Attainment of theoretical tuning ideals in practice

Ascertain the extent to which historical theoretical tuning ideals, derived from instruments such as the monochord and pitch pipes, were realized in actual musical practice across different societies.

Background

The Supporting Information discusses how tuning technologies and mathematical theory can preserve scales over millennia, potentially enabling survival of theoretical ideals independent of performance variability.

However, the degree to which these ideals were achieved in practical music-making across cultures remains unknown, affecting interpretations of how theory and technology shape scale evolution compared to stochastic drift and selection.