Whynotmicrotonality: Difference between revisions

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: This revision was by author [[User:clumma|clumma]] and made on <tt>2012-12-11 16:28:30 UTC</tt>.<br>

: The original revision id was <tt>~~391344296~~</tt>.<br>

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==5. The costs and limitations==

You hear a lot of enthusiastic jibber-jabber about how microtonality can "liberate" you from the tyranny of 12-TET. Well, part of that liberation is being "liberated" from access to a wide variety of instruments and other musical equipment. Once you go micro, you are consigning yourself to using only custom-made or retunable instruments, which represent only a small fraction of what's available at your average music store. You may find that most of the instruments you already own are suddenly completely useless to you as a microtonalist. Get ready to $pend $pend $pend! Or, do what most do, and resign yourself to using cheesy-sounding freely-~~availble~~ synths. The majority of microtonal music out there is made with sub-standard production values, just because that's what's available.

You hear a lot of enthusiastic jibber-jabber about how microtonality can "liberate" you from the tyranny of 12-TET. Well, part of that liberation is being "liberated" from access to a wide variety of instruments and other musical equipment. Once you go micro, you are consigning yourself to using only custom-made or retunable instruments, which represent only a small fraction of what's available at your average music store. You may find that most of the instruments you already own are suddenly completely useless to you as a microtonalist. Get ready to $pend $pend $pend! Or, do what most do, and resign yourself to using cheesy-sounding freely-available synths. The majority of microtonal music out there is made with sub-standard production values, just because that's what's available.

As a microtonal guitarist, my guitars cost double what a 12-TET guitar costs, because I had to pay for custom fretboards for all of them. This usually meant buying cheap guitars made with cheap pickups and cheap woods...so ultimately, I paid MORE for a lower-quality instrument. Lots of people opt to do their own fretwork because of this, but this usually results in poor-quality fretwork, because fretwork is hard and really needs special training. Most of the people who build their own instruments just don't end up building very high-quality instruments, and the music that results tends to reflect that. And remember, time and money you spend on making an instrument compatible with your chosen tuning is time and money NOT spent on, y'know, studio equipment, amps, effects, production value, etc.

Line 44:

If you consider the 19-odd-limit as the upper cutoff for chord consonance (which is, by most accounts, as high as most people want to go), 12-TET is pretty tough to beat. You get harmonics 2, 3, 5, 9, 15, 17, and 19--only 7, 11, and 13 are missing, though it's arguable that even 7 (and its attendant ratios) is on the radar, being only about 30 cents off from Just. If you want to add any of the missing harmonics without sacrificing those already present, it's not until you get to 24-ET that this is possible.

You also get many of the best 5-limit temperaments--meantone, srutal, augmented, diminished, injera, schismatic, passion, and ripple. The harmonic relationships are simple--three 5/4's, four 6/5's, six 9/8's, and twelve 3/2's each get you back to your starting note, so you don't have any long chains of intervals to keep track of or navigate. This often ~~meanst~~ that instruments designed for 12-TET are easier to learn and play than instruments designed for other tunings; in the case of the guitar this is particularly true, as it is quite a bit more difficult, at least conceptually, for most players to master competitive ETs (19, 22, 31, etc.) with the same fluency and command they have in 12-ET.

You also get many of the best 5-limit temperaments--meantone, srutal, augmented, diminished, injera, schismatic, passion, and ripple. The harmonic relationships are simple--three 5/4's, four 6/5's, six 9/8's, and twelve 3/2's each get you back to your starting note, so you don't have any long chains of intervals to keep track of or navigate. This often means that instruments designed for 12-TET are easier to learn and play than instruments designed for other tunings; in the case of the guitar this is particularly true, as it is quite a bit more difficult, at least conceptually, for most players to master competitive ETs (19, 22, 31, etc.) with the same fluency and command they have in 12-ET.

