What is Just Intonation?
Although, like most composers working with this unfamiliar tuning system, I am frequently asked this troublesome question, I have yet to devise an answer that is suitable for casual conversation. Technically, Just Intonation is any system of tuning in which all of the intervals can be represented by whole-number frequency ratios, with a strongly implied preference for the simplest ratios compatible with a given musical purpose. Unfortunately this definition, although concise and accurate, is more likely to result in a glazed expression indicative of confusion than in the gleam of understanding. It is, in short, a definition that is perfectly clear to the comparative few who have the background to understand it, and who could, therefore, formulate it for themselves, and perfectly opaque to everyone else, including, unfortunately, most trained musicians. (It is my experience that most musicians are as ignorant of the details of twelve-tone equal temperament, the predominant tuning system
