Equal temperament cannot be tuned by ear because it offers no physical beatless guide

Evidence

It is therefore interesting to note the tendency of a cappella choral singers toward the more consonant intervals of just intonation that are based on minimum beats whilst at the same time noting the difficulty of tuning in equal temperament, for which there is no readily available physical guide such as the absence of beating. Tuning notes in equal temperament is therefore likely to rely on memories of music from an early age rather than relying on any physical attributes of the relations between the notes themselves. — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 1388

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: A genuinely unsettling claim: the tuning system underpinning most Western music has no acoustic anchor and can only be learned as memory, so our sense of ‘in tune’ is culturally implanted rather than physically grounded.
• SEED: Essay angle: ‘You cannot hear equal temperament — the intervals most of us call correct exist only in memory and notation.’
• QUESTION: If equal temperament has no physical guide, how do non-Western or untrained listeners judge ‘in tune’ — is beatless-ness the universal default?
• XREF: connects to: No perfect tuning system exists; all musical temperaments are compromised — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 2372; The ear’s sound-level-dependent nonlinearities cannot be substituted or corrected for — Toole, Floyd E, Sound reproduction- the acoustics and…, 914; No musical tuning system can be proven superior to another (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• No perfect tuning system exists; all musical temperaments are compromised #complicates (0.95) — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 2372
• Small-integer ratios cannot govern all musical intervals consistently #complicates (0.95) — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 2382
• The ear’s sound-level-dependent nonlinearities cannot be substituted or corrected for #complicates (0.90) — Toole, Floyd E, Sound reproduction- the acoustics and…, 914
• Sound quality cannot be assessed except through psychophysical experiments with human subjects #complicates (0.90) — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 2331
• Pitch cannot be measured absolutely, only relative to another tone #complicates (0.90) — Jennifer Lentz, Psychoacoustics- Perception of Normal…, 1237
• No musical tuning system can be proven superior to another #complicates (0.85)