Furthermore, the harmonic improvements afforded by ETs like 19, 22, and 31 in the 5-limit are actually quite modest, and rarely of noticeable significance in the idioms of popular music. In classical idioms, it's already common-practice (at least among horns, winds, and strings) to intone 12-TET closer to adaptive JI, so a more accurate ET is moot. Really, it is only in the realms of keyboard or synthesized classical music that the harmonic improvements can be appreciated enough to make it worth the trouble. But even then, many musicians who have undergone extensive ear training will actually find the "purer" intervals of 19, 22, and 31 to sound out-of-tune. It is not uncommon for listeners to find (near-)beatless harmonies to sound "cold" and "static", and these listeners won't appreciate the sounds of the more accurate ETs.

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==In conclusion==

I don't expect to deter any enthusiasts or change the minds of current community members. But the negative aspects of microtonality are real, and need to be acknowledged. People entering the field need to be aware of them, and need to thing good and hard about whether the rabbit-hole is actually appealing enough to justify the sacrifices that will be made.</pre></div>

I don't expect to deter any enthusiasts or change the minds of current community members. But the negative aspects of microtonality are real, and need to be acknowledged. People entering the field need to be aware of them, and need to thing good and hard about whether the rabbit-hole is actually appealing enough to justify the sacrifices that will be made.

----

=Critical reaction to the foregoing by Carl Lumma=

//"Tuning doesn't make as much difference as you'd think"//

...If you start with unreasonable expectations. Such as the expectation that refining one's control of intonation will "automatically" reveal "new compositional approaches" or allow one to "lead a revolution".

//"If anyone tells you that ETs all have distinct moods and personalities that are totally unlike anything found in 12-TET, this person has drank the kool-aid..."//

This would follow from evidence that people can't distinguish ETs, not from the evidence claimed, which is that people can't **identify** ETs. Many music fans can't identify scales or functional progressions in 12-ET, either. Is this an argument that all music could be I-V-I in 12-ET and it would make no difference?

//"The best microtonal musicians--the ones with the most commercial success--are those who keep a very healthy distance between themselves and the community."//

Music isn't for talking. Plenty of musicians visit microtonal forums to share recordings -- what else? Theory works with talking, but it isn't music and there's only so much of two subjects a person can master. At least one artist did manage to understand and apply all major xenharmonic theory concepts though: Jason Yerger. Other theory-heavy successes include Kraig Grady, Marcus Hobbs, Ben Johnston, and Harry Partch. And serious theorists like Graham Breed have produced very listenable tracks.

It's generally acknowledged that anyone hoping to achieve commercial success with music in today's climate is facing an uphill battle, and that this goes double for anyone walking off the beaten path.

//"...the fact of the matter is the microtonal community is desperate for music, and will laud output of any quality."//

True, but I think it has more to do with maintaining congeniality in a community of people with very different musical backgrounds than with desperately encouraging composers to use microtonal tunings.

//"12-TET is actually and objectively the best ET"//

Also probably true but it is not **so much better** than alternatives as to warrant **exclusive use**.

</pre></div>

<h4>Original HTML content:</h4>

<div style="width:100%; max-height:400pt; overflow:auto; background-color:#f8f9fa; border: 1px solid #eaecf0; padding:0em"><pre style="margin:0px;border:none;background:none;word-wrap:break-word;width:200%;white-space: pre-wrap ! important" class="old-revision-html"><html><head><title>whynotmicrotonality</title></head><body><h1 id="toc0"><a name="Why You Shouldn't Get Into Microtonality"></a>Why You Shouldn't Get Into Microtonality</h1>

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<h2 id="toc5"><a name="Why You Shouldn't Get Into Microtonality-5. The costs and limitations"></a>5. The costs and limitations</h2>

<br />

You hear a lot of enthusiastic jibber-jabber about how microtonality can &quot;liberate&quot; you from the tyranny of 12-TET. Well, part of that liberation is being &quot;liberated&quot; from access to a wide variety of instruments and other musical equipment. Once you go micro, you are consigning yourself to using only custom-made or retunable instruments, which represent only a small fraction of what's available at your average music store. You may find that most of the instruments you already own are suddenly completely useless to you as a microtonalist. Get ready to $pend $pend $pend! Or, do what most do, and resign yourself to using cheesy-sounding freely-~~availble~~ synths. The majority of microtonal music out there is made with sub-standard production values, just because that's what's available.<br />

