Q: i understand that you don't want searching for better and better sounds all the time to get in your way of just writing and recording, but don't you want to transcend a lot of cultural elements that have no distinct purpose to you that you were born into? like approximating the way notes fit together in harmony by using the equal temperament tuning? i dont mean like retune your keyboards, but when talking about microtonal music, i usually tend to think of tuning chords to the harmonic series, rather than the piano. i just hope you actively do that when you can instead of using an easier way all the time to get more content finished. after all you do seem like quite the creativity purist. hell im sure you've thought about it tho. nevermind. you don't need to respond to this im just rambling cause i get triggered when you say no to microtonal music. ur right, splitting half notes in half again doesn't really make that much sense
A: ah, you are suggesting that i pursue the 'perfect' tuning, instead of using equal temperment tuning. this sounds like a righteous idea, but i have to tell you that i embarked on a viscious mission (in about january 2011 i believe) to get to the bottom of this situation. i set out to get a perfect tuning that at least worked in 1 key. after many hours (days? i don't remember) of experimentation, what i found surprised me. you actually can't do it. even to play within 1 key, you need to compromise. let me see if i can explain it: start by tuning a C chord properly (so that the E is a true harmony with C, and the G is a true 5th from C.) So let's get our F, that's gonna be a true 5th down from C, right? now A should be a pure major third above F, for sure. and B should surely be a pure major 3rd above G. now what should D be? you would assume that it would be a pure ninth from C (i.e. the frequency times 9 and then divided back down the octaves) which is good for the G chord also because it will be a 5th away from G. looks great, so now you've got C, D, E, F, G, A, B. but what you find next might come as a shock. D minor sounds like a nightmare. because D to A is supposed to be a 5th and now it is a very very wrong 5th. because you tuned your A to be a harmonically pure major 3rd away from F. no matter how you slice it, you inevitably run into the same argument where a 3rd needs to be a purely harmonic 3rd, but also needs to be a series of 5ths. i juggled the possibilities all around for at least a day, and i was completely stunned to find out that the essence of music, and specifically the way the "secondary" notes (let's say in a major key, the secondary notes are D, F, A, and also G, and the primary notes are C,E,G. that's right, G is both, the universe is a love paradox, get used to it) the secondary notes need equal tempered tuning to work right. there are surely many different ways to look at this and i made up the primary and secondary classifications for this example, but the point is that there will always be overlap. you will never have 2 exclusive sets of notes. it stems from the fact that the D note needs to be able to relate to G, but also needs to relate to the A, but the A also needs to relate to the F, and the F also definitely needs to relate to the C. now you might say "ok, tune them differently depending on what chords you're using." but that really doesn't work right, because music needs all these notes to coexist. you're not going to just expect that Dmin and Fmaj will never need to blend together with the A held over. or that Dmin and Gmaj will never need to blend together with the D held over. At the end of this mind exploding journey, i basically found that it seems to be summed up perfectly in 2 chords. Cmaj, and like any combination of D,F,A, and G perhaps with G in the bass. in that 'secondary' chord, all in one moment, (which is the 'less' stable of the 2 chords when they are used in a musical context) that chord encapsulates the dual nature of the way these harmonies are working. is the F in that chord supposed to relate mainly to the C? or is it supposed to relate to the D in a pure minor third? and similarly, is the D supposed to relate to the G? the answer is, all 3 of these relationships are supposed to hold together. but this is mathematically impossible to happen exactly. so the entire essence of that Dmin, or 5dom7(sus if you like?) whatever, 'secondary' chord, the entire essence of that chord is that it contains different relationships that have to all sound like they work and yet they could never all 3 work exactly. the chord needs compromise in order to work. perhaps that is why it feels like the secondary chord or the 'less stable' or the 'i'm just waiting to go back to C' chord. realizing this changed me, because i was always told that equal tempered tuning was mainly used as a compromise to play in all 12 keys. but what i realized is you actually need it just to play in 1 key. like, just to play a 1 and a 2min. just to play the most basic essence of a key and have it work with itself. it really made me appreciate that 'secondary' chord (Dmin, G, etc) the D to F and the D to G relationship on kind of an earth shattering spiritual level, it's like the damn thing has heartbreak built right in. what you think you are hearing is the d to f relationship and the d to g relationship and the f to c relationthip, etc, all at the same time, when really it could never be, at least not exactly. but it is close enough to feel it. basically ever since this experiment i have had a wildly new appreciation for how and why music works, on an even more 'human' level than i expected. and i never questioned equal tempered tuning again