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by Miraste 661 days ago
The compromise in question is called equal temperament, and it's quite interesting if anyone is curious.
1 comments

In the case of stringed instruments, equal temperament isn't the only compromise; there is also stretched tuning, which seeks to match the harmonics (rather than the fundamentals) of harmonically related strings to one another (in a mechanical system where the harmonics are neither perfect integer ratios of the fundamental nor constant ratios across all of the strings).
and wind instruments can and do bend their notes with their mouths to fit better in the chord than equal temperament