One of mine too. Both the biographies I read made a considerable effort to show just (no pun!) how important it was to him to establish the basis of a '...well ordered church music...', in which, it is understood that 'ordered' meant tempered scales, well organized gigs, (my word, not his) and generally, everything in its place, according to God. I dig all that, and fully understand, but I also see merit in the counter argument.Shooshie wrote:...I've gone full circle and just prefer equal temperament, as did one of my heroes: JS Bach.
Shooshie
I've got a very old, obscure, almost falling-apart book about (what the author somewhat patronizingly refers to as) 'classical' Chinese music. According to his research, the Chinese developed and fully explored a couple of variations on equal temperament a full ~200 years before the west figured it out. He also contended that most of their so-called 'classical' or formal canon (court music, ceremonial music, etc.) didn't use a tempered scale, because it had been developed even earlier than that - and tradition was so strong, they didn't change their ritual music.
I don't see any right or wrong in any of this, it all just fascinates me. Why does a blue note make me feel so good sometimes? Why do I love the smeary, essentially out-of-tune sound of an amateur Polynesian or Hungarian choir, but I just can't stand any accordions, ever?
Anyway, weren't we talking guitars here?