Temperament: When Music was Young and Rebellious

Often included on the list of things hopefully true is that what you study, and what you work on, is an interesting subject to you. Therefore, this post is born to prove that I am not kidding about music. Hopefully.

Today I was interested in the precise definition of classical music according to that archon of collective knowledge, Wikipedia. As with all names for styles of music, this is a woefully vague description that almost everyone seems to understand perfectly. One thing that interested me, though, was the mention it gave to musical temperament. Could this term "temperament" be related to Bach's "Well-Tempered Clavier"?

Indeed it is. Temperament, it seems, is a technique of tuning an instrument to tones that do not go quite perfectly together. I was genuinely surprised at the necessity of this, which is explained in the Circle of Fifths article. Apparently, if one were to tune an instrument by fifths, the fifth being the most consonant interval aside from unison, one can tune step by step until he has tuned every note on the modern twelve-tone scale. But! Once one reaches the original note once more, he will clearly hear to his dismay that the higher note is very sharp!

So, after all, the equal separation of the notes which everybody knows today is not by any means a perfectly natural way to make music. Music may actually sound better tuned by fifths, and such tuning was natural back when quartal harmony was the main harmony used. Eventually, in Renaissance times, musically inclined people wanted to make more use of tertian harmony, of the kind more often used today; however, tuning by perfect fifths meant that the thirds were thrown off by quite a bit.

Menatone temperament was then developed, which allowed for correctly sounding tertian harmony. This system used the same process of tuning by fifths, but tuned them slightly narrower, allowing for just thirds. This, however, made the difference between the tonic notes even worse, and when the higher tonic was tuned to match the original, the interval between the second tonic and the fifth below became truly awful-sounding.

Then well temperament was developed. This was not a single system, but a multitude of tuning systems, in which each and every fifth might be slightly different from the last, and gave rise to some very interesting sounds, which required precise tuning of the instrument as specified by the composer. A veritable rainbow of sound could be made simply by playing the exact same chord type in different keys!

What has become of all that today is the Twelve-Tone Equal Temperament system. Rather than tuning by fifths from a starting pitch, each of the twelve tones is matched to a specific frequency which it must be in perfect harmony with, and each is evenly spaced across the spectrum of sound. There is now a very slight beat in otherwise pure intervals that are not unison, for the pure has been sacrificed for the methodical and the predictable. Now one can navigate chord progressions and key modulations with ease, knowing exactly what to expect; such a blank slate certainly encourages creativity in some ways.

It kind of makes me wonder, though... what would have happened if a particular form of "Well Temperament" had become the norm today? Music would be far more complicated to the expert, to be sure... but it would be interesting to hear all the different sounds one could get out of the same piece by moving it around the keyboard.

Any thoughts?

Hetalia: Axis Powers of Edutainment

Recently I've become aware of a certain Japanese webcomic that became a manga that became an anime. This particular specimen of the probable millions that could fit that description is "Hetalia: Axis Powers" , which proposes to poke fun at the participating countries in World Wars I and II by portraying them and their unique foibles in human form.

Hetalia is a portmanteau of "hetare", Japanese for "useless" and "Italia", or Italy. Italy is the protagonist of the series, and as TVTropes rightly claims, Fascism has never looked so cute!

Italy is portrayed as weak and cowardly in the extreme, in contrast to Germany and Japan, who are both hardworking and capable. Italy often calls for Germany's help in such ways as, "Germany! I'm in North Africa and I can't tie my shoelaces!"

Adding to the hilarity is the fact that trades and treaties between countries are sometimes depicted as romantic relationships between the characters. For instance, France's attempted merger with England is shown as France attempting to force England to sign a marriage contract. "France, what are you talking about?! This isn't April Fool's Day!"

"For Mature Audiences", but examples of this are few and far between. The only I've seen so far is a single instance of the F word, along with some scattered damning.