

4. Relatedly, I like having different-sized intervals available on different

scale steps. It makes the scale have a "natural" feel to me, like I'm carving a
gnarly piece of wood instead of in smooth, mass-produced plastic. The
material gives me feedback: I run up against things I can't do, keys I can't
modulate to, and composing becomes a dialogue between me and the scale. I
enjoy that. (In fact, I find that if I can set up an elegant, asymmetrical scale to
begin with, the piece almost writes itself.) Perhaps I would also enjoy a
nonequal, non-just-intonation scale, but I wouldn't know how to start making
one. And why would I try?

5. For me the great thing about just intonation is not that everything is
consonant and beats don't exist, but that you have a tremendous range
from having no beats at all to extreme WOWOWOWOWOW beat
conglomerations. It's not that I dislike the buzziness of out-of-tune intervals,
but I want to be able to control that buzziness, and have it only when I intend
it as part of the musical effect - not pop up quasi randomly and without
expressive intent, as it does in the out-of-tune major thirds and sixths of the
normally tuned piano. I frequently use intervals like 40/27 to get beats,
deliberately. Ben Johnston's music is often based around moving gradually
from extreme consonance to extreme out-of-tuneness, and it's an amazing
effect - I try to get the same thing in, for instance, the "Battle" scene of
my Custer and Sitting Bull. Nevertheless, the fact that even my simple
consonances are not exactly perfect on my synthesizers has never once
bothered me. I live in the real world, where nothing is perfect.

6. I have a tremendous natural talent for fractions and logarithms. It

would be a shame to waste it. I warn my students that if they don't have a
good head for fractions and logarithms they should leave just intonation alone.
It's not for everyone.
7. Not least, I am building on the work of six composers whose music I
deeply love: Harry Partch, Ben Johnston, Terry Riley, James Tenney, Lou
Harrison, and La Monte Young. All of them use(d) just
intonation (although Lou and Jim are variable, sometimes using equal or
historical temperaments). I don't know of any other microtonalists working in
any other kinds of scales whose music I love nearly so much. I'm fond of the
19-tone, 24-tone, 34-tone, 36-tone, and 72-tone musics of Ivan
Wyschnegradsky, Julian Carillo, Alois Haba, Ezra Sims, Neil Haverstick, and
others, but while I get a kick from the pitch relationships, I don't have as deep
an affection for the music itself - I thrill to its frisson of weirdness, but don't
find it as moving as Johnston's Fourth String Quartet, or Partch's Barstow, or
Young's The Well-Tuned Piano. I harbor no theory as to why all my favorite
microtonal music seems to be in just intonation - possibly just a coincidence.
But I wouldn't start working in 72-tone or any other equal temperament unless
I first heard some music in that scale that blew me away, in emotional as well
as technical terms.

8. Also, Ben Johnston developed a very logical, harmonically meaningful

notation for just intonation, and I find it an easy notation to think in. Equal
temperament notations I've seen (Easley Blackwood's, for instance) have less
harmonic relevance, and contain an element of arbitrariness; besides which,
one has to switch among different notations for different divisions of the
octave. In Ben's notation I can have five pitches to the octave or 500, and use
the same accidentals either way.

Beats, schmeats - it's not so much the purity of sound I get from just
intonation as the creative influence of thinking in ratios that I treasure (along
with the variety of interval sizes, of course). Some hot-shot who's figured out
that 137 pitches per octave is the perfect equal division will harangue me that
my music could be redone in a 137-equal scale and I'd never be able to tell the
difference, and maybe he's right - but I would never have written the piece the
way I did thinking in 137 equal steps. (I do, however, enjoy being told that by
adding lots more pitches, I could approximate what I've already got exactly.)
You can't just ignore the impact that how you define your materials has on the
creative process. Just intonation, for me, represents the ability to use every
note with an intense awareness of its harmonic interconnectedness with every
other note. The theoretical harmonic purity of numerical relationships is the
basis of that interconnectedness, but the ultimate sonic manifestation does not
have to be pure for the composing process to have the intensity I love about it.
As Ben always says, "Better to have a perfect model and get an imperfect
realization of it, than to have an imperfect model to begin with." Or as Charles
Ives asked, "What has sound got to do with music?"

