Re: Qualities of 17-tET (for Mary)

Hi Mary,

Enjoyed your 17-tet and 111-tet pieces!

I feel your 17-tet seems to share common mood with
other 17-tet pieces somehow.

> The common charactereistics I can find are celebration, play and a
> sense of excitement. I can see that as "horizontal" which
> horizontal meaning human experience, and vertical meaning divine.

Ties in with what David said about the Hurdy Gurdy piece in PMG as
a Reneissance fair piece. Yes, I'd agree exactly with your description.
Does also have a kind of subtle beauty too from the tiny semitone step
in the diatonic scale.

I've done a 17-tet diatonic improvisation to try to bring that out, as
usual:
http://members.nbci.com/tune_smithy/tunes/tunes.htm

There's a poss. of going into a kind of a trance when listening to my
improvisations and relaxing, - doesn't happen to me, but know of someone who
did.

Found this interesting page by Ivor Darreg about
moods of n-tet:
http://www.furious.com/perfect/xenharmonics.html

"
I could explain here that the seventeen-tone system turns certain common
rules of harmony upside-down: major thirds are dissonances which resolve
into fourths instead of the other way round: certain other intervals resolve
into major seconds; the pentatonic scale takes on a very exciting mood
when mapped onto the 17 equally-spaced tones, and so on; but I can't
expect you to believe me until you hear all this yourself. If you try
to play these pieces in another system, it just doesn't work; they
lose their punch; the magic is all gone.
"

Found it while following up a link from the Huygens-Fokker Foundation
biography of him:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~huygensf/english/darreg.html

Robert

scale.
>
> I've done a 17-tet diatonic improvisation to try to bring that out,
as
> usual:
> http://members.nbci.com/tune_smithy/tunes/tunes.htm

I seem to be trancing so easily with it I can't hear any sound at
all:-) YOur other pieces play fine so I think the problem is
specific to this piece.
>
> "
> I could explain here that the seventeen-tone system turns certain
common
> rules of harmony upside-down: major thirds are dissonances which
resolve
> into fourths instead of the other way round: certain other
intervals resolve
> into major seconds; the pentatonic scale takes on a very exciting
mood
> when mapped onto the 17 equally-spaced tones, and so on; but I can't
> expect you to believe me until you hear all this yourself. If you
try
> to play these pieces in another system, it just doesn't work; they
> lose their punch; the magic is all gone.

That is probably the best explanation for 17 "celebration". I think
I will probably use it more often now that I am conscious of it.
> "
Mary

> I seem to be trancing so easily with it I can't hear any sound at
> all:-) YOur other pieces play fine so I think the problem is
> specific to this piece.

Never mind. Rebooted and the problem disappeared. Ah the sweet
mysteries of Windows 98.

About three minutes into the 17 TET piece I did find myself nodding
into alpha, although there was one dissonant chord that brought me
right back. Perhaps there is something to harmonic entropy where
trancing is falling into those dips in the curve :-)

Dan let me add words of encouragement to getting your stuff into mp3 -
it is good, and it is 2001. Besides its fun to set up a studio, and
I think that is part of paractical music making.

Mary

M,
--- In crazy_music@y..., nanom3@h... wrote:
> Dan let me add words of encouragement to getting your stuff into
> mp3 - it is good, and it is 2001. Besides its fun to set up a
> studio, and I think that is part of paractical music making.

Did you mean "para-tactical"? :)

Jon (who seconds the move into home-based total-music creation)

--- In crazy_music@y..., JSZANTO@A... wrote:
>
> Did you mean "para-tactical"? :)
>
No but what a great slip of the tongue. Like the paramilitary
perhaps, the para tactical musicians.

Mary