Howard Goodall's Big Bangs, Part 2: Equal Temperment
The musical landscape of Western Europe was transformed by a unique evolutionary development
Our relationship with music rooted in nature goes back over 40,000 years
Man started to create a musical scale by arranging notes into some kind of natural order
Western musicians tampered with the natural structure of music to create their own tuning system
Big-name composers have been able to make big-scale music thanks to the Big Bang temperament
Pythagoras discovered that musical notes harmonize together when they have a simple mathematical relationship
He heard a harmonious chord of chimes coming from a blacksmith's shop and discovered that they were simple ratios of each other
Pythagoras believed that the universe had its own music, a harmony created by the movement of the planets
He set to work creating a scale of notes by dividing metal into simple ratios
Pythagoras' influence on early Western music was profound
The Pythagorean scale was created by dividing pieces of metal by two-thirds
The scale created an infinite sequence or spiral of notes
The 13th note created a dissonance and resulted in the Pythagorean comma
The comma affected the distance between every note in the octave
Musicians played it safe by using only the first seven notes of the Pythagorean scale
European music made do with the eight-step version of the Pythagorean scale
Church music required a more sophisticated approach and experimented with adding new musical lines
Combining notes created strange and evil-sounding combinations due to the Pythagorean comma
Musicians tended to avoid certain notes and played basic tunes with fifths and fourths for harmony
Sacred music was meant to mirror the perfection of God's creation
Evil-sounding note combinations derived from impure ratios were prohibited by the church
Experimenting with chords including sixths was considered heresy
John Dunstable, an English composer, challenged the traditional note combinations
He experimented with dissonances and sixths in his compositions
Dunstable used the flexible tones of the human voice to create new harmonies
Dunstable's music was highly regarded by Continental composers
French composers quickly imitated his daring style and harmonic technique
The use of thirds and sixths became commonplace in compositions
Composers began throwing different sounds together in ambitious compositions
The experimentation led to the strain on Pythagoras's 12-note scale
The comma, a tuning problem ignored by Pythagoras, resurfaced and caused difficulties in creating harmonious keys
Equal temperament, a tuning system dividing the octave into 12 equal parts, was sought after
Johann Sebastian Bach played a significant role in finding a mathematically perfect scale
Bach's composition, "The Well-Tempered Keyboard," became a crucial collection of keyboard pieces
Note: The transcript has been condensed and summarized to fit within the 2000 token limit.
Bach found himself in the employ of a wealthy count who loved secular music
Bach had plenty of time to concentrate on challenges and exercises for his pupils
He wrote the 48 preludes and fugues, which contained pieces in all the keys of the keyboard
The collection of tunes was a breakthrough in music
Bach had found a way to play all the pieces for the first time
The system was perfected and written up by Bach's pupil, Johann Philipp Kirnberger
The well-tempered keyboard revolutionized classical music in Europe
Composers could easily move from key to key and explore new sounds
The well-tempered system spread all over western Europe
Victorian engineering made the well-tempered system technically possible and universally available
Precision engineering allowed for the implementation of the tuning system
The formula for equal temperament, the 12th root of two, could be applied accurately
Instruments could be mass-produced and exported all over the world
The global invasion of equal temperament began
The accordion played a significant role in spreading equal temperament
It was portable and fixed to the equal temperament system
The accordion's popularity forced other instruments to conform to its tuning
The arrival of the accordion had an insidious effect on ethnic music
Ethnic tuning systems were replaced by equal temperament
The accordion's loud sound made it perfect for accompanying dancing
Romanian Gypsy music adapted to the equal temperament system
The old harmonies and scales were replaced by the Western style
The tension between the old and new produced a unique sound
Equal temperament has become the dominant tuning system worldwide
Other alternative temperaments have been drowned out
Traditional weddings and music are becoming less common
Chinese music has maintained a different tuning system
The Chinese value the relationship between music and nature
Traditional Chinese music has a tranquility and natural stillness
Western tuning is starting to influence Chinese music
Young people in China are exposed to Western tuning and their own music is sounding out of tune
The future of non-Western tuning systems is uncertain
The last stronghold of non-Western sound may eventually adopt equal temperament
The connection with the natural world has been lost in the pursuit of equal temperament
Equal temperament has become the dominant tuning system in the Western world
European music relies on equal temperament and it is impossible to imagine a world without it
The rewards of equal temperament outweigh its flaws
Individual pieces, like Bach's 48 preludes and fugues, justify the invention of
