Re: [Harp-L] tuning

["Vern Smith" <jevern@xxxxxxx>]

jim.alciere@xxxxxxxxx asks:
> If the band tunes to a tuner, am I more apt to be in tune 
> with the band
> using just or equal tuning?

You are more apt to be in tune with the band using equal 
tuning, especially if the band includes keyboard and fretted 
instruments.

I understand it this way:

Just tuning is key-specific.  A just tuned instrument will 
sound great and have sweet chords in only one key. Diatonic 
harps are cheap enough to have one just-tuned in every key. 
Most other instruments are not.

All instruments with fixed notes (harmonica, keyboard, etc.) 
must use equal temperament if they play in different keys 
without retuning. (Some singers retune their guitars before 
every song.)

Violins and human voices do not have fixed notes so the 
players and singers can play/sing in just intonation, 
provided there is no instrument with fixed notes involved. 
That is why a-capella voices and all-string ensembles sound 
so great.  You can't get the same sweet, just chords that a 
barbershop quartet does in various keys with fixed-note 
instruments.

In equal tining, all of the notes fall on ratios of the 
twelfth-root of  two.   In this sense, the notes are evenly 
spaced.
The notes of the just scale are not evenly spaced. 
Therefore if you adjust the instrument to accommodate this 
uneven spacing and move the starting point of the scale to 
another note on the instrument (another key), the adjusted 
notes will be slightly wrong.

Although it doesn't sound as good, equal temperament is the 
compromise price we pay for playing in different keys with 
fixed-note instruments.

Vern