The Truth About Temperaments

1984
GALQ Vol.12#2 p.10   BRB1p.386            read this article
Edward Kottick                                                                                           

▪ Nearly every person alive in the western world has grown up with music that sounds the same in every key, but there was once a time when music had no keys, and later a time when each key had its own particular sound. We are perfectly comfortable with how our music sounds, but are we richer for it? More importantly, people once had different concepts of music, and perhaps different expectations. They thought differently. And if they thought differently about music perhaps they thought differently about everything. How can we understand their times if we can’t understand the way they thought? Kottick doesn’t delve into this, but you might be tempted to after reading this article.

This article has been nominated as one of the Guild’s best articles published before 2010.