You hear a lot of enthusiastic jibber-jabber about how microtonality can &quot;liberate&quot; you from the tyranny of 12-TET. Well, part of that liberation is being &quot;liberated&quot; from access to a wide variety of instruments and other musical equipment. Once you go micro, you are consigning yourself to using only custom-made or retunable instruments, which represent only a small fraction of what's available at your average music store. You may find that most of the instruments you already own are suddenly completely useless to you as a microtonalist. Get ready to $pend $pend $pend! Or, do what most do, and resign yourself to using cheesy-sounding freely-available synths. The majority of microtonal music out there is made with sub-standard production values, just because that's what's available.<br />

<br />

As a microtonal guitarist, my guitars cost double what a 12-TET guitar costs, because I had to pay for custom fretboards for all of them. This usually meant buying cheap guitars made with cheap pickups and cheap woods...so ultimately, I paid MORE for a lower-quality instrument. Lots of people opt to do their own fretwork because of this, but this usually results in poor-quality fretwork, because fretwork is hard and really needs special training. Most of the people who build their own instruments just don't end up building very high-quality instruments, and the music that results tends to reflect that. And remember, time and money you spend on making an instrument compatible with your chosen tuning is time and money NOT spent on, y'know, studio equipment, amps, effects, production value, etc.<br />

Line 92:

Line 119:

If you consider the 19-odd-limit as the upper cutoff for chord consonance (which is, by most accounts, as high as most people want to go), 12-TET is pretty tough to beat. You get harmonics 2, 3, 5, 9, 15, 17, and 19--only 7, 11, and 13 are missing, though it's arguable that even 7 (and its attendant ratios) is on the radar, being only about 30 cents off from Just. If you want to add any of the missing harmonics without sacrificing those already present, it's not until you get to 24-ET that this is possible. <br />

<br />

You also get many of the best 5-limit temperaments--meantone, srutal, augmented, diminished, injera, schismatic, passion, and ripple. The harmonic relationships are simple--three 5/4's, four 6/5's, six 9/8's, and twelve 3/2's each get you back to your starting note, so you don't have any long chains of intervals to keep track of or navigate. This often ~~meanst~~ that instruments designed for 12-TET are easier to learn and play than instruments designed for other tunings; in the case of the guitar this is particularly true, as it is quite a bit more difficult, at least conceptually, for most players to master competitive ETs (19, 22, 31, etc.) with the same fluency and command they have in 12-ET. <br />

You also get many of the best 5-limit temperaments--meantone, srutal, augmented, diminished, injera, schismatic, passion, and ripple. The harmonic relationships are simple--three 5/4's, four 6/5's, six 9/8's, and twelve 3/2's each get you back to your starting note, so you don't have any long chains of intervals to keep track of or navigate. This often means that instruments designed for 12-TET are easier to learn and play than instruments designed for other tunings; in the case of the guitar this is particularly true, as it is quite a bit more difficult, at least conceptually, for most players to master competitive ETs (19, 22, 31, etc.) with the same fluency and command they have in 12-ET. <br />

<br />

Furthermore, the harmonic improvements afforded by ETs like 19, 22, and 31 in the 5-limit are actually quite modest, and rarely of noticeable significance in the idioms of popular music. In classical idioms, it's already common-practice (at least among horns, winds, and strings) to intone 12-TET closer to adaptive JI, so a more accurate ET is moot. Really, it is only in the realms of keyboard or synthesized classical music that the harmonic improvements can be appreciated enough to make it worth the trouble. But even then, many musicians who have undergone extensive ear training will actually find the &quot;purer&quot; intervals of 19, 22, and 31 to sound out-of-tune. It is not uncommon for listeners to find (near-)beatless harmonies to sound &quot;cold&quot; and &quot;static&quot;, and these listeners won't appreciate the sounds of the more accurate ETs. <br />

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<h2 id="toc7"><a name="Why You Shouldn't Get Into Microtonality-In conclusion"></a>In conclusion</h2>

