The Tuning of Keyboard Instruments

In View of the present interest in authentic performances of Renaissanoe Baroque music, the author designed and had constructed an electronic organ (1) which could be instantly tuned to various obsolete systems of tuning as well as to the modern Equal Temperament (33-). A tape-recording illustrating the sounds of these systems has been made. The present paper is an adjunct to this demonstration, summarizing the historical reasons for the changes through, the centuries and presenting in diagrammatic form the principles behind the main systems of tuning. The set-of unequally spaced notes sounded by the white keys of a piano (the diatonio series) has been evolved independently in many parts of the world. This is prohab due to its being founded on two intervals (frequency-ratios), the octave (2: 1 and the fifth (3: 2) which are the first two intervals sounded. by a primitive horn. Next to the unison they are the easiest intervals to tune accurately by the absence of beats between harmonics.