Re: 17 and midi studio hell

Brian, thank you for a 'keeper' of a post. The
list of ETs with your comments (and hopefully additions from
others with much more experience than I have) is going to be
a real 'thought provoker' as I go through my inspections.

Let me introduce myself first. I probably fall into the
'theory wanker from the ATL' category by your standards.
My music endeavors in the real world are fairly
modern jazz guitar composition and performance nominally
in 12 equal (I say nominally because I bend a lot of
notes and most playing situations are barely
"in tune"). My microtonal explorations at this point
are twiddling with various scales and tunings in my own
private midi studio hell (with no compositions committed
yet) and I am soon going to get a 31ED2 guitar.

Regarding your 17 comments...

> Although various so-called "theorists" (none of whom
> have actually composed in the tunings they puport to
> discuss) have described 17 equal as an "ultra-Pythagorean"
> tuning, this captures only "the one-half part of the one
> fourth truth," to coin a phrase. When used to ape 12-equal
> Pythagorean major and minor melodic modes and major and
> minor triadic harmonies, 17 equal can indeed sound like a
> Pythagorean tuning carried to extremes -- restless, vibrant,
> aggressive, steely, and biased toward melody rather than
> harmony.

<snip>

> Howver, the striking fact remains that most composers who
> use 17 equal find themselves quickly falling into the habit
> of using a highly gapped pentatonic melodic mode.
> This tendency for 17 equal to fall into a pentatonic mode
> has shown itself so often, in the hands of so many
> microtonalists (novices and seasoned veterans alike) that
> the 17-equal predeliction for a gapped pentatonic mode must
> qualify as the signle most notable characteristic of the
> 17 equal tuning. No mathematics predicted this. No theory
> explains it.

My "cursory glance at 5 and 7 note MOSes in 17 equal"
show the obvious

51515 <- is this the gapped penatonic you mentioned?
34343
3313331 <- the "psuedo-pythagorean" with "restless" 9/7 thirds
3223232 <- a neutral diatonic

If indeed the 51 pentatonic is the one that you have seen
people gravitate towards, then you are correct that there
is not an obvious "consonance" motivated reason to choose
that over 343434, which would be the "ultra-Pythagorean".

> As one of the group of 1/3-tone equal temperaments with
> highly recognizable perfect fifths, 17 sounds quite similar
> to 19. These tunings both share the same general overall
> "sound," and experience shows that a composition in 17 can
> often be turned into a composition in 19 with little
> difference in its overall "sound" (the same goes for a
> composition in 19 turned into one in 17). Melodically, 17
> and 19 sound nearly identical. Harmonically, they differ
> greatly insofar as 19 offers a smooth major triad while 17
> does not -- but in that case substituting a 17 equal neutral
> triad often produces much the same musical effect as the 19
> equal major triad.

So, if I'm reading this right, for someone writing tonalish
music, the mapping from 3323332 to 3223232 seems to preserve
more musical intent than mapping from 3323332 to 3313331?

It would be interesting if Hstick ever does this sort of
mapping since he composes both on 19 and 34 tone guitars and
could move compositions back and forth...when I have my 31
tone guitar I'll have a similar capability in going from
5535553 to 5445454...

Not to imply that tonalish music is the only game in town,
just that it is my jumping off point.

Lots of other points snipped including the midi studio
hell thing. Yes, actually making the music IS much harder
than all the "pre-compositional" work.

Bob Valentine