Thank you, Jacky and Jon and all

Hello, there, everyone, and in a previous mention from a few days ago,
I mentioned being about to mail a very tentative tape cassette with
some items mostly in a neo-Gothic style (inspired by 13th-14th century
European music) in 13-tET to someone who had most generously offered
to translate this music into audio files or a CD format.

That person, to whom I have now indeed mailed the tape, is Jacky
Ligon, whose musical intuition and expertise in the area of tuning and
timbre played an instrumental and indeed catalytic role in leading me
to try 13-tET. Maybe I can briefly tell the story, taking the occasion
to thank Jacky not only for all this inspiration and assistance, but
for helping along with Jon and many others to make this special forum
possible.

I wanted to mention you, Jacky, in my previous message, but I realized
that I hadn't gone through the etiquette of asking your permission.
Now, however, to borrow an old phrase, "it can be told."

In fact, part of the story has already been published in TMA, another
forum you have made possible, and one which, like MMM, seeks to
integrate discussions about musicmaking with actual music.

This summer, when looking for timbres which might maximize the
consonance of certain intervals in the manner of William Sethares and
others, I hit on a certain built-in timbres on the Yahama TX-802
synthesizer which made a Renaissance style pleasant, at least to me,
in 22-tET. As is well known, the regular thirds and sixths of this
tuning are quite different than the usual 16th-century ratios at or
near 5:4 and 6:5, so I was curious about what might be happening.

You then found in one of the timbres a partial at around 744 cents, in
contrast to the usual third partial or harmonic at or near 3:2 (around
702 cents). This led me to try an experiment in which I found that a
Renaissance meantone diminished sixth at around 738 cents in a
1/4-comma tuning with pure 5:4 major thirds, for example -- usually
known as a "Wolf fifth" because of its proverbial dissonance "like the
howling of wolves" -- could in this timbre have an effect like that of
a usual concordant fifth.

Since this "Wolf fifth" was very close to the size of an interval of
8/13 octave, also rounding to 738 cents, I found it natural to try
13-tET, and the tape followed from there.

Please let me caution everyone here in advance, Jacky, that while your
intonational artistry as well as technical skills are widely
acclaimed, my tape is a first crude effort in xenharmonic music, amply
documenting both my inexperience and my imperfect keyboard technique.
This makes your generous assistance at this early stage all the more
valuable.

Deeping thanking, you, Jacky, for all this, I would like also to thank
you, Jon, and others, who have likewise come forward offering their
musical experience and expertise. I hope that I can return this gift
appropriately in some way.

Such a generous community naturally leads to friendly and fruitful
collaborations of various kinds. For example, John deLaubenfels, you
and I did a Tuning List presentation comparing a progression I came up
with in JI and an adaptively tuned version of yours with more even
melodic steps, letting people compare the musical results.

Jon, your response reminds me that you have a very special musical
perspective to offer, not to mention your technical resources and
skills. An issue I'm dealing with now is striking a balance between
"getting some material out there" and quality control, if I might use
that term, especially for something that might be taken as a "serious"
release.

One thing especially important that you represent to me is respect for
an uncompromising commitment to a musical vision, as represented by
Harry Partch, combined with a lot of practical musicianship and
wisdom. Those are precious things for our community.

Mary, your timbres and the "science fiction" quality of some of your
music has also been an infiuential element: maybe an illustration of
the axiom that to perform well is also to teach and inspire others.

Then, Paul, there are your "puzzles" and also your musical practice
(e.g. 22-tET), both of which can lead in many musical directions, by
analogy or sometimes by a bit of contrast.

I've mentioned only some of the people who have helped in my own
recent endeavors; and if we considered all the worthy things be done
by people here and in other forums of our tuning community, the
catalogue of mutual assistance and generosity would be a very long
one.

Thank you all.

In peace and love,

Margo