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tracnaryesterday at 7:16 PM2 repliesview on HN

To give an example, this it of course not true:

> Only a limited set of frequencies is used in music. All these frequencies (that exist in music) can be played by a piano.


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strenholmeyesterday at 11:31 PM

Yeah, I think a good discussion on music theory is starting from first principles, explaining Pythagorean tuning, then explaining 5-limit just intonation, the explaining we compromised on 12-tone equal temperament because it made tuning and changing keys a lot simpler, at the expenses of some notes being slightly out of tune (e.g. the minor and major thirds deviate by about 15 cents from their 5-limit just intonated “ideal” tunings).

PaulDavisThe1styesterday at 7:20 PM

You're saying its not possible to tune a piano to an arbitrary set of 88 pitches?

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