The musical landscape of Western Europe was transformed by a unique evolutionary development
Our relationship with music rooted in nature goes back over 40,000 years
Man started to create a musical scale by arranging notes into some kind of natural order
Western musicians tampered with the natural structure of music to create their own tuning system
Big-name composers have been able to make big-scale music thanks to the Big Bang temperament
Pythagoras discovered that musical notes harmonize together when they have a simple mathematical relationship
He heard a harmonious chord of chimes coming from a blacksmith's shop and discovered that they were simple ratios of each other
Pythagoras believed that the universe had its own music, a harmony created by the movement of the planets
He set to work creating a scale of notes by dividing metal into simple ratios
Pythagoras' influence on early Western music was profound
The Pythagorean scale was created by dividing pieces of metal by two-thirds
The scale created an infinite sequence or spiral of notes
The 13th note created a dissonance and resulted in the Pythagorean comma
The comma affected the distance between every note in the octave
Musicians played it safe by using only the first seven notes of the Pythagorean scale
European music made do with the eight-step version of the Pythagorean scale
Church music required a more sophisticated approach and experimented with adding new musical lines
Combining notes created strange and evil-sounding combinations due to the Pythagorean comma
Musicians tended to avoid certain notes and played basic tunes with fifths and fourths for harmony
Sacred music was meant to mirror the perfection of God's creation
Evil-sounding note combinations derived from impure ratios were prohibited by the church
Experimenting with chords including sixths was considered heresy
John Dunstable, an English composer, challenged the traditional note combinations
He experimented with dissonances and sixths in his compositions
Dunstable used the flexible tones of the human voice to create new harmonies
Dunstable's music was highly regarded by Continental composers
French composers quickly imitated his daring style and harmonic technique
The use of thirds and sixths became commonplace in compositions
Composers began throwing different sounds together in ambitious compositions
The experimentation led to the strain on Pythagoras's 12-note scale
The comma, a tuning problem ignored by Pythagoras, resurfaced and caused difficulties in creating harmonious keys
Equal temperament, a tuning system dividing the octave into 12 equal parts, was sought after
Johann Sebastian Bach played a significant role in finding a mathematically perfect scale
Bach's composition, "The Well-Tempered Keyboard," became a crucial collection of keyboard pieces
Note: The transcript has been condensed and summarized to fit within the 2000 token limit.
Bach found himself in the employ of a wealthy count who loved secular music
Bach had plenty of time to concentrate on challenges and exercises for his pupils
He wrote the 48 preludes and fugues, which contained pieces in all the keys of the keyboard
The collection of tunes was a breakthrough in music
Bach had found a way to play all the pieces for the first time
The system was perfected and written up by Bach's pupil, Johann Philipp Kirnberger
The well-tempered keyboard revolutionized classical music in Europe
Composers could easily move from key to key and explore new sounds
The well-tempered system spread all over western Europe
Victorian engineering made the well-tempered system technically possible and universally available
Precision engineering allowed for the implementation of the tuning system
The formula for equal temperament, the 12th root of two, could be applied accurately
Instruments could be mass-produced and exported all over the world
The global invasion of equal temperament began
The accordion played a significant role in spreading equal temperament
It was portable and fixed to the equal temperament system
The accordion's popularity forced other instruments to conform to its tuning
The arrival of the accordion had an insidious effect on ethnic music
Ethnic tuning systems were replaced by equal temperament
The accordion's loud sound made it perfect for accompanying dancing
Romanian Gypsy music adapted to the equal temperament system
The old harmonies and scales were replaced by the Western style
The tension between the old and new produced a unique sound
Equal temperament has become the dominant tuning system worldwide
Other alternative temperaments have been drowned out
Traditional weddings and music are becoming less common
Chinese music has maintained a different tuning system
The Chinese value the relationship between music and nature
Traditional Chinese music has a tranquility and natural stillness
Western tuning is starting to influence Chinese music
Young people in China are exposed to Western tuning and their own music is sounding out of tune
The future of non-Western tuning systems is uncertain
The last stronghold of non-Western sound may eventually adopt equal temperament
The connection with the natural world has been lost in the pursuit of equal temperament
Equal temperament has become the dominant tuning system in the Western world
European music relies on equal temperament and it is impossible to imagine a world without it
The rewards of equal temperament outweigh its flaws
Individual pieces, like Bach's 48 preludes and fugues, justify the invention of