January 12, 2007
Understanding the Western Tempered Scale, Tuning, Hertz and All That--Part 3 of 15

In Europe in the Middle Ages, the situation was not too different from the situation in Africa before western music began squashing out the indigenous musical scales. Every town had their own tuning. Travelling recorder players had to use extra pieces of wood to lengthen their recorders (i.e., to change the pitch) if they wanted to play with people in different towns. So each town had their own standard pitch.

But it was worse than that. If you tuned a piano or harpsichord to play perfectly in one key (i.e., with a perfect 5th), it didn't sound so hot in other keys. In fact, there was no standard prescription for how to tune a piano or other instruments until 1581 when someone figured it all out. Of course, it took a few more centuries before all the musicians in Europe got it together though! But now the idea of that scale has taken over most of the music in the world.

More next week!

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