MUSICAL TEMPERAMENT Its Discreet Relationship With Consciousness

The history of temperament in the West, its development over time, is probably the single-most concrete dynamic that illustrates the move from the premodern era to contemporary eras in the musical West. Temperament is a clear example of the clash between the historical mythic worldview and the historical mental worldview. The former undergirded the premodern era, even through much of the Enlightenment in the West, and the latter undergirded the modern era, and lives on today in this 'late-modernist' age (which some call 'post-modern', incorrectly I assert). In music, the shift from mythic to mental brought about the rise of "equal temperament" from previously non-tempered or only slightly tempered musical systems. This was a never before seen development in music.

The mythic worldview valued a unification of temperament with cosmological and mathematical order. The mental worldview took the same subject matter (temperament/tonality) and valued more flexibility and sonic precision. It was a response to the difficulties for instruments and voices to play music truly in-tune. And it relates entirely with the rise of empirical science. Stuart Isacoff, in his excelllent book Temperament, rightly suggests that this issue is not just one of music, but also touches on philosophy, political history, poetry, and religion.

It may seem like an arcane topic. After all, who cares why a piano is tuned the way it is? Just play it good and play it well, some may implore. But how it is tuned, at the fundamental level that determines what "in-tune" actually is, gets at the very roots of our cognition and conceptuality about music, tone, and pure sound. Astonishingly, the current equal temperament system was only accepted on a larger scale in the 20th century. Before that, several systems competed in a battle that engaged philosophers, scientists, politicians, kings, and more—with names you might recognize: Galileo, Newton, Diderot, Rousseau, Pythagoras, Plato, Bach, Kepler, Descartes, and Leonardo da Vinci. Each of these figures had horse in this race. It was that important, and that relevant.

Just intonation and equal temperament
Some further explanations and definitions are in order, to illustrate the profundity of temperament. Just intonation means that the notes of an octave will exactly or nearly-exactly match with low-integer ratios. For example, a just-intoned perfect fifth (C to G) has the ratio of 3:2. A major third is 5:4. A perfect fourth is 4:3. There are various systems, such as those in India, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and African cultures that are close enough to be considered just, or pure, intonation, even today. It is viewed as a natural system, in part because it is very related to the natural overtones (or 'harmonics') which constitute every tone. We often know these as the plucked harmonics of a guitar -- those clear, quiet, trumpet-like pings. Best to call these, in fact, overtones. Any string instrument can generate them, as can certain woodwind and brass instruments. Use of these as a determinitive factor in an intonation system, or means of tuning an instrument, begets 'just intonation'. Contrary to public belief, you can't use harmonics to accurate tune a guitar. It just won't work, because the fret system of the guitar is begotten of equal temperament.

Equal temperament is indeed different than just intonation. 'To temper' means 'to alter, or change.' Equal temperament uses a uniform frequency and uniform frquency distance between pitch intervals. Instead of the basis in overtones and lower-integral ratios, the notes in equal temperament are determined through equal divisions. Arbitrarily, the octave splits into 12 equal divisions. Look at a piano, and know that the C to the Db (a half or semi-tone) is the same sonic leap of that of Bb to B natural. It is like a Mies van der Rohe skyscraper where every floor and every window are spaced evenly.

This means something interesting. A piano in equal temperament is completely out of tune, except for the octaves. Same goes for the guitar (a notoriously difficult instrument to tune). On the piano, this in part explains the rise of virtuosity, with its fast, lengthy runs, and the emergence of "jazz harmony". In the case of the former, the faster you move, the less you realize that you are out of tune. Speed is a mask; a listener does not have the sonic time to appreciate that intervals are a little off. And with the latter, the harmonies of jazz highly value "blue notes" which are impossible on the piano, yet various "tone clusters" (see Monk) attempt to reach for music in between the piano keys. It doesn't quite work, but the results have been beautiful and resonant, nonetheless. The limits of the piano have, then, encouraged the creativity of jazz musicians, to evoke beauty within constraints.

It is easy to come to the impression, then, that equal temperament, while yielding some beautiful music, is still an overall negative development, historically. Yet we must remember that equal temperament indeed came about as an evolution. Writes Isacoff: "Music temperament was a response to the frustrating discovery that nature's proportions, in spite of man's best efforts to force them into a regimented, reliable scheme, follow their own inexorable paths." He reminds us that the theory of just intonation is one thing; the practice of it in actual singing and instrumental accompaniment is quite another. Non-equal temperament often posed unlistenable results, as least in the West. There came to be known "wolf notes" that we discordant clashes of notes because of the less-than-equal temperament of the instruments (harpsicord, for example) and human singers. And overall, composers in the West wanted more and more for music to move through various tonal centers, or keys. This ability to shift keys is called modulation, and never before had a temperament/intonation system allowed this freedom. That is, until equal temperament emerged.

Intonation in action
Consider two musicsthat of European and Indian traditions. Besides the different melodic sensibilities, large-scale formal qualities, and overall instrumentation, there is unmistakeably a different sound between the two traditions. Indian music seems to use notes and pitches different that those of European classical music. And it is because the notes and pitches are different—there are two different tonal systems at play. The two systems divide the octave in different ways. Even though there is plenty of overlap, those points of divergence actually come to define many of the differences between the two traditions. It is as if using two different rulers to measure a foot; one that uses 12 equal divisions on the ruler, the other using 22. Eight of one would be quite different than 8 of the other.

