BARBERSHOP INTONATION SHOWDOWN 7 limit vs 3 limit

The famous tag from the famous barberſhop claſſic. Ƿhat ſoundeþ right to ðee ? Let me knoƿ beloƿ in ðe comments. Ƿho ƿill ǷIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNN ???
Seriouſly ðough, if ðou knoƿeſt not ðe Loꝛd Ieſus Chꝛiſt, ðou beſt lookeſt ðeſe vp ðæt ðou periſh not in ðy ſinne:
1 Corinthians 15:1-8 KJV
Romans 10:2-13 KJV

[@williamwood6240]

I could definitely hear a difference in the tuning, with the 3 - limit tuning being "in tune".

[@anastasiorossi3815]

Interesting demo and discussion. Either version sounds "in tune", depending on your preferences and the definition(s) of "in tune". The legendary Ed Waesche once said, " If you sing every chord perfectly tuned in Just Intonation and don't adjust the common one between chords, the tonal center will drift downward.
I suggest that one way to maintain the tonal center is for the lead to sing the melody in Equal Temperament, with the other three tuning to the lead in Just Intonation.

[@RememberGodHolyBible]

Thank you for the comment. Yes, with common tones the pitch does drift, and in this piece it does so multiple times just in this tag. I definitely understand people's preferences can be conditioned in to hearing various things as in tune or out of tune. I once heard 5 limit tuning as in tune for a decade, now it almost always sounds out of tune to me. This happened when I changed how I was listening. For years I had conditioned myself to hear 5 limit as in tune, even 7 limit, but I was only listening to intonation vertically, never horizontally. Once I started listening horizontally also, the whole way I heard music changed, and the problems with 5 limit and 7 limit that you find on paper, with keyboard designs that don't work, and insufficient ways to notate them as sheet music, became audible to me. The sound became not only confused, that is, everything was fused together, and muddy with little distinction between lines, but the melodies within chords sounded out of tune, like they never fully got up to pitch, or making up for not getting up to pitch on the previous notes, and singing a wider interval than it should be.
Yes, someone else had mentioned tuning the melody to 3 limit or equal temperament and adjusting the rest of the notes. But before this someone said that isn't right, it should be the root of each chord that remains Pythagorean or equal tempered. I obviously chose the later, as I was less familiar with this method of tuning. But in terms of making the melody equal tempered, I did not want to do that because I wanted to test alleged just intonation against alleged just intonation, I did not want to involve any cheating compromises of tempered notes. I wanted to see and test if 7 limit is a viable functional system of tuning, or if at best it is an aural trick, that some people prefer in certain or all styles, but one that involves mandatorily tricking and or distracting the ear, so as not to sound out of tune.
Keeping the roots Pythagorean allowed for the 7 limit to remain purely harmonic, and as I always say 12 tone equal temperament is just approximating Pythagorean tuning. Now if I did tune the melody to Pythagorean and adjusted the other notes accordingly it would create other problems or recreate ones you heard in the above example that I tried to fix. For example, in the measure that I made 5 limit dominant seventh chords, if I had made the C natural in the lead part the 7/4 of the D7 and also pitched down the F major down just before it so as to keep it smooth, then at the end of the measure the lead goes from a C to a D. If that C and D are Pythagorean, a 9/8, than the bass part will have to leap from a reciprocal septimal D (the root of the last D7 in that measure) to a Pythagorean G note to be a perfect fifth with the lead's D note. That interval of reciprocal septimal D\, a 8/7, to a Pythagorean G, would sound quite jarring and out of tune. That 8/7 I believe is almost 23 or 25 cents sharp of the Pythagorean D, and there would be quite the jarring effect with that leap in the bass.
Also in the third to last measure, the part that I said sounded very bad before I made the dotted half note E into a tie to pitch it up, it would again have the same problem of the tenor line there sounding terribly flat. This is because in that part, the worst offending interval was between the 5/3 A note to the 7/4 Bb of the C7 chord which follows (which in this scenario would be a C+7 chord in Johnston notation). And even though the A minor chord would still be an A+ minor chord as you hear in the video, the C7 would also now be up a syntonic comma to accommodate. Even if it would work out where it wasn't a C+7 there or an A+ minor, the relationship between those chords would always remain the same with the tuning scheme of keeping the lead part Pythagorean.
I think a lot of quartets cheat frankly, knowingly or unknowingly, they compromise intervals to make up for things drifting or sounding even more out of tune. There may be a perfect way to tune 7 limit as just intonation, but I certainly do not know it. But I think this video shows pretty conclusively that the system of 7 limit tuning is not functional, it is at best a trick. A careful tricking of the ear to hear it as in tune, distracting your ear with better sounding lines, to cover up the terribly out of tune lines, all for the sake of that sweet ring people are looking for. At this point though, most that sing barbershop or listen to it frequently I would imagine are already in a place where there ear only checks for vertical intonation. It is understandable because that is what is seen as important in that genre. But in terms of a coherent musical system that is harmonic, only 3-limit works and sound in tune, clear, with distinct lines, and locking harmonies, not 5 limit, not 7, not any other higher limit, the higher the limit the worse it tends to be.
If it was not for the traditional bias that has developed around barbershop, and the unfortunate untruths spoken about 3-limit having out of tune thirds, I do believe people would unanimously prefer the 3 limit and would even feel comfortable calling it true intonation.

[@RememberGodHolyBible]

Just one correction to my first reply to you. I realized I was assuming that that measure of 5 limit dominant 5 chords would be changed to 7 limit ones. If I did not make them 7 limit, the problem I described above would not happen. But the lead melody line in the next measure would not sound as I have often heard it performed. The lead seems to go into the 7 dimension of the F of the G7/D chord in that measure.
But if the lead remains Pythagorean on that F note, the D in the bass will have to be an 8/7 to the C in the following measure, so in the bass voice you would have a reciprocal septimal D moving to a Db- in the next chord. Now maybe that may be passible in context, but that interval between reciprocal septimal D to Db- is pretty wide, and the harmony set up of V to bII to I7, (thinking of this section in isolation in C), that V is not is a 3/2 relation ship to the C, it is much sharper. And while you may be able to trick the listener by having them only focus on the in tune Pythagorean melody while the bass sings a rather off interval and the ring makes one forget the sound of the out of tune V chord on G7/D in relation to the C7 chord on the down beat of the next measure, it could be at least passible to listeners. But to me that would not prove it a functional tuning, but only lend it self to the notion of 7 limit is a thing used as a spectacle, one that requires you trick the listener so they do not perceive it as out of tune.
I may go back and retune the melody in Pythagorean and see what happens when I do. I may then isolate the voices to see if each line also is coherent when solo. It may be a good follow up video, to really examine the notion of 7 limit and it's functionality or the lack thereof.