Tone Deaf? Re:Temperaments

[i_am_joey_jo]

Hello,

I am wondering.  I have tried the temperaments out on various keyboards and playing Bach in Meantone does not sound much different to me than Equal save that you are starting a semi-tone lower.  Is there that much of a difference?
Then I play in a Well Temperament and don't notice anything.

Are these temperaments mostly concerned with chords then as playing Bach I rarely see chords at all. 

What about Scarlatti where there are more would that be noticeable?  Some people say how super it sounds but I'm not getting it, please explain it to me.

[countrymath]

The same goes for me..
Everything looks like the same

[birba]

Don't feel so bad.  I have yet to comprehend and appreciate this temperament thing.  And I have perfect pitch.

[Derek]

Check out Pianoteq. You can select different temperaments and experiment with them. Without a midi device you can click on the sustain pedal to "turn it on" and then play a few major chords in different keys (using the on screen keyboard). In non equal-temperament tuning, you will notice that a C-major chord sounds "softer" or less dissonant than say an F# major chord.

I think the reason different temperaments are desired are primarily for playing older music whose purpose was centered around producing really sweet sounding thirds. For most music in the romantic era and later this was not as desirable of an effect, so equal temperament became the standard. That's how I see it anyway, from my amateur perspective!

Temperaments are compromises. In other words, if a keyboard instrument could adjust, with every note played, what the pitch is, you could always play pure consonant intervals if desired. That's called just intonation, and I believe string players and singers are often trained to be able to use this. It often causes difficulty for singers to work with a modern band full of equal tempered instruments---the singers may be gravitating towards purer intervals and the instruments want them to make major thirds wide, for example.

Put it another way---a temperament will make some thirds more or less pure at the expense of others. So, in "meantone," just a handful of keys will sound very harmonically pure and pleasant, the others will sound quite sour. In a "well tempered" tuning, it will be more spread out and all keys will be usable, but some will be a little more dissonant than others. In "equal temperament," all major thirds will be equally dissonant. The soft attack of a piano's timbre obscures the unpleasantness of equal tempered major thirds, so our ears learn to accept it.

I began to appreciate temperament more when I got my clavichord. I think the timbre of the instrument reveals the inherent appeal of thirds more than other keyboard instruments. It also reveals how wide equal tempered thirds are. The first few times I tuned my clavichord, you can hear a very noticable "wavery" sound in most major thirds, when tuned to equal temperament. Tune a pure major third though, and this sound goes away. The timbre of the piano obscures this effect.

*edit* I wanted to qualify---I think that these effects are much more noticable if you're trying to tune an instrument yourself. In the past of course people would have been tuning their own clavichords so it is understandable more people were familiar with these effects.  Several weeks after tuning, I don't usually notice "wide thirds" for example. As mentioned by the OP, music that does not just play a  bunch of chords such as Bach further obscure the effects of a temperament because these intervals are spread out through time.

I have a recording of the well tempered clavier on clavichord by Ralph Kirkpatrick, and I'm fairly certain as he mentions it in his liner notes as well that he is using equal temperament. It sounds good!

No question but that temperaments are a subtle business! I wouldn't personally say they're really "important" so much as just an interesting part of musical history that is fun to study if you're inclined.