GUEST unnamed, 5:32 a.m. today said: The issue of equal tempered vs. mean tone and the rest is a quite unrelated, though it does have some bearing on how notes are played.

In musical life, music theory and proper chord spellings are important because they represent something we do. Yet when we "do" B# and C in equal temperament, there is no difference between their sounds. It's not until we "do" these notes in meantone and justly intoned scales that they sound different from each other. So I would say that the issue of which type of scale cuts directly to the heart of the question.

The a cappella ensembles in which I sing strive to interpret dots using intervals based on the physics of sound (mostly 3-limit just intonation, yet I doubt our singers know it's called that), which approach allows overtones to ring out freely. For us, the difference between B# and C surely does matter.

Just intonation sounds bright and alive next to the comparatively duller, non-ringing sound that results when our singers sometimes revert to the compromise versions of intervals known as equal temperament, which predominates in life.