With Indian music (which is diverse and requires a larger exploration, for now I'll generalize) there is little to no 'temperament' of any kind. The pitches are pure, compared to natural overtonal ratios. Because the music uses a drone in much of the traditional music forms, which in some ways limits the tonal flexibility (which is valued in the West), there is actually a wide diversity of tonal possibilities within the restrictions of the drone. There are far more notes to the octave in Indian systems, including several 'seconds', 'thirds', and 'sevenths'. There are finer gradations of pitch.

Equal temperament, on the other hand, arbitrarily assigns total consistency to all pitch intervals. The distance between C to D is the same as the distance between D and E in equal temperament. A second is always a second, a third a third, and there are always 12 notes (semitones) in an octave. Instead of the relatively small but unmistakable difference that these intervals (C to D compared with D to E) in Indian music, equal temperament creates a tonal uniformity. All rungs of the ladder, in equal temperament, are spaced at the same distance.

Pluses And Minuses
So what is the good news and what is the bad news of equal temperament? Well, it depends who you talk to. There are purists on both sides. The good news is generally taken to be the increased tonal flexibility that comes with equal temperament. It allows the ability to modulate from one key (such as C Major) to another (A Major) and another as much as one desires. This is akin to a flight on an airplane, where you can start in one time zone and land in a completely different time zone, indeed a completely different part of the world, in a couple hours, when this used to take months of travel. Whether these tonal movements work as music is entirely dependant upon the particular handling by the composer and the performers. Beauty is a timeless arbiter.

The bad news is that the loss of non-tempered music, or 'just intonated' music, brings a loss of tonal power inate in something the West has seemed to have forgotten—pure, long tones. As I wrote above, music of the modern West tends to move quickly, because to use long notes eventually shows that our music, as I have said, is slightly out of tune. A just-intoned perfect fifth (C and G sounded together) in fact sounds noticeably clearer than an equal tempered fifth, which sounds muddy and even irritating (if you listen to it long enough, and close enough). An just major third (C and E) at the pitch ration of 5:4 have a greater clarity and nuance than an equal tempered third. Much of the ancient and medieval music traditions from around the world (and many of today) base the music on natural pitches and pure intervals (consciously and unconsciously). Dronal instruments (tamboura, sitar, bag pipes) use non-tempered notes. Some singers and musicians with non-fretted instruments make the discreet adjustments that lean towards just tonality when possible.

Justly hard-wired
The composer and philosopher W.A. Mathieu wrote on this topic: "Human beings don't have to know about just intonation to understand it. We already are it." He echoes the infamous Rameau and says that humans are 'hard-wired' for just-intoned musical ratios. Such ratios—2:1, 3:2, 5:4, 9:8—are in our body, bones, and blood. The same properties of tone that undergird music undergird all matter, and thus our human form. We grow, genetically, in resonate with these musical proportaions.

Isacoff is right when he writes, "Humans can 'get used to' the altered ratios of equal temperament, because our minds interpret them as symbols of their unaltered forebears...[we can] accept both the efficacy of just intonation and the usefulness of equal temperament." In other words, our ears, minds, and bodies make the association that links tempered tones with their more in-tune ideals. Any "arousal theory" of aethetic response capacity to music has to include an overview of how the human ear associates manifest pitch with unmanifest "just-intonation", and how the latter is the essential template of which the former is the practical version. This is simple genetic reality.

Mathieu, in his monumental Harmonic Experience, takes the important next step, further than any contemporary music theorist. According to him, you have to privately sing just-intoned intervals (in long tones over a drone) to really comprehend the tones. Theory of just-intonation is important, as a cognitive first-step. But bodily apprehension and patient contemplation while singing long tones are crucial for musicians and composers who want to authentically operate at the radical core of music. The simple but profound "theory of just-intonation" and then the practice of singing those notes over a drone, over many years, is quite possibly the single practice that can stir bodily recognition of music at its most powerful.

Tone Yoga
All of which, of course, echoes Plato, who offered that "correct musical proportions reflect the vibrations of man's inner nature, just as they mirror the harmony of the celestial spheres spinning in their orbits." Hazrat Inayat Khan, master Sufi musician, wrote that among his tradition, "there was a certain way of expressing the tone and rhythm which brought about a greater emotion, or an inclination towards action. Together with it they found that there was a certain use of time and rhythm which brought about a gerater equilbrium, and a greater poise."

Thus what Plato, Inayat Khan, and Mathieu point towards is a yoga, a union between just intonation and equal temperament. It is my view that just intonation represents the idealized interiors of humans, and equal temperament (and other tempered forms) human idealized exteriors. Furthermore, a yoga to practice singing of the kind I'm sketching—which I call tone yoga—is a way to unite the inner and outer worlds, of inner vibration with outer expression. It aims to unite at the cusp of time and timelessness. It is where sea meets shore, and it is the zone where the vital in music is renewed, over and over again. Intention meets attention, and tone is a vehicle for nothing less than enlightenment of our human condition.

May the integral age of music come from thousands of composers, patiently strumming their drone, taking in a deep breath, and singing single, long tones for their own sake, feeling into a new semiotic that all of us already know, deeply, humanly, but none of us have yet to hear, until we find it one morning as our morning voice struggles to align with the fitful drone. And then does. And something entirely new opens as vast as the widest plain. And on that ground you tread, as music.

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