Tuning of isolated musical intervals

Abstract

Systematic deviations from the equally tempered values were observed while tuning the frequency of a pure tone up and down against the standard frequency, to tune up 12 musical intervals within an octave in randomly selected order. The standard frequencies were 125, 250, 500, and 1000 Hz. Four trained music students served as subjects and the total number of observations per point was not less than 80. It has been shown that small intervals are tuned smaller and large intervals larger than it could be predicted from the equally tempered scale. The observed octave enlargement effect is in agreement with the previously published data.