eli5 what just intonation is
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It is where you put the stress when you say a word. And in some languages it also includes things like the pitch of your voice and whether or not it raises or lowers as you are saying a word.
When I record a record, even though 2 of those words look exactly alike they are not pronounced the same because they have different intonations on them.
It is microtuning chords. chords ring better when certain notes are a little flat or a little sharp. There are some YouTube videos on it, and barbershoppers love to talk about it but a lot of it goes over my head.
To understand just intonation in music, we need to start with a background on the shortcomings of equal temperament.
Equal temperament is a tuning system that works by simply spreading all pitches in an octave logarithmically through that octave. In 12-tone equal temperament, for example, all 12 pitches are spread evenly between one note and the note an octave above it. Pitches are divided on a logarithmic scale because then the frequency ratio between C and C# is equal to the frequency ratio between C# and D, D and Eb, etc. which means that all keys are equivalent. This is great for flexibility as it means that all keys can be used interchangeably.
The problem with equal temperament is that some intervals are out of tune. By this, I mean that those intervals are pretty far off from the simple frequency ratio they are trying to approximate. As an example, an equally tempered major third is 4 semitones, or 400 cents, wide, but a perfectly tuned major third has a frequency ratio of 5:4 and a size of 386 cents (3.86 semitones). Some frequency ratios also cannot be well approximated at all. The 7th harmonic (a 7:4 relationship) is 969 cents wide, which is 31 cents off from the minor seventh, and the 11th and 13th harmonics (11:8, 13:8) essentially fall right in between two notes a semitone apart and do not have a good approximation.
Just intonation solves these problems by ignoring any sort of pre-existing temperament system and just tuning the notes of every chord precisely to certain frequency ratios. While the sound is very consonant and pleasing, it is less flexible as you can only play in one or two keys (unless you write and play the music using software).
There are two very different definitions of “intonation”.
-The rise and fall of the voice in speaking
-accuracy of pitch in playing or singing, or on a stringed instrument such as a guitar
If you want answers, you’ll need to be more specific with your question.
When talking about the intonation of a guitar, you’re talking about the guitar being in tune with itself. From the nut to the 12th fret and the nut to the bridge.
Intonation is tuning consistency.
If I play an open E string on my guitar and then I play the 12th fret E, they should both be in tune. If the 12th fret octave is off, you adjust the string length from the bridge until both the open note and the octave are both perfectly in tune and now you have proper intonation.
If as you go up the fretboard to higher octaves your notes are not intonated properly, the notes will become sharp or flat and won’t resonate or harmonize with other lower notes. This is a bad intonation and is unpleasant to listen to.
I am not a pro musician but I am a writer, so I’m going to take on the challenge of explaining like you’re actually 5.
Imagine cutting up a pretty, frosted marble birthday cake. If you cut it into 12 exactly equal pieces, everyone at the party is going to agree their pieces are fairly divided. They could trade pieces and no one would be annoyed by their serving.
But some of them might not like that their piece of cake was cut right through a frosting flower, and others might wish they had a piece with more chocolate or more vanilla, and the birthday guest might pout because she wanted the piece with her name on it.
So you could maybe cut the cake ever so slightly *not* even, so that the slices aren’t perfectly interchangeable, but now the guests get along nicely.
The cake is an octave. The slices are notes. The characteristics of the cake are sound waves and the guests’ willingness to agree or to throw fists is how nice chords sound, because the sound waves fall into pleasant ratios or not.
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