Occurred to me that most people are not aware how pervasive equal temperament is. Just want to make it clear that this is not part of some kind of reactionary movement is favor of the most conventional music possible. It’s simply acknowledging that most music you encounter in the modern world can be played on a standard piano or digital keyboard, and that it’s tuned to A=440 Hz. Not only is this true of almost all pop music and western classical music, it’s true of almost every anarchist punk band, hip-hop producer, bedroom recordist and free jazz musicians up to the point of noise. Most atonal music is still using equally tempered notes; it only forgoes regular scales, and most experimental music that intentionally deviates can be measured in it’s deviation from equal temperament*. It’s not an ideology, it’s a fact of life in the modern music world.

Up next: more on this.

*(which was my original purpose, I think)

Remember this? Don’t worry about it.

Y’know, people kinda take the 7 note diatonic scale for granted. This is why it might be confusing when you name the notes chromatically, as we (um, just me so far really) do in this system. When you think of the octave (literally “the eighth”) as “12” it reveals the fact that 4 notes that are left out of the regular scale.

Of course there’s also the pentatonic scale that leaves out two more. That kind of scale is really the most common is all the history of all music of the world, also unequally tempered. I’ve thought about this a lot, and I haven’t reached the conclusion that the equal tempered, 12-note system is the absolute best possible. But it’s not bad. I have to ask people that have dedicated their lives to fighting it: Can you not make good music with it? Do you really hate MOST music you hear?

I’m really against the idea of just taking it for granted that it’s the ONLY way to make music (i.e. “There’s only 12 notes!”) But the idea that it’s complete garbage and that the only good music either only existed in the past (before records, we don’t know what it really sounded like) or can only exist in some ideal future state when we finally figure this shit out (again, unhearable) is dumb. Not to create a strawman, there are many classical and experimental musicians that accomplish what they trying to prove, and make fantastic sounding music. But many seem to think they don’t know what music is supposed to sound like, and that it may even be impossible to know. I suggest listening to the music that exists.

That said, there is more than the very simple 2-7 intervals and there’s a different way to think about them. Also, I can make a list now:

• minor 9th = 13
• major 9th = 14
• minor 10th = 15
• major 10th = 16
• perfect 11th = 17
• Aug. 11/Dim. 12 = 18
• perfect 12th = 19
• minor 13th = 20
• major 13th = 21
• minor 14th = 22
• major 14th = 23
• perfect 15th/double octave = 24

Later!