Isacoff's “Temperament” gives an in-depth history of the development of piano tunings and temperaments starting with Pythagoras's perfect fifths in 6th century BC, moving through Da Vinci, mean-tone temperament, Galileo, Zarlino, and Rameau, and finishing with contemporary minimalists such as Michael Harrison and Philip Glass. So, how was equal temperament developed and why was it so difficult to achieve? Aptly named, these intervals produce sounds that resemble the howling of a wolf and thus had to be avoided by musicians and composers at all costs. In non-equal temperaments there exist so-called “wolf” intervals. Basically, this allows a song to be transposed into any key and still sound musically pleasing. For those not familiar, equal temperament is a system of tuning for stringed instruments in which every note within the octave is equally spaced. These books did their job of piquing my interest in the topic. All of the piano repair books that I have read have included a short section on the development of equal temperament and it's predecessors, but none of them really dig deeply into the subject.
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