Imperfections in music

Abstract

Music is a universal pleasure, but totally individual in terms of our hearing response, cultural background, and the pleasure that different performances and genres of music generate. Our hearing is also individual and varies with age and lifestyle. There are immense differences between instruments, musical scales (around 80), concert halls, audio electronics and broadcasting, plus each of us has a unique hearing response. This provides both originality and pleasure (or the reverse). All these various differences may be viewed as imperfections, or as the source that is essential to our enjoyment of music. For example, there are tangible compromises with instrument construction, such as the use of an equal temperament scale on keyboard instruments to allow one to play with different key signatures (in fact it is a highly imperfect, and significant, detuning imposed on a piano).