<br />

I don't expect to deter any enthusiasts or change the minds of current community members. But the negative aspects of microtonality are real, and need to be acknowledged. People entering the field need to be aware of them, and need to thing good and hard about whether the rabbit-hole is actually appealing enough to justify the sacrifices that will be made.</body></html></pre></div>

I don't expect to deter any enthusiasts or change the minds of current community members. But the negative aspects of microtonality are real, and need to be acknowledged. People entering the field need to be aware of them, and need to thing good and hard about whether the rabbit-hole is actually appealing enough to justify the sacrifices that will be made.<br />

<br />

<hr />

<br />

<h1 id="toc8"><a name="Critical reaction to the foregoing by Carl Lumma"></a>Critical reaction to the foregoing by Carl Lumma</h1>

<br />

<em>&quot;Tuning doesn't make as much difference as you'd think&quot;</em><br />

<br />

...If you start with unreasonable expectations. Such as the expectation that refining one's control of intonation will &quot;automatically&quot; reveal &quot;new compositional approaches&quot; or allow one to &quot;lead a revolution&quot;.<br />

<br />

<em>&quot;If anyone tells you that ETs all have distinct moods and personalities that are totally unlike anything found in 12-TET, this person has drank the kool-aid...&quot;</em><br />

<br />

This would follow from evidence that people can't distinguish ETs, not from the evidence claimed, which is that people can't <strong>identify</strong> ETs. Many music fans can't identify scales or functional progressions in 12-ET, either. Is this an argument that all music could be I-V-I in 12-ET and it would make no difference?<br />

<br />

<em>&quot;The best microtonal musicians--the ones with the most commercial success--are those who keep a very healthy distance between themselves and the community.&quot;</em><br />

<br />

Music isn't for talking. Plenty of musicians visit microtonal forums to share recordings -- what else? Theory works with talking, but it isn't music and there's only so much of two subjects a person can master. At least one artist did manage to understand and apply all major xenharmonic theory concepts though: Jason Yerger. Other theory-heavy successes include Kraig Grady, Marcus Hobbs, Ben Johnston, and Harry Partch. And serious theorists like Graham Breed have produced very listenable tracks.<br />

<br />

It's generally acknowledged that anyone hoping to achieve commercial success with music in today's climate is facing an uphill battle, and that this goes double for anyone walking off the beaten path.<br />

<br />

<em>&quot;...the fact of the matter is the microtonal community is desperate for music, and will laud output of any quality.&quot;</em><br />

<br />

True, but I think it has more to do with maintaining congeniality in a community of people with very different musical backgrounds than with desperately encouraging composers to use microtonal tunings.<br />

<br />

<em>&quot;12-TET is actually and objectively the best ET&quot;</em><br />

<br />

Also probably true but it is not <strong>so much better</strong> than alternatives as to warrant <strong>exclusive use</strong>.</body></html></pre></div>

