A high number of different tuning systems have been developed throughout history ever since Pythagoras started experimenting with his famous monochord.
Simply described, the goal of each and every one of these systems has always been to obtain the best sound balance between the notes of the scale.
While many of the folk music expressions of several regions around the world are based, with a few differences here and there, on pentatonic scales (five notes within an octave), other possibilities of dividing the octave started to be considered at some point in history, with the evident objective of a richer wealth of sound combinations.
It would seem that the octave is the ideal distance (or “interval”) that our ear accepts as a limit in which a further subdivision of sounds is searched.
On a piano, the octave is the shortest interval between two notes of the same name. For example, if we choose any C on the keyboard, the C one octave above is the first C to the right. There are 12 semitones between these two sounds (counting “1” on the first C).
In other words, in western music it was established that 12 was the number of subdivisions or “partitions” of an octave.
Obviously, there are theoretically infinite divisions of the octave, but apparently 12 is the maximum acceptable number of partitions which allow for an endless quantity of possibilities in a relatively simple organisation of sounds.
However, the division of the octave presents a very difficult problem. Or, to be more accurate, a problem which is impossible to solve, regardless of how the octave may be divided.
Without getting into technical matters, the problem consists of how to tune the semitones. Which is the proper distance between semitones, measured in a frequency of cycles per second?
Since the sound an octave above any note must vibrate at exactly twice the number of vibrations (as Pythagoras had discovered, the string must be half as long), which is the best way to distribute that difference among the semitones and get a pleasant sound at the same time?
This has been the basic puzzle inherent to all tuning systems developed through our history, and the different ways of dealing with this situation have resulted in the so called “temperaments”, which have essentially tried to solve the problem in the best possible way.
The situation grows even more complex when we learn that before the world-wide adoption (or “universal” adoption, as our human vanity usually puts it) of equal temperament in use today, there were a great number of different and coexistent temperaments that composers and performers used according to their preferences.
As a popular saying goes, “every teacher with their own book”.
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) was aware of this impractical situation, and at a certain moment concluded that it was necessary to adopt only one temperament which would have the best sound and at the same time allow the composer to “move around” any tonality without problems.
Bach designed, together with one of his students, Johann Kirnberger, and very likely based on the temperament developed by organist and theoricist Andreas Werckmeister (1645-1750), his famous temperament, an undoubtedly perfect version of the so called “well temperaments”.
Contrary to what many people believe (because they were taught that way), the temperament that Bach had in mind was not the equal temperament used today.
Bach’s temperament allowed a composer to modulate to any major or minor tonality without sacrificing the beauty of sound, but since the distance between semitones was not the same within the octave (as it happens with equal temperament), each tonality had a unique and different “character” or “color”.
That is the true message of his monumental masterpiece, “The Well Tempered Clavier”.
In this perfect temperament designed by Bach, each harmonic region (each tonality) produces different feelings, emotions and moods, because as a result of its tuning technique, the distance between certain intervals is slightly different, and this is acoustically interpreted and translated into our brains as various “colors” or psychological effects.
Just another wonderful and brilliant touch of the greatest of all great geniuses.
A disturbing fact about this is that until the adoption (because of several and understandable reasons) of equal temperament at some point around the end of the XIX century, all baroque, classical and most of romantic composers used a temperament which was different from equal temperament.
The disturbing fact is that all the works composed up to the late romanticism do not sound today as they were originally conceived by their creators.
Bad news for extremist purists, enemies of change and responsible freedom. Whenever they condemn some interpretations of “classical” pieces because some “unrespectful” performers improvise or change some parts, they forget that as a consequence of the adoption of equal temperament literally no performance is really true to the original, and it is not so in one aspect which could probably be the most important: the emotions that they awaken in us, no less.
Or the emotions that they do not awaken in us.
Yes, I know… “classical” music moves us into tears… but just imagine all the feelings that equal temperament still prevents us from experiencing, at least in the case of the works written in those times.
However, as it always happens in human history, another genius had to turn up to open the next door…
The first fundamental composer of the equal temperament era is, without any doubt, Claude Debussy (1862-1918).
Born in the middle of a spectacular flowering of all arts and specially in France, one of the most transcendent birthplaces of world art, I can imagine Debussy, one of the most wonderful “painters” of universal music (and the word “universal” here is not at all vane), facing a terrible dilemma.
Let’s imagine Debussy, with his unique creative mind that pushed him into the search of different colors, effects and moods as it had never been explored before, trying to discover that endless universe with a tuning system in which all tonalities have the same color.
In equal temperament, all semitones have the same distance with each other (hence the name “equal”), which allows us to modulate or change tonalities with less risks perhaps, but making us pay the price of a lack of a rainbow of possibilities found in “well” temperaments.
As it was expected from the great French genius, Debussy found the door and music was no longer the same.
These may be just suppositions, but they may be worth the consideration.
I can see Debussy feeling some kind of frustration at the beginning, wondering what to do with such a “limited” temperament in his hands.
Limited…?
Not for Debussy…
The musical language of Saint-Germain-en-Laye’s genius, many times described as an “answer” or “revolution” against the pomposity of Wagnerian symphonic styles and other hardly ascertainable theories, might have probably been the result of his marvelous and personal way of breaking the limits of equal temperament.
Why not think that Claude Debussy developed his peculiar language and style when he found the way to “paint” with an infinite palette of colors, many more colors, a lot more colors than it was possible with previous temperaments…?
By extending and altering chords, which is only possible with equal temperament, leaving harmonic sequences unresolved o handling them in new ways, grouping notes in ways unheard of before and “condemned” by would-be “experts”… in short, by creating his own language, Debussy shows us that it is possible to obtain endless colors, moods and emotions inside (or “outside”…?) equal temperament.
But Debussy goes even beyond those limits…
With the old “well” temperaments, if a composer wished to create a certain emotion, he had one tonality that provided it.
One tonality.
Debussy has taught us through his musical conception that by “painting” harmony in endless ways, a creator of music has the complete freedom to conceive any colors he wants in any tonality he may wish to do it.
So Debussy breaks up the boundaries of equal temperament and brilliantly takes it up to a dimension which was impossible to achieve with any of the historic temperaments previously used.
The historical, present and future consequences of this fracture are impossible to measure and foresee, and they include the possibility of getting completely away from tonality, alternative conceptions like dodecaphonism and even any experimental form of creating music.
There are two of these consequences that may be interesting to mention at this moment.
On one hand, the possibility of transferring this system of endless colors from the piano to the symphony orchestra.
I don’t know about you, but I find it very difficult to think of a Ravel, a Stravinsky or even Ellington without Debussy’s definitive and irreversible turn.
On the other hand, for us piano players Debussy’s “rupture” is truly revolutionary in a very practical aspect; as it is available to handle any color variety in any tonality, it is again possible to compose any piano work in the key that is anatomically more comfortable and pleasant according to its melodic and harmonic combinations.
With “well” temperaments, many times composers would have to sacrifice a certain degree of comfort in order to obtain a definite color effect, which they undoubtedly considered more important than the anatomical approach.
(By the way, this could explain why Baroque keyboard music, specially Bach's, is so good for piano technique)
But, as the great Hungarian composer György Ligeti (1923-2006) put it, “well conceived piano music should be anatomically comfortable”.
This would have never been completely possible within equal temperament without the revolutionary contribution of the great Claude Debussy.
There still may be those who keep saying that Debussy’s main objective was to go against all previous composers.
Let them just quack around…
Meanwhile… can you imagine how Bach welcomed Debussy in Heaven…?
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