I don't proselytize for just intonation. Everyone who likes working in equal
temperaments should continue doing so. I have nothing against equal
temperaments 19 and over - they're just inefficient for my purposes. I don't
imagine I could be very creative in an expanded equal temperament, just as I
imagine a lot of composers would have trouble being creative within masses
of fractions. I'm glad other composers are exploring equal temperaments, and
I follow their results with eager curiosity. May a hundred thousand scales
flourish. And may the equal temperament people leave us just intonationists to
our preferred way of composing without further caricature.

Kyle Gann
June, 2004

Copyright, Kyle Gann, 2004

Return to Just Intonation Explained

Anatomy of an Octave
Below, for the reference of tuning enthusiasts, is a table of more than 700
pitches within an octave. The table contains all pitches that meet any one of
the following six criteria:

All ratios between whole numbers 32 and lower

All ratios between 31-limit numbers up to 64 (31-limit meaning that the
numbers contain no prime-number factors larger than 31)
Harmonics up to 128 (each whole number divided by the closest inferior
power of 2)
All ratios between 11-limit numbers up to 128
All ratios between 5-limit numbers up to 1024
Certain historically important ratios such as the schisma and Pythagorean
comma

The table is similar to, but much briefer

than, that found in Alain Danielou's
encyclopedic but long out-of-
print Comparative Table of Musical
Intervals.
Ratio: Cents Name (if any)
1/1 0.000 tonic
32805/32768 1.954 schisma (3 to the 8th/2 to the 12th x 5/8)
126/125 13.795
121/120 14.367
100/99 17.399
99/98 17.576
81/80 21.506 syntonic comma
531441/524288 23.460 Pythagorean comma (3 to the 12th/2 to the 19th)
65/64 26.841 65th harmonic
64/63 27.264
63/62 27.700
58/57 30.109
57/56 30.642
56/55 31.194 Ptolemy's enharmonic
55/54 31.767
52/51 33.617
51/50 34.283
50/49 34.976
49/48 35.697
46/45 38.051 inferior quarter-tone (Ptolemy)
45/44 38.906
128/125 41.059 diminished second (16/15 x 24/25)
525/512 43.408 enharmonic diesis (Avicenna)
40/39 43.831
39/38 44.970 superior quarter-tone (Eratosthenes)
77/75 45.561
36/35 48.770 superior quarter-tone (Archytas)
250/243 49.166
35/34 50.184 E.T. 1/4-tone approximation
34/33 51.682
33/32 53.273 33rd harmonic
32/31 54.964 inferior quarter-tone (Didymus)
125/121 56.305
31/30 56.767 superior quarter-tone (Didymus)
30/29 58.692
29/28 60.751
57/55 61.836
28/27 62.961 inferior quarter-tone (Archytas)
80/77 66.170
27/26 65.337
26/25 67.900 1/3-tone (Avicenna)
51/49 69.259
126/121 70.100
25/24 70.672 minor 5-limit half-step
24/23 73.681
117/112 75.612
23/22 76.956
67/64 79.307 67th harmonic
22/21 80.537 hard 1/2-step (Ptolemy, Avicenna, Safiud)
21/20 84.467
81/77 87.676
20/19 88.801
256/243 90.225 Pythagorean half-step
58/55 91.946
135/128 92.179 limma ascendant
96/91 92.601
19/18 93.603
55/52 97.104
128/121 97.364
18/17 98.955 E.T. half-step approximation
2 to the 1/12th 100.000 equal-tempered half-step
89/84 100.099 ET half-step approximation
35/33 101.867
52/49 102.876
86/81 103.698
17/16 104.955 overtone half-step
33/31 108.237
49/46 109.377
16/15 111.731 major 5-limit half-step
31/29 115.458
77/72 116.234