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 <h2>IMPORTED REVISION FROM WIKISPACES</h2>
 This is an imported revision from Wikispaces. The revision metadata is included below for reference:<br>
-: This revision was by author [[User:igliashon|igliashon]] and made on <tt>2012-12-11 14:31:14 UTC</tt>.<br>
+: This revision was by author [[User:clumma|clumma]] and made on <tt>2012-12-11 16:28:30 UTC</tt>.<br>
-: The original revision id was <tt>391344296</tt>.<br>
+: The original revision id was <tt>391387940</tt>.<br>
 : The revision comment was: <tt></tt><br>
 The revision contents are below, presented both in the original Wikispaces Wikitext format, and in HTML exactly as Wikispaces rendered it.<br>
@@ Line 36: / Line 36: @@
 ==5. The costs and limitations==
-You hear a lot of enthusiastic jibber-jabber about how microtonality can "liberate" you from the tyranny of 12-TET. Well, part of that liberation is being "liberated" from access to a wide variety of instruments and other musical equipment. Once you go micro, you are consigning yourself to using only custom-made or retunable instruments, which represent only a small fraction of what's available at your average music store. You may find that most of the instruments you already own are suddenly completely useless to you as a microtonalist. Get ready to $pend $pend $pend! Or, do what most do, and resign yourself to using cheesy-sounding freely-availble synths. The majority of microtonal music out there is made with sub-standard production values, just because that's what's available.
+You hear a lot of enthusiastic jibber-jabber about how microtonality can "liberate" you from the tyranny of 12-TET. Well, part of that liberation is being "liberated" from access to a wide variety of instruments and other musical equipment. Once you go micro, you are consigning yourself to using only custom-made or retunable instruments, which represent only a small fraction of what's available at your average music store. You may find that most of the instruments you already own are suddenly completely useless to you as a microtonalist. Get ready to $pend $pend $pend! Or, do what most do, and resign yourself to using cheesy-sounding freely-available synths. The majority of microtonal music out there is made with sub-standard production values, just because that's what's available.
 As a microtonal guitarist, my guitars cost double what a 12-TET guitar costs, because I had to pay for custom fretboards for all of them. This usually meant buying cheap guitars made with cheap pickups and cheap woods...so ultimately, I paid MORE for a lower-quality instrument. Lots of people opt to do their own fretwork because of this, but this usually results in poor-quality fretwork, because fretwork is hard and really needs special training. Most of the people who build their own instruments just don't end up building very high-quality instruments, and the music that results tends to reflect that. And remember, time and money you spend on making an instrument compatible with your chosen tuning is time and money NOT spent on, y'know, studio equipment, amps, effects, production value, etc.
@@ Line 44: / Line 44: @@
 If you consider the 19-odd-limit as the upper cutoff for chord consonance (which is, by most accounts, as high as most people want to go), 12-TET is pretty tough to beat. You get harmonics 2, 3, 5, 9, 15, 17, and 19--only 7, 11, and 13 are missing, though it's arguable that even 7 (and its attendant ratios) is on the radar, being only about 30 cents off from Just. If you want to add any of the missing harmonics without sacrificing those already present, it's not until you get to 24-ET that this is possible.
-You also get many of the best 5-limit temperaments--meantone, srutal, augmented, diminished, injera, schismatic, passion, and ripple. The harmonic relationships are simple--three 5/4's, four 6/5's, six 9/8's, and twelve 3/2's each get you back to your starting note, so you don't have any long chains of intervals to keep track of or navigate. This often meanst that instruments designed for 12-TET are easier to learn and play than instruments designed for other tunings; in the case of the guitar this is particularly true, as it is quite a bit more difficult, at least conceptually, for most players to master competitive ETs (19, 22, 31, etc.) with the same fluency and command they have in 12-ET.
+You also get many of the best 5-limit temperaments--meantone, srutal, augmented, diminished, injera, schismatic, passion, and ripple. The harmonic relationships are simple--three 5/4's, four 6/5's, six 9/8's, and twelve 3/2's each get you back to your starting note, so you don't have any long chains of intervals to keep track of or navigate. This often means that instruments designed for 12-TET are easier to learn and play than instruments designed for other tunings; in the case of the guitar this is particularly true, as it is quite a bit more difficult, at least conceptually, for most players to master competitive ETs (19, 22, 31, etc.) with the same fluency and command they have in 12-ET.
