I left a post on "What are you listening to" on Chat. The subject of instrument tuning interests me as I designed an ancient double aulos tuned in the Ancient Greek mode. Some of the sounds generated by this instument are particularly haunting, and I think it's because it returns to natural harmonics. You can display musical intervals on an oscilloscope using Lissajous curves. Most modern music uses equal temperament tuning, which is a compromise.  You can't achieve natural harmonics using equal temperament.  Equal temperament means that all musical scales are wrong, if only by an imperceptible amount.

It's only when we use pure sine waves that we can appreciate this loss (Paradise Lost?). I posted Bach's Air on a G String in Chat and hearing it for the first time on "Just intonation" is a little bit like opening a doorway to heaven that hasn't been opened since 1720. At least that's how I hear it.

Anyway, this You Tube presentation explains it better than I can.


Incidentally while I was in Italy, I played my double aulos and it was filmed by a documentary crew along with the other aspects of the historical reenactment. I worked out a few unique playing tricks. Intuitively, I learned how it must have been played. I could play both Dorian and Phrygian scales  That's the beauty of experimental archaeology.

muso wrote on Jun 12^th, 2013 at 6:30am:



This G string certainly has an opening of the stairway to heaven.

Thanks Muso - that was interesting.

Think I will go and polish the cymbals and tund the drum kit.

double aulos

Really cool but unfortunatly I can picture someone with a horse rear end playing it.