15/14 119.443 Cowell just half-step
29/27 123.712
14/13 128.298
69/64 130.229 69th harmonic
55/51 130.721
27/25 133.238 alternate Renaissance half-step
121/112 133.810
13/12 138.573 3/4-tone (Avicenna)
64/59 140.828
38/35 142.373
63/58 143.159
88/81 143.498
25/23 144.353
62/57 145.568
135/124 147.143
49/45 147.428
12/11 150.637 undecimal "median" 1/2-step
59/54 153.307
35/32 155.140 35th harmonic
23/21 157.493
57/52 158.940
34/31 159.920
800/729 160.897
56/51 161.915
11/10 165.004
54/49 168.213
32/29 170.423
21/19 173.268
31/28 176.210
567/512 176.646
51/46 178.636
71/64 179.697 71st harmonic
10/9 182.404 minor whole-tone
49/44 186.334
39/35 187.343
29/26 189.050
125/112 190.115
48/43 190.437
19/17 192.558
160/143 194.468
28/25 196.198
121/108 196.771
55/49 199.980
2 to the 1/6th 200.000 equal-tempered whole-tone
64/57 200.532
9/8 203.910 major whole-tone
62/55 207.404
44/39 208.835
35/31 210.104
26/23 212.253
112/99 213.598
17/15 216.687
25/22 221.309
58/51 222.667
256/225 223.463
33/29 223.696
729/640 225.416
57/50 226.841
73/64 227.789 73rd harmonic
8/7 231.174 septimal whole-tone
63/55 235.104
55/48 235.677
39/34 237.527
225/196 238.886
31/27 239.171
147/128 239.607
169/147 241.449
23/20 241.961
2187/1900 243.545
38/33 244.240
144/125 244.969 diminished third (6/5 x 24/25)
121/105 245.541
15/13 247.741
52/45 250.304
37/32 251.344 37th harmonic
81/70 252.680
125/108 253.076
22/19 253.805
51/44 255.592
196/169 256.596 consonant interval (Avicenna)
29/25 256.950
36/31 258.874
93/80 260.677
57/49 261.816
64/55 262.368
7/6 266.871 septimal minor third
90/77 270.080
75/64 274.582 augmented second (9/8 x 25/24)
34/29 275.378
88/75 276.736
27/23 277.591
20/17 281.358
33/28 284.447
46/39 285.792
13/11 289.210
58/49 291.925
45/38 292.711
32/27 294.135 Pythagorean minor third
19/16 297.513 overtone minor third
2 to the 1/4th 300.000 equal-tempered minor third
25/21 301.847
31/26 304.508
105/88 305.777
55/46 309.357
6/5 315.641 5-limit minor third
77/64 320.144 77th harmonic
35/29 325.562
29/24 327.622
75/62 329.547
98/81 329.832
121/100 330.008
23/19 330.761
63/52 332.208
40/33 333.041
17/14 336.130
243/200 337.148
62/51 338.125
28/23 340.552
39/32 342.483 39th harmonic
128/105 342.905
8000/6561 343.301
11/9 347.408 undecimal "median" third
60/49 350.617
49/40 351.338
38/31 352.477
27/22 354.547
16/13 359.472
79/64 364.537 79th harmonic
100/81 364.807
121/98 364.984
21/17 365.825
99/80 368.914
26/21 369.747
57/46 371.194
31/25 372.408
36/29 374.333
56/45 378.602
96/77 381.811
8192/6561 384.360 Pythagorean "schismatic" third
5/4 386.314 5-limit major third
64/51 393.090
49/39 395.169
44/35 396.178
39/31 397.447
34/27 399.090
2 to the 1/3rd 400.000 equal-tempered major third
63/50 400.108
121/96 400.681
29/23 401.303
125/99 403.713
24/19 404.442
512/405 405.866
62/49 407.384
81/64 407.820 Pythagorean major third
19/15 409.244
33/26 412.745
80/63 413.578
14/11 417.508
51/40 420.597
125/98 421.289
23/18 424.364
32/25 427.373 diminished fourth
41/32 429.062 41st harmonic
50/39 430.145
77/60 431.875
9/7 435.084 septimal major third
58/45 439.353
49/38 440.139
40/31 441.278
31/24 443.081
1323/1024 443.517
128/99 444.772
22/17 446.363
57/44 448.150
162/125 448.879
35/27 449.275
83/64 450.047 83rd harmonic
