mozart – Untempered Music

The Untempered Chromatic Scale (Part 1)

ByGary February 6, 2013August 18, 2017

The familiar 12-note scale is also called the chromatic scale. There are many ways to generate an untempered version of such a scale. The oldest way seems to be Pythagorean tuning. When you multiply a frequency by 3, you get a new note, an octave plus a fifth above. Multiply by 3 again, and you get…

The Lattice

Mozart on the Lattice

ByGary January 6, 2013August 18, 2017

In one of my favorite passages in Harmonic Experience (p. 104-105), W.A. Mathieu points out that by the time Mozart came around, equal temperament was well enough established that a D# and an Eb could be thought of as the same note. So when Mozart wanted his melody to go back and forth between an Eb and…