 Furthermore, the harmonic improvements afforded by ETs like 19, 22, and 31 in the 5-limit are actually quite modest, and rarely of noticeable significance in the idioms of popular music. In classical idioms, it's already common-practice (at least among horns, winds, and strings) to intone 12-TET closer to adaptive JI, so a more accurate ET is moot. Really, it is only in the realms of keyboard or synthesized classical music that the harmonic improvements can be appreciated enough to make it worth the trouble. But even then, many musicians who have undergone extensive ear training will actually find the "purer" intervals of 19, 22, and 31 to sound out-of-tune. It is not uncommon for listeners to find (near-)beatless harmonies to sound "cold" and "static", and these listeners won't appreciate the sounds of the more accurate ETs.
@@ Line 52: / Line 52: @@
 ==In conclusion==
-I don't expect to deter any enthusiasts or change the minds of current community members. But the negative aspects of microtonality are real, and need to be acknowledged. People entering the field need to be aware of them, and need to thing good and hard about whether the rabbit-hole is actually appealing enough to justify the sacrifices that will be made.</pre></div>
+I don't expect to deter any enthusiasts or change the minds of current community members. But the negative aspects of microtonality are real, and need to be acknowledged. People entering the field need to be aware of them, and need to thing good and hard about whether the rabbit-hole is actually appealing enough to justify the sacrifices that will be made.
+----
+=Critical reaction to the foregoing by Carl Lumma=
+//"Tuning doesn't make as much difference as you'd think"//
+...If you start with unreasonable expectations. Such as the expectation that refining one's control of intonation will "automatically" reveal "new compositional approaches" or allow one to "lead a revolution".
+//"If anyone tells you that ETs all have distinct moods and personalities that are totally unlike anything found in 12-TET, this person has drank the kool-aid..."//
+This would follow from evidence that people can't distinguish ETs, not from the evidence claimed, which is that people can't **identify** ETs. Many music fans can't identify scales or functional progressions in 12-ET, either. Is this an argument that all music could be I-V-I in 12-ET and it would make no difference?
+//"The best microtonal musicians--the ones with the most commercial success--are those who keep a very healthy distance between themselves and the community."//
+Music isn't for talking. Plenty of musicians visit microtonal forums to share recordings -- what else? Theory works with talking, but it isn't music and there's only so much of two subjects a person can master. At least one artist did manage to understand and apply all major xenharmonic theory concepts though: Jason Yerger. Other theory-heavy successes include Kraig Grady, Marcus Hobbs, Ben Johnston, and Harry Partch. And serious theorists like Graham Breed have produced very listenable tracks.
+It's generally acknowledged that anyone hoping to achieve commercial success with music in today's climate is facing an uphill battle, and that this goes double for anyone walking off the beaten path.
+//"...the fact of the matter is the microtonal community is desperate for music, and will laud output of any quality."//
+True, but I think it has more to do with maintaining congeniality in a community of people with very different musical backgrounds than with desperately encouraging composers to use microtonal tunings.
+//"12-TET is actually and objectively the best ET"//
+Also probably true but it is not **so much better** than alternatives as to warrant **exclusive use**.
+</pre></div>
 <h4>Original HTML content:</h4>
 <div style="width:100%; max-height:400pt; overflow:auto; background-color:#f8f9fa; border: 1px solid #eaecf0; padding:0em"><pre style="margin:0px;border:none;background:none;word-wrap:break-word;width:200%;white-space: pre-wrap ! important" class="old-revision-html">&lt;html&gt;&lt;head&gt;&lt;title&gt;whynotmicrotonality&lt;/title&gt;&lt;/head&gt;&lt;body&gt;&lt;!-- ws:start:WikiTextHeadingRule:0:&amp;lt;h1&amp;gt; --&gt;&lt;h1 id="toc0"&gt;&lt;a name="Why You Shouldn't Get Into Microtonality"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;!-- ws:end:WikiTextHeadingRule:0 --&gt;Why You Shouldn't Get Into Microtonality&lt;/h1&gt;
@@ Line 84: / Line 111: @@
 &lt;!-- ws:start:WikiTextHeadingRule:10:&amp;lt;h2&amp;gt; --&gt;&lt;h2 id="toc5"&gt;&lt;a name="Why You Shouldn't Get Into Microtonality-5. The costs and limitations"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;!-- ws:end:WikiTextHeadingRule:10 --&gt;5. The costs and limitations&lt;/h2&gt;
   &lt;br /&gt;