100/77 452.484
13/10 454.214
125/96 456.986 augmented third (5/4 x 25/24)
30/23 459.994
64/49 462.348
98/75 463.069
17/13 464.428
72/55 466.278
55/42 466.851
38/29 467.936
21/16 470.781 septimal fourth
46/35 473.135
25/19 475.114
320/243 476.539
29/22 478.259
675/512 478.492
33/25 480.646
45/34 485.286
85/64 491.269 85th harmonic
4/3 498.045 perfect fourth
2 to the 5/12ths 500.000 equal-tempered perfect fourth
75/56 505.757
51/38 509.397
43/32 511.518 43rd harmonic
121/90 512.412
39/29 512.905
35/26 514.612
66/49 515.621
31/23 516.761
27/20 519.551
23/17 523.319
42/31 525.745
19/14 528.687
110/81 529.812
87/64 531.532 87th harmonic
34/25 532.328
49/36 533.742
15/11 536.951
512/375 539.104
26/19 543.015
63/46 544.462
48/35 546.815
1000/729 547.211
11/8 551.318 undecimal tritone (11th harmonic)
62/45 554.812
40/29 556.737
29/21 558.796
112/81 561.006
18/13 563.382
25/18 568.717 augmented fourth (4/3 x 25/24)
89/64 570.880 89th harmonic
32/23 571.726
39/28 573.657
46/33 575.001
88/63 578.582
7/5 582.512 septimal tritone
108/77 585.721
1024/729 588.270 low Pythagorean tritone
45/32 590.224 high 5-limit tritone
38/27 591.648
31/22 593.718
55/39 595.149
24/17 597.000
Square root of 2 600.000 equal-tempered tritone
99/70 600.088
17/12 603.000
44/31 606.282
125/88 607.623
27/19 608.352
91/64 609.354 91st harmonic
64/45 609.776 low 5-limit tritone
729/512 611.730 high Pythagorean tritone
57/40 613.154
77/54 614.279
10/7 617.488 septimal tritone
63/44 621.418
33/23 624.999
56/39 626.343
23/16 628.274 23rd harmonic
36/25 631.283 diminished fifth (3/2 x 24/25)
121/84 631.855
49/34 632.696
13/9 636.618
81/56 638.994
55/38 640.119
42/29 641.204
29/20 643.263
45/31 645.188
93/64 646.991 93rd harmonic
16/11 648.682
51/35 651.771
729/500 652.789
35/24 653.185
19/13 656.985
375/256 660.896
22/15 663.049
47/32 665.507 47th harmonic
72/49 666.258
25/17 667.672
81/55 670.188
28/19 671.313
31/21 674.255
189/128 674.691
34/23 676.681
40/27 680.449 dissonant "wolf" 5-limit fifth
46/31 683.239
95/64 683.827 95th harmonic
49/33 684.379
52/35 685.388
58/39 687.095
125/84 688.160
112/75 694.243
121/81 694.816
2 to the 7/12ths 700.000 equal-tempered perfect fifth
3/2 701.955 perfect fifth
121/80 716.322
50/33 719.354
97/64 719.895 97th harmonic
1024/675 721.508
44/29 721.741
243/160 723.461
38/25 724.886
35/23 726.865
32/21 729.219
29/19 732.064
84/55 733.149
55/36 733.722
26/17 735.572
75/49 736.931
49/32 737.652 49th harmonic
23/15 740.006
192/125 743.014 diminished sixth (8/5 x 24/25)
20/13 745.786
77/50 747.516
54/35 750.725
125/81 751.121
17/11 753.637
99/64 755.228 99th harmonic
48/31 756.919
31/20 758.722
45/29 760.674
14/9 764.916 septimal minor sixth
120/77 768.125
39/25 769.855
25/16 772.627 augmented fifth
36/23 775.636
11/7 782.492 undecimal minor sixth
63/40 786.422
52/33 787.255
101/64 789.854 101st harmonic
30/19 790.756
128/81 792.180 Pythagorean minor sixth
49/31 792.616
405/256 794.134
19/12 795.558
46/29 798.697
100/63 799.892
2 to the 2/3rds 800.000 equal-tempered minor sixth
27/17 800.910
62/39 802.553
35/22 803.822
51/32 806.910 51st harmonic
8/5 813.686 5-limit minor sixth
6561/4096 815.640 Pythagorean "schismatic" sixth
77/48 818.189
45/28 821.398
103/64 823.801 103rd harmonic
29/18 825.667
50/31 827.592
