Part of How To Classical. Why does the oboe tune the orchestra? Why does the orchestra sit the way it does? What does rosin actually do to a violin bow? If you find the traditions of the classical ...

Blame it on Pythagoras. That music’s greatest “riddle” should be about intonation seems, on the face of it, rather silly. After all, our ears should tell us when two notes are in tune with one another ...

It depends on what you mean by “out of tune”. If you are referring to melodies, the answer is that people have built-in expectations of how a tune will develop, based on whatever musical scale their ...