What the heck is "Justonic" supposed to be? From the examples provided, what it is NOT in any way is pure intonation. But of course part of he problem is using electronic wave forms instead of the sounds of real instruments or voices.
There's certainly nothing new in the idea that pure intervals and pure chords sound a lot better (in a lot of music, if not all music) than the equal temperament that we're saddled with, but this is really a horrible demonstration and it's unlikely to convince anyone. Let's hear some sensitive singers instead, OK? And the approach, selling "Justonic" (again, whatever the heck it's supposed to be) as if it were laundry soap generates negative feeings as well.
Just one person's opinion, of course.
John
P.S. Why couldn't you give a website that at least TRIES to explain "justonic"?
It's a company name. The video is one of their demos. The software they sell is intended to be used with electronic keyboards or guitars.
From the website: "The "insurmountable" tuning problem called the "Pythagorean comma" has been solved! The Justonic Tuning Cube can retune an electronic music synthesizer in real time, allowing pure harmony to be maintained in every chord." For just $US99, you, too, can have "pure harmony." :-)
Apparently 'justonic' is commercial company (surprise!): Justonic Tuning Inc. which claims to have solved the "'insurmountable' tuning problem called the 'Pythagorean comma' ". Basically it seems to be a system which can re-tune MIDI synthesisers in real-time. Yawn! http://www.justonic.com/
As they say: "Unleash the beauty of pure harmony" only please, please don't do it with awful electronic instruments!
John, I think you were unnecessarily harsh. The entry was clearly labeled "See it" - i.e. visual, and I for one found it fascinating, even if tied into a product. The whole point was that you can visually see the shapes of intervals in different tunings, so of course the purest tones were used to demonstrate this. It had nothing to do with advocacy of tunings.
I have to agree that I found this video very interesting - in fact, I took the liberty of showing it to my Music 101 class - as they had no idea what I was talking about when referring to the differences between meen (or as I like to call it "mean"), just, and equal temperment. In practicality - justonic is not the answer for anthing really but the visual aspect of this is quite interesting, as conductors we need to use our own sense and ears to develop good tuning, how to manipulate vowels and and open the ears of our singers to make it work.
However, if for no other reason than an educational demonstration - it was worth it. Thank goodness our voices don't sound like pure sine waves!