121/75 828.053
21/13 830.253
55/34 832.676
34/21 834.175
81/50 835.193
125/77 838.797
13/8 840.528 overtone sixth
57/35 844.328
44/27 845.453
31/19 847.523
80/49 848.662
49/30 849.383
18/11 852.592 undecimal "median" sixth
105/64 857.095 105th harmonic
64/39 857.517
23/14 859.448
51/31 861.875
400/243 862.852
28/17 863.870
33/20 866.959
38/23 869.239
81/49 870.168
48/29 872.378
53/32 873.505 53rd harmonic
58/35 874.438
63/38 875.223
128/77 879.856
107/64 889.760 107th harmonic
5/3 884.359 5-limit major sixth
57/34 894.513
52/31 895.492
42/25 898.153
121/72 898.726
2 to the 3/4ths 900.000 equal-tempered major sixth
32/19 902.487
27/16 905.865 Pythagorean major sixth
49/29 908.075
22/13 910.790
39/23 914.208
56/33 915.553
17/10 918.642
109/64 921.821 109th harmonic
46/27 922.409
75/44 923.264
29/17 924.622
128/75 925.418 diminished seventh (16/9 x 24/25)
77/45 929.920
12/7 933.129 septimal major sixth
55/32 937.632 55th harmonic
31/18 941.126
441/256 941.562
50/29 943.050
19/11 946.195
216/125 946.924
121/70 947.496
45/26 949.696
26/15 952.259
111/64 953.299 111th harmonic
125/72 955.031 augmented sixth (5/3 x 25/24)
33/19 955.760
40/23 958.039
54/31 960.829
96/55 964.323
110/63 964.896
7/4 968.826 septimal minor seventh
58/33 976.304
225/128 976.537
51/29 977.333
44/25 978.691
30/17 983.313
113/64 984.215 113th harmonic
99/56 986.402
23/13 987.747
62/35 989.896
39/22 991.165
55/31 992.596
16/9 996.090 Pythagorean small min. seventh
57/32 999.468 57th harmonic
2 to the 5/6ths 1000.000 equal-tempered minor seventh
98/55 1000.020
25/14 1003.802
34/19 1007.442
52/29 1010.950
88/49 1013.666
115/64 1014.588 115th harmonic
9/5 1017.596 5-limit large minor seventh
56/31 1023.790
38/21 1026.732
29/16 1029.577 29th harmonic
49/27 1031.787
20/11 1034.996
51/28 1038.085
729/400 1039.103
31/17 1040.080
42/23 1042.507
117/64 1044.438 117th harmonic
64/35 1044.860
4000/2187 1045.256
11/6 1049.363 undecimal "median" seventh
90/49 1052.572
57/31 1054.432
46/25 1055.647
81/44 1056.502
35/19 1057.627
59/32 1059.172 59th harmonic
24/13 1061.427
50/27 1066.762
63/34 1067.780
13/7 1071.702
119/64 1073.781 119th harmonic
54/29 1076.288
28/15 1080.557
58/31 1084.542
15/8 1088.269 5-limit major seventh
62/33 1091.763
32/17 1095.045
49/26 1097.124
66/35 1098.133
2 to the 11/12ths 1100.000 equal-tempered major seventh
17/9 1101.045
121/64 1102.636 121st harmonic
125/66 1105.668
36/19 1106.397
256/135 1107.821
55/29 1108.054
243/128 1109.775 Pythagorean major seventh
19/10 1111.199
 40/21 1115.533
61/32 1116.885 61st harmonic
21/11 1119.463
44/23 1123.044
23/12 1126.319
48/25 1129.328
121/63 1129.900
123/64 1131.017 123rd harmonic
25/13 1132.100
77/40 1133.830
52/27 1134.663
27/14 1137.039 septimal major seventh
56/29 1139.249
29/15 1141.308
60/31 1143.233
31/16 1145.036 31st harmonic
64/33 1146.727
33/17 1148.318
243/125 1150.834
35/18 1151.230
39/20 1156.169
125/64 1158.941 augmented seventh (15/8 x 25/24)
88/45 1161.094
45/23 1161.949
96/49 1164.303
49/25 1165.024
51/26 1166.383
108/55 1168.233
55/28 1168.806
57/29 1169.891
63/32 1172.736 63rd harmonic
160/81 1178.494
99/50 1182.601
125/63 1186.205
127/64 1186.422 127th harmonic
2/1 1200.000 octave

Copyright, Kyle Gann, 1998

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