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    Each instrument had one note it was keyed to and it would only sound good if the instrument was played in that key or tuning.  If you tried to play the same song on the same instrument starting from a different string or position it would not produce a similar sound.  Two instruments which were tuned to the same note could play and harmonize with each other, but otherwise this was not possible.  As instrumentalists tried to play together in groups, they made such an awful and overpowering noise that the church seriously considered banning all musical instruments and making it a mortal sin to play them.


    From 400 AD until around the 16th century, being excommunicated from the church or burned as a heretic became an incentive to find more harmonious tunings.  Between the 16th and 17th centuries, a system called Just tuning, which was a tuning based on one of the old Greek modes, solved a lot of these dissonant problems with instruments.  This tuning system created the first acceptable half-step and made it possible for instruments to be scientifically and harmoniously tuned so that all of the keys sounded reasonably good on the same instrument, and several instruments could play together without dissonance.  It was not until this tuning problem was resolved that the church began to approve of, support, and commission instrumental works of music.


    From the 17th to the 18th century, another new tuning system came into vogue known as Mean tuning.  This system was based on another old Greek mode (Didymus mode) which used a half-step of a slightly different size than the Just half-step.  By averaging together the two half-steps, a new compromise was reached that sounded even better in all of the keys.  This system was adopted for all organ music.  All composers up to and including Bach used the Mean system of tuning.  Bach developed the well-tempered system of tuning in 1750, but it took about 100 years for it to replace the Mean system.


    With advances in science and mathematics, the half-step division of the scale was even more precisely defined as the 12th root of 2, which has a decimal value of  1.0594631.  In other words, multiplying the value of any scale tone by 1.0594631 will generate the tone 1/2 step above the starting tone.  This system of tuning, which has been in use since the end of the 19th century is known as the equal tuning system.  What we have today then is truly an egalitarian system which enables a piece of music to have essentially the same character and effect regardless of what key it is played in.