[analog31]

>>> (why not 6? why not 16?)

12 is the simplest scale whose intervals match the harmonic sequence. It's a technology.

[pythko]

The 12-TET certainly has some neat mathematical properties, but my point is that it’s not the only way to decide what “notes” are. It’s an interesting debate on whether there’s something fundamental to this particular approach that sounds good to the human ear, but I think it’s clear that there’s a hefty cultural component.

It’s also worth noting that modern 12-TET is not the series of whole number ratios that someone might expect from basing it off a harmonic series [1]. It’s an approximation based off a logarithmic scale. 12 Tone Just (or “Pure”) Intonation sounds pretty weird, and in my opinion, bad. If people had been making music with 12 Tone Just Intonation for the last millennium, maybe it would sound good to me!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12_equal_temperament#Just_inte...

[analog31]

Indeed, temperament is its own technology. I assume that the music, technology, and culture co-evolved. And nothing stays constant for a millennium. Temperaments were developed and refined as music began making fuller use of the available scales and chords. Yet each system had to be within the capabilities of musicians to tune their own instruments. A harpsichord had to be tuned before every performance. Equal temperament had to wait until instruments (the modern piano) were stable enough to stay in tune between visits of the technician.

To make just temperament sound "good" even relative to the ears of another time period, probably required playing music written for that particular tuning.

As a double bassist, playing pitches repeatably enough to claim any specific temperament would be a lifelong challenge, if it's even attainable. Most of the time, musicians don't think about temperaments. We try to play in tune and sound good.