Neo-Gothic Music in 13-tET -- audio files

Hello, everyone, and I'm pleased to announce that with much assistance
and artistry on the part of Jacky Ligon, three of my 13-tET items
are now available on MMM. Please let me warmly thank all of your who
have helped make this possible, including the most inspiring Bill
Sethares who has done so much to encourage timbre/tuning diversity.

Here I'll give links to the upload messages, followed by notes on each
of the three items.

* * *

/makemicromusic/topicId_42.html#1179
"Fifths" (13-tET, Piccolo, PuffPipesD) ~0:23

This quick demonstration moves through the 13 "fifths" or 8-step
intervals in a 13-tET chromatic scale, showing how they can have a
"fifthlike" stability or an intriguing ambiguity with some "minor
sixthlike" qualities also. These intervals of around 738 cents might
best be described as in their own class, "fifths" most extraordinary.

(The timbre is "PuffPipesD," based on the beautiful built-in voice
"PuffPipes" on the Yamaha TX-802 synthesizer, here modified to make
these 13-tET intervals more smooth or concordant in effect.)

/makemicromusic/topicId_42.html#1182
"Chowning Organ Improvisation" (13-tET, Chowning Organ) ~2:30

This somewhat "jazzy" neo-Gothic piece tries a bit of "floating"
accidentalism or chromaticism with some four-voice sonorities such
as 0-462-738-923 cents (a bit like 14:18:21:24, 0-435-702-933 cents)
or 0-277-702-1015 cents (a bit like 12:14:18:21, 0-267-702-969 cents).
These sonorities maybe suggest what could very loosely be called a
kind of "neo-medieval barbershop" style celebrating the sonorousness
of this tuning. The Chowning Organ is a flutelike timbre named in
honor of John Chowning, the inventor and developer of FM synthesis.

/makemicromusic/topicId_42.html#1180
"14th-century improvisation" (13-tET, Piccolo, PuffPipesD) ~2:38

This take on the 14th century features a timbre called "PuffPipesD," a
variation on the preset PuffPipes voice with optimization for 13-tET;
the "D" in the title is the hexadecimal notation for the number 13.
The "Piccolo" is a slightly modified version of the preset TX-802
voice by this name (A27), which as is can make an interval of 8/13
octave or a diminished sixth in 1/4-comma meantone (e.g. G#-Eb),
either at ~738 cents, have a consonant effect rather like that of a
usual fifth. One is tempted to wonder if the "Piccolo" preset might
have been designed for such a tuning, for example John Chowning's
ninth root of Phi scale used in Stria.

* * *

An aside: while it's sometimes convenient to speak of intervals such
as "fifths" in 13-tET, this tuning has its own "musical geometry" or
"interval arithmetic" often radically different from that of Western
European compositional conventions. We might better speak of "8-step"
intervals, often used in neo-Gothic music based on 13th-14th century
European styles as a kind of near-3:2 stable concord.

May I warmly thank you, Jacky, not only for making these pieces
available, but for taking the quite inexpert cassette recording which
I mailed you and applying your technical skills and musical experience
alike in seeking the best renditions for our tuning community on the
World Wide Web.

With peace and love,

Margo

Very kyool, Margo! The pieces sound a bit "xen", but nothing near as
unusual as I would have expected for anything in 13-tET. Vertically,
they are lovely from beginning to end, and it's more the melodic lines
that catch the ear as "odd" somehow. Odd because every now and then
it's clear that things don't add up the way they do in 12-tET (or
meantone).

(Don't misunderstand when I use the word "odd". Today's odd is
tomorrow's smash hit.)

Wow, the fifths sound so good, it blows me away that they're 738 cents!
This clever voice tinkering you've done makes a HUGE difference.

If it should ever become possible, Margo, I'd love to hear these same
pieces in other timbres, not with the expectation that it would sound
better (!), but to capture more vividly the importance of the timbres
you have chosen. A MIDI file of each piece would be wonderful, for
example (I understand (?) that your present setup does not allow for
such a file to be captured).

The timing of these posts (thanks, Jacky, for bringing Margo to the
world!!) coincides nicely with Bill Sethares' 19-tET guitar piece and a
renewed discussion on the big list about the Hammond organ, which has
quasi-12-tET partials in its sound. There's a whole universe of music
waiting to be written in this realm, it would seem.

Keep that music coming, Margo!

JdL

Hello, there, Robert, and thank you not only for what follows but for
some earlier posts, including a recent one to which I should reply
soon.

> Well, that temporary download glitch has cleared up for your music,
> great (still can't download Jon's piece at all; perhaps it depend on
> the date it was uploaded or something).

These technical problems must be frustrating, and I've been reading
about how lots of people have expended lots of effort both enduring
them and attempting to solve them.

> I'd never have guessed it was 13-tet - very consonant, especially
> the Chowning organ piece, with some nice mysterious lingering chords
> in it (like the bar just before the end).

