User:ArrowHead294/EDO impressions

7edo

I find 7edo to be great for blowing people's minds since it completely eliminates any concept of "minor" or "major" in the diatonic scale. Everything is neutral.

12edo

The smallest one that does 5-limit well, and is right on the midpoint of the regular diatonic tuning spectrum, separating meantone from Parapythagorean and Superpythagorean. Has the largest possible contrast between major and minor for a meantone tuning, though since the wide major thirds and narrow minor thirds can sound quite sludgy on certain timbres such as organs I feel like 12 is far from optimal tuning for many areas of Western music. While I do feel that Western music education should cover the mathematics of tuning before college, and talk about Pythagorean tuning and other meantones to encourage Western musicians to explore other tunings and prevent people from thinking that 12 is the only correct way to tune, I do admit that these should come after people get familiar with the common practice chords and scales, and 12edo is without a doubt the best starting point for introducing stuff.

19edo (1⁄3-comma meantone)

Has a radically different sound than 12edo and is a great alternative tuning to get into when starting out with microtonality and alternate tunings. Somewhat loose diatonic scale, but much tighter pentatonic, making it potentially a very good choice for songs with largely pentatonic melodies like Hillsong Worship's Highlands. However, its sound is much more jarring compared to 31edo or 43edo, and so it can take quite of getting used to.

24edo (Quarter tones)

For a while, 24 was the only microtonal tuning I ever knew about. It's very convenient as a microtonal tuning, since it's meantone and preserves all the familiar intervals of 12edo. The ability to use the 11th and 13th harmonics and their intervals (without 7) as consonances is a huge bonus. Also supports semaphore with alternating whole steps and quarter tones, allowing for tons of new progressions and modulatory possibilities. Unfortunately I think it's far from the best tuning to get into for introducing microtonality, since it doesn't do the 7th harmonic's intervals well at all, and I've found that most Westerners consider the sound of 11/8 and 13/8 to be much weirder compared to 7/4.

27edo

Equivalent to 1⁄3-comma superpyth, 27 equal goes in the opposite direction of meantone (specifically 19edo). You'll find harmonic sevenths in places where you'd normally expect minor sevenths, subminor thirds in places where you'd normally expect minor thirds, and supermajor thirds where you'd expect major thirds. Criminally underrated and underutilised for what it is. Fifths are very bright and shimmery but not wolf-sounding like 5edo is. Its 5-limit minor and major thirds are more familiar and forgiving than 22edo, and it has a very good 13th harmonic. Overall, a great place to explore xenharmony with temperaments like Tetracot.

29edo

Accurate fifths, and is the "evil twin" of 12 equal in the 5-limit, since everything in the 5-limit is off by the same number of cents, but in the opposite direction, which gives some really interesting wonkiness. Another great tuning for exploring beyond-meantone xenharmony, supporting parapyth (making it potentially a good choice of tuning for certain Mediæval works in non-microtonal contexts) and porcupine.

31edo (Quarter-comma meantone)

This is the first alternative tuning I knew about that wasn't quarter tones. I got interested in it through Baroque and Renaissance music due to it being an excellent representation of quarter-comma meantone. Personally, I think this is the best alternative tuning for most non-classical Western musicians to use. Since everything sounds more mellow and calm compared to 12, I think that many, if not most, contemporary worship songs would sound better in 31 compared to 12. The number of notes is not overly unwieldy (though it is pushing the limits of practicality on guitars and basses, it's still doable for chords), and the differences between its sound and 12edo's sound are big enough that people will notice (and therefore they might actually care) but not so big that it sounds jarring like 19edo can be (and often is). It also allows many interesting symmetry breaks and comma pumps over 12 that to me are an extremely interesting effect.

I also think it's the best practical tuning for songs with largely pentatonic melodies, maybe even better than 19.

If we keep A at 440 Hz, to me, keys from A major and F♯ minor onwards among the sharps sound noticeably darker in 31 and more energetic in 12, D and G major and their relative minor keys sound similar, while flat keys sound noticeably brighter in 31 and more "serious" in 12.

36edo (Sixth tones)

This is a great microtonal tuning which is also a great gateway into microtonality for Western musicians. Has true harmonic sevenths, along with very accurate and distinct approximations to septimal subminor and supermajor thirds and sixths. Since the 7th harmonic and all of its intervals are all pretty much variations on familiar intervals, from my experience many people consider the sound of the new intervals in 36edo to be more forgiving, whereas the "new" intervals in 24edo tend to sound much more jarring and weird in comparison.

43edo (1⁄5-comma meantone)

By far my favourite alternative tuning for post-Mediæval Western music where 12edo's enharmonics aren't critical, and perhaps the most optimal meantone tuning. It has the fifths tuned flat and major thirds tuned sharp with almost exactly the same deviation from just intonation on both of them and the minor third is tuned flat by twice that amount. It's also good for microtonality involving higher-order harmonic complexes since it approximates most of the intervals involving 7, and 11, and 13 well, and has a somewhat better approximation of the first 16 harmonics of the harmonic series than 31edo. However, with so many notes, in practice it's best suited for keyboards (Lumatone et al). For guitar and bass players, I don't even think it's practical to put 87 frets on any real-world guitar or bass of reasonable size; at this point I think most guitar or bass players who want to use 43 would go fretless.

53edo

Works great as an extended Pythagorean tuning, making it well-suited for Mediæval music. Also suited for those wanting to experiment with true 5-limit JI but also having the ability to modulate without things getting too unwieldy. Turkish music theory is also based on 53edo. However, this is truly near the stopping point for physical instruments and 107 frets isn't practical for almost any real-world guitar or bass.

55edo

A standardisation and representation of 1/6-comma meantone, proposed by Telemann as a theoretical basis for analysing the intervals of meantone. Works well for most of Western music written since the Renaissance and even works today for songs that don't presuppose 12edo's enharmonics, but in practice I think it's really best suited for certain classical works as it's gotten to the point of diminishing returns. For non-classical musicians, the sound is likely to be far too similar to 12edo to justify the significant extra complexity, especially since 43 and 50 are already pushing it.