Posted by GC on August 29, 2002 at 11:01:51:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: conductor foibles - tuning posted by Rick Denney on August 28, 2002 at 12:01:51:
Psychoacoustics are also a problem here. If you tune a piano with a strobe tuner, it will not sound in tune no matter what the dial says. Piano tuners learned many years ago that lower octaves have to be tuned slightly flat and higher octaves must be tuned slightly sharp (I think about 3 cents per octave) for them to be perceived as being in tune by the human ear. Since players and audiences are listening, not looking at tuners, the ear must be the ultimater arbiter of intonation.
This, of course, leads straight back to the disagreements between the well-tempered, even-tempered, just, and other systems of intonation.