The End of the Well-Tempered Clavichord?
W. Douglas Maurer

Bridges: Mathematical Connections in Art, Music, and Science
Pages 169–176

Abstract

The scale used by all pianos today is based on the idea of the well-tempered clavichord, an instrument for which Bach wrote a famous collection of pieces showing its versatility. Our contention here is that, in an era of electronic instruments, the well-tempered scale has the potential to be completely outmoded, and replaced by an adaptive scale which uses natural harmonics whenever possible.

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