Western art music (the traditions of classical music that laid the foundation for popular genres), has lied to you. Your ears have been taught that music only uses 12 notes: C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G#, A, A# and B. These 12 notes repeat up and down the piano in what are called ‘octaves.’ The distance between adjacent notes is called a ‘half step’, and in the majority of western music this is the smallest possible distance between notes. But around the globe music exists that uses smaller distances between pitches—as if you added extra notes in the cracks of the piano keys or extra frets on the neck of a guitar. This is called microtonality.

Microtonality is common in some Asian traditions and particularly the musical traditions of the Middle East. In these cultures, the music sounds perfectly “in tune” to those who grew up with it. But to our western ears, it may sound out of tune or even flat-out wrong. But the music isn’t wrong. It is our western perspective that limits our ability to appreciate it.

Some Japanese and Vietnamese traditions use microtones to ornament melodies—decorating them with brief moments of oddly-tuned notes. Other traditions, especially those from the Middle East, emphasize microtones as a fundamental structure in their music.

In Arabian and Turkish music, the tunings used are called maqam scales. These microtonal tunings can only be properly learned by ear. In notation, these scales divide the octave into 24 quarter-steps. But in practice, these quarter-steps are approximations and don’t do justice to the minutia of the tuning system. In Persian music, a similar system is used called dastgah.

In the past century, microtones have occasionally found their way into western classical and pop music— usually as an effect to either make things sound strange or to add extra style. Classical composer Charles Ives wrote microtonal music that divides the octave into 24 quartersteps. He did this by composing for two pianos—one of which would be tuned a quarter-step lower than the other. Each piano would independently sound ‘in tune’, but together they created an oddly-tuned microtonal landscape.

In pop music, microtones can be heard as a stylistic effect—such as when a guitarist bends a note or when a blues singer sings the slightly-out-of-tune “blue note.”

Our inability to fully appreciate microtonality reflects our ethnocentrism. We are unable to conceptualize the tuning systems of other cultures due to the limitations of our western upbringing. The perception of music is not standardized—it is subjective. Microtonality is awesome. The more you expose your ears to it the more familiar it will become.