Just intonation

The composer Ben Johnston wrote a number of string quartets for extended just intonation, a system of tuning many composers are not familiar with or have much training in. It’s both difficult to write and to play, but it opens up a whole new world of pitches outside the equal temperament system.

String Quartet No. 7: With Solemnity

Ben Johnston, Kepler Quartet

I have a decent understanding of how just intonation works, but I haven’t written much for it, besides putting together some retunings of my choral pieces and rendering them on the computer. If I wrote choral music in just intonation, I don’t know if anyone would even want to perform it.

My hope is that as more tools come along that allow composers to more easily write in just intonation, it will see some growth in popularity. Ratioscore is a good existing tool, but it’s not exactly user-friendly. I’ve thought about trying to make something myself. I have some ideas on how to a more intuitive interface for working with ratios, but it would be a lot to put it all together into something others could actually make use of.