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What to study before Tuning and temperament
Why a keyboard cannot be in tune everywhere, and what each tuning system gives up. Below, the concepts that come before, in the order in which one explains the next. Signed in, you see the same path minus what you already hold: your path.
Properties of sound
The four properties every musical sound has at once: duration, intensity, pitch and timbre.
Acoustics
Vibration, sound wave, frequency and amplitude, and which property of sound each one governs.
Note
The seven pitch names, and the sign that puts one of them on the page.
Tone and semitone
The smallest distance Western music uses, and the whole tone built from two of them.
Interval
The distance between two sounds, counted by note names, melodic or harmonic, simple or compound.
Harmonic series
The sounds that accompany every fundamental, and why timbre and chord origin both rest on them.
Tuning and temperament
Why a keyboard cannot be in tune everywhere, and what each tuning system gives up.