-You hear a lot of enthusiastic jibber-jabber about how microtonality can &amp;quot;liberate&amp;quot; you from the tyranny of 12-TET. Well, part of that liberation is being &amp;quot;liberated&amp;quot; from access to a wide variety of instruments and other musical equipment. Once you go micro, you are consigning yourself to using only custom-made or retunable instruments, which represent only a small fraction of what's available at your average music store. You may find that most of the instruments you already own are suddenly completely useless to you as a microtonalist. Get ready to $pend $pend $pend! Or, do what most do, and resign yourself to using cheesy-sounding freely-availble synths. The majority of microtonal music out there is made with sub-standard production values, just because that's what's available.&lt;br /&gt;
+You hear a lot of enthusiastic jibber-jabber about how microtonality can &amp;quot;liberate&amp;quot; you from the tyranny of 12-TET. Well, part of that liberation is being &amp;quot;liberated&amp;quot; from access to a wide variety of instruments and other musical equipment. Once you go micro, you are consigning yourself to using only custom-made or retunable instruments, which represent only a small fraction of what's available at your average music store. You may find that most of the instruments you already own are suddenly completely useless to you as a microtonalist. Get ready to $pend $pend $pend! Or, do what most do, and resign yourself to using cheesy-sounding freely-available synths. The majority of microtonal music out there is made with sub-standard production values, just because that's what's available.&lt;br /&gt;
 &lt;br /&gt;
 As a microtonal guitarist, my guitars cost double what a 12-TET guitar costs, because I had to pay for custom fretboards for all of them. This usually meant buying cheap guitars made with cheap pickups and cheap woods...so ultimately, I paid MORE for a lower-quality instrument. Lots of people opt to do their own fretwork because of this, but this usually results in poor-quality fretwork, because fretwork is hard and really needs special training. Most of the people who build their own instruments just don't end up building very high-quality instruments, and the music that results tends to reflect that. And remember, time and money you spend on making an instrument compatible with your chosen tuning is time and money NOT spent on, y'know, studio equipment, amps, effects, production value, etc.&lt;br /&gt;
@@ Line 92: / Line 119: @@
 If you consider the 19-odd-limit as the upper cutoff for chord consonance (which is, by most accounts, as high as most people want to go), 12-TET is pretty tough to beat. You get harmonics 2, 3, 5, 9, 15, 17, and 19--only 7, 11, and 13 are missing, though it's arguable that even 7 (and its attendant ratios) is on the radar, being only about 30 cents off from Just. If you want to add any of the missing harmonics without sacrificing those already present, it's not until you get to 24-ET that this is possible. &lt;br /&gt;
 &lt;br /&gt;
-You also get many of the best 5-limit temperaments--meantone, srutal, augmented, diminished, injera, schismatic, passion, and ripple. The harmonic relationships are simple--three 5/4's, four 6/5's, six 9/8's, and twelve 3/2's each get you back to your starting note, so you don't have any long chains of intervals to keep track of or navigate. This often meanst that instruments designed for 12-TET are easier to learn and play than instruments designed for other tunings; in the case of the guitar this is particularly true, as it is quite a bit more difficult, at least conceptually, for most players to master competitive ETs (19, 22, 31, etc.) with the same fluency and command they have in 12-ET. &lt;br /&gt;
+You also get many of the best 5-limit temperaments--meantone, srutal, augmented, diminished, injera, schismatic, passion, and ripple. The harmonic relationships are simple--three 5/4's, four 6/5's, six 9/8's, and twelve 3/2's each get you back to your starting note, so you don't have any long chains of intervals to keep track of or navigate. This often means that instruments designed for 12-TET are easier to learn and play than instruments designed for other tunings; in the case of the guitar this is particularly true, as it is quite a bit more difficult, at least conceptually, for most players to master competitive ETs (19, 22, 31, etc.) with the same fluency and command they have in 12-ET. &lt;br /&gt;
 &lt;br /&gt;
