Present-Day Preferences for Certain Melodic Intervals in the Natural, Equal-Tempered and Pythagorean Scales
Arnold McC. Small · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 1939
The chromatic steps of a piano from F2 to C4 were tuned successively to natural, equal-tempered and Pythagorean scale values. With each tuning a phonograph record was made of certain melodic and harmonic intervals in the major scale. This preliminary report presents the expressed preferences of a group of observers for the ascending and descending forms of the melodic major third (on C) and diminished fifth (on B) as given by these three tunings. A paired-comparison technique was employed in obtaining judgments.