Given what has been said about 13-tET, sometimes in unabashedly
xenharmonic literature, this has been a bit of a delightful surprise
to me also. It's curious how the tuning can often support something
quite close to what might be called "textbook 14th-century harmony,"
but with some engaging turns and twists.

> I expect it is because of the timbre, after reading your notes to
> Jacky's e-zine.

Yes, that could be a determining variable.

You also make some fascinating comments about the other improvisation,
and maybe I'd be wisest to listen to the piece again, taking note of
your timings, and then respond. In the meantime, thanks for the
feedback.

> I've been doing a bit of experimenting with 13-tet after listening
> to your piece, and was fascinated to find the diminished 7th type
> chord 0 3 6 9 13 with three minor thirds and one major third, and to
> find that on some of the timbres I have it sounds sweet and pleasant
> to listen to and on others it sounds very rough.

Let's see, this would be 0-277-554-831-1200 cents. I should try this
myself.

> E.g. it's sweet on the Sitar voice of my SB LIve!, but not on the
> Sitar of the Yamaha softsynth. Not on recorder or 'cello of the Sb
> Live!, but great on the Glockenspiel and the Celeste.

These are interesting comparisons; one timbre I use is called a
"Chowning Celeste," based on a Yahama TX-802 preset, with at most
minimal adjustments if I recall correctly. The pleasant effect of an
inharmonic "tuned percussion" type of timbre is maybe not so
surprising, and the Sitar comparison maybe another kind of question.

> Made a little fractal tune experiment using those observations,
> which sounded sweet on my SB live! soundcard, and rather raucous on
> the Yamaha Softsynth. So you've got me started on 13-tet - I haven't
> really explored it before now.

This is wonderful, to have a tuning explored from many different
viewpoints, and thank you also for those comments about Sesquisexta
and your melodic adventures in it (the 24-note system with two
Pythagorean keyboards a 7:6 apart).

> I look forward to reading about the pieces and your technical notes.

With Jacky's help, there should be more to come.

In peace and love,

Margo

Hello, there, John, and thank you for a bit of feedback and reality
testing on my 13-tET pieces.

> Very kyool, Margo! The pieces sound a bit "xen", but nothing near
> as unusual as I would have expected for anything in 13-tET.
> Vertically, they are lovely from beginning to end, and it's more the
> melodic lines that catch the ear as "odd" somehow. Odd because
> every now and then it's clear that things don't add up the way they
> do in 12-tET (or meantone).

Curiously, when I was exploring the keyboard and recording these
pieces, I sometimes wondered a bit about reality testing -- or more
dramatically, "sanity testing" -- since I wasn't quite sure that
13-tET could seem this consonant. Had I really tuned it correctly?
Here a main reassurance was that the intervals didn't add up as in
medieval Pythagorean -- or meantone or 12-tET, as you mention.

> (Don't misunderstand when I use the word "odd". Today's odd is
> tomorrow's smash hit.)

That's understood, and I'd certainly agree that "odd" in the sense of
"new" and "strange" is quite the word here -- and I say this as
someone who routinely uses lots of favorite tunings that other people
might consider somewhat "strange."

> Wow, the fifths sound so good, it blows me away that they're 738
> cents! This clever voice tinkering you've done makes a HUGE
> difference.

Coming from a connoisseur of harmony like yourself, this is especially
pleasing feedback. It feels a bit like a science fiction movie, maybe
_Journey to the Planet Sethares_ -- or the Planet Chowning? Of course,
Jacky, you could have told me that those large fifths are _beautiful_.

> If it should ever become possible, Margo, I'd love to hear these
> same pieces in other timbres, not with the expectation that it would
> sound better (!), but to capture more vividly the importance of the
> timbres you have chosen. A MIDI file of each piece would be
> wonderful, for example (I understand (?) that your present setup
> does not allow for such a file to be captured).

For a simple and maybe quite illustrative comparison, I could easily
use Scala to code some of the basic 13-tET progressions I use, not
much more difficult than notating them in ASCII. One of the reasons I
_haven't_ already posted General MIDI files for these progressions is
precisely that I consider timbre such an important factor for the
intended consonance/dissonance effects. A few such files might nicely
address your basic point, at least.

> The timing of these posts (thanks, Jacky, for bringing Margo to the
> world!!) coincides nicely with Bill Sethares' 19-tET guitar piece
> and a renewed discussion on the big list about the Hammond organ,
> which has quasi-12-tET partials in its sound. There's a whole
> universe of music waiting to be written in this realm, it would
> seem.

Yes, there's a common theme here, and I'd like to thank you, John, as
well as Jacky and Bill, all for playing a part in leading me into this
universe.

> Keep that music coming, Margo!

That's an appropriate message for all of us in this community as we
seek to "MakeMicroMusic," and thanks for helping to make it possible
by advice, encouragement, and example.

In peace and love,

Margo

Hi Margo

I just got a chance to listen to your work and found myself quite
delighted by the sonorities. I'm very happy to finally be able to
hear some of your work, and please, keep it coming.

Peace,
mary