 Furthermore, the harmonic improvements afforded by ETs like 19, 22, and 31 in the 5-limit are actually quite modest, and rarely of noticeable significance in the idioms of popular music. In classical idioms, it's already common-practice (at least among horns, winds, and strings) to intone 12-TET closer to adaptive JI, so a more accurate ET is moot. Really, it is only in the realms of keyboard or synthesized classical music that the harmonic improvements can be appreciated enough to make it worth the trouble. But even then, many musicians who have undergone extensive ear training will actually find the &amp;quot;purer&amp;quot; intervals of 19, 22, and 31 to sound out-of-tune. It is not uncommon for listeners to find (near-)beatless harmonies to sound &amp;quot;cold&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;static&amp;quot;, and these listeners won't appreciate the sounds of the more accurate ETs. &lt;br /&gt;
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 &lt;!-- ws:start:WikiTextHeadingRule:14:&amp;lt;h2&amp;gt; --&gt;&lt;h2 id="toc7"&gt;&lt;a name="Why You Shouldn't Get Into Microtonality-In conclusion"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;!-- ws:end:WikiTextHeadingRule:14 --&gt;In conclusion&lt;/h2&gt;
   &lt;br /&gt;
-I don't expect to deter any enthusiasts or change the minds of current community members. But the negative aspects of microtonality are real, and need to be acknowledged. People entering the field need to be aware of them, and need to thing good and hard about whether the rabbit-hole is actually appealing enough to justify the sacrifices that will be made.&lt;/body&gt;&lt;/html&gt;</pre></div>
+I don't expect to deter any enthusiasts or change the minds of current community members. But the negative aspects of microtonality are real, and need to be acknowledged. People entering the field need to be aware of them, and need to thing good and hard about whether the rabbit-hole is actually appealing enough to justify the sacrifices that will be made.&lt;br /&gt;
+&lt;br /&gt;
+&lt;hr /&gt;
+&lt;br /&gt;
+&lt;!-- ws:start:WikiTextHeadingRule:16:&amp;lt;h1&amp;gt; --&gt;&lt;h1 id="toc8"&gt;&lt;a name="Critical reaction to the foregoing by Carl Lumma"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;!-- ws:end:WikiTextHeadingRule:16 --&gt;Critical reaction to the foregoing by Carl Lumma&lt;/h1&gt;
+&lt;br /&gt;
+&lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;Tuning doesn't make as much difference as you'd think&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
+&lt;br /&gt;
+...If you start with unreasonable expectations. Such as the expectation that refining one's control of intonation will &amp;quot;automatically&amp;quot; reveal &amp;quot;new compositional approaches&amp;quot; or allow one to &amp;quot;lead a revolution&amp;quot;.&lt;br /&gt;
+&lt;br /&gt;
+&lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;If anyone tells you that ETs all have distinct moods and personalities that are totally unlike anything found in 12-TET, this person has drank the kool-aid...&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
+&lt;br /&gt;
+This would follow from evidence that people can't distinguish ETs, not from the evidence claimed, which is that people can't &lt;strong&gt;identify&lt;/strong&gt; ETs. Many music fans can't identify scales or functional progressions in 12-ET, either. Is this an argument that all music could be I-V-I in 12-ET and it would make no difference?&lt;br /&gt;
+&lt;br /&gt;
+&lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;The best microtonal musicians--the ones with the most commercial success--are those who keep a very healthy distance between themselves and the community.&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
+&lt;br /&gt;
+Music isn't for talking. Plenty of musicians visit microtonal forums to share recordings -- what else? Theory works with talking, but it isn't music and there's only so much of two subjects a person can master. At least one artist did manage to understand and apply all major xenharmonic theory concepts though: Jason Yerger. Other theory-heavy successes include Kraig Grady, Marcus Hobbs, Ben Johnston, and Harry Partch. And serious theorists like Graham Breed have produced very listenable tracks.&lt;br /&gt;
+&lt;br /&gt;
+It's generally acknowledged that anyone hoping to achieve commercial success with music in today's climate is facing an uphill battle, and that this goes double for anyone walking off the beaten path.&lt;br /&gt;
+&lt;br /&gt;
+&lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;...the fact of the matter is the microtonal community is desperate for music, and will laud output of any quality.&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
+&lt;br /&gt;
+True, but I think it has more to do with maintaining congeniality in a community of people with very different musical backgrounds than with desperately encouraging composers to use microtonal tunings.&lt;br /&gt;
+&lt;br /&gt;
+&lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;12-TET is actually and objectively the best ET&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
+&lt;br /&gt;
+Also probably true but it is not &lt;strong&gt;so much better&lt;/strong&gt; than alternatives as to warrant &lt;strong&gt;exclusive use&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/body&gt;&lt;/html&gt;</pre></div>