Talk:Just intonation

message: There seems to be a lot here that isn't to do with Just Intonation itself. Why is Phythagorian tuning here? Why is there 20th Century stuff? This might be helpful *context* for Just Intonation, but this isn't explained and is frankly confusing.
I don't see any mention of Mersenne, Zarlino and so on who discussed these things quite a long time ago and should presumably be definitive sources...
A look in Groves' (at Just Intonation, and Temperament) might help quite a lot here. Sorry I don't have time to take this on myself.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.1.250.30 (talk) 14:39, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Hello. I've just made some improvements and one or two corrections here. Harry Partch was a modern champion of just tuning, worth a link and mention I would have thought. I'll be back. Thelisteninghand (talk) 14:39, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

text: Something I feel like is worth noting is that, although Pythagorean tuning is technically equivalent to 3-limit JI, it has different goals behind it, at least in almost every presentation of it I've ever encountered. (I have multiple academic sources on hand that actually contrast what they call "Pythagorean tuning" and "just intonation," not treating one as part of the other at all—one even treats them as kind of opposite.) My understanding is that the point of Pythagorean tuning is so that you have maximally in-tune fifths (wolf aside), despite what it does to the major thirds. This comes from a historical perspective that puts the fifth significantly higher than the major third in consonance, which constrasts with modern sensibilities. JI, as I understand it, is more about having your tuning closely approximate the harmonic series "overall," at least for the lower harmonics (with whatever value of "lower" the composer prefers). Those who are partisan to JI often argue for its superiority based on its stronger consonances compared to equal temperaments, and it would be kind of strange to prefer Pythagorean tuning on that basis, since its thirds are more out-of-tune than in 12-TET. Because of this, it doesn't surprise me that I haven't usually seen Pythagorean tuning referred to as a kind of JI outside of this article and the Xenharmonic wiki. It's not wrong to do so per se, at least for a certain formulation of JI, but it seems strange to me to simply say that and not give more historical context beyond noting that Pythagorean tuning is very old; it kind of gives the impression that JI is "timeless," which I feel is pouring old wine into new bottles a bit. (The Online Etymology Dictionary gives the earliest usage of "just" in a musical sense as 1850, which is also around the time that the modern interest in and controversy over JI began.) I'd really like it if the "History" section here made all of this more clear, and in some ways the whole presentation of JI's development and goals throughout the article. Mesocarp (talk) 18:37, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Just to be sure, reading over this now I worry it comes off as a bit anti-JI. I'm not at all (I love Harry Partch's music for example) and don't see any reason why anyone should even stick to a single tuning system or anything; I just wish there was more context given for the ideas, which I think would benefit everyone. Mesocarp (talk) 20:04, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scope? Accuracy?