Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup makemicromusic Verses Five Five, take 2

And here I was beginning to think nobody wanted to play.........

Paul sid:
>Tbis sounds nice, glissandi/portamenti and unintelligible lyrics and
>all. If I try to ignore the pitch sliding, it sounds pretty close to
>12-equal, and very diatonic, certainly nothing like 15-equal which
>you've mentioned before. Can you tell me more about this clip?

Nope, 't'ant 15-note at all, just plain old diatonicness (still warming up to
the foray into 15).

But, I did impose Aron's Meantone on it. I find it interesting that I could only
spot minor differences over 12-note equal. Obviously, the piece was written with
diatonic chord motions in mind (I have this crazy-ass idea that a real human
choir might want to perform it someday), and so there are no dramatic
differences in the overtone interactions when having another diatonic tuning
system imposed on it. Had I progressed to some remote-from-tonic key, the 1/4
commas and bad intervals in meantone would have eventually shown up with a
rigid-to-tonic tuning system.

But I haven't heard the oh-my-go-its-so-much-better feeling I'm "supposed" to
get with microtuning systems, at least on this piece. And I think that's because
our friend Wendy Carlos is right: It's not the interaction of the Fundamentals
that are important to how good it sounds, it's the interactions of the
overtones, which is a function of the orchestration. So:

Orchestration determines the overtone structure of chords;
Moving the fundamentals in the chords gets the overtones to line up better;
Where those fundamentals end up determine tuning/temperment system;
Tuning/temperment system determine available harmonic motion.

Most tuning theory I've seen starts with the relationships of the fundamentals
as being all-important, and the closer we can get these relationships to line up
with "magic numbers", why, the happier we all would be. I might not be holding
my jaw right, but this happiness continues to elude me with this approach,
because it's backwards:

Determine "best" tuning/temperment system based on available interactions of the fundamentals in the piece, then Orchestration will automatically be better.

Overtone-alignment-based tuning is bloody hard. Human Acapella Choirs manage a form of this: they tend toward Just intonations, and as the pieces go through
more and more elaborate harmonic gyrations, the choirs "go flat". Well, they
don't really *try* to go flat, they just continue to follow the just resolutions
beyond what the statically-tuned instruments they have accompanying them
(pianos, etc) can adjust for on-the-fly.

-bjc

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, brentishere@... wrote:
>
> And here I was beginning to think nobody wanted to play.........
>
> Paul sid:
> >Tbis sounds nice, glissandi/portamenti and unintelligible lyrics
and
> >all. If I try to ignore the pitch sliding, it sounds pretty close
to
> >12-equal, and very diatonic, certainly nothing like 15-equal which
> >you've mentioned before. Can you tell me more about this clip?
>
>
> Nope, 't'ant 15-note at all, just plain old diatonicness (still
warming up to
> the foray into 15).
>
> But, I did impose Aron's Meantone on it.

Ah. So 'very diatonic' was right! And no wonder the chords sounded so
good.

> I find it interesting that I could only
> spot minor differences over 12-note equal.

Might have been all the sliding.

> Obviously, the piece was written with
> diatonic chord motions in mind (I have this crazy-ass idea that a
real human
> choir might want to perform it someday), and so there are no
dramatic
> differences in the overtone interactions when having another
diatonic tuning
> system imposed on it.

But the major tenths, for example, can be dramatically different in
12-equal vs. 1/4-comma meantone especially when you're actually
singing one of the parts.

> Had I progressed to some remote-from-tonic key, the 1/4
> commas and bad intervals in meantone would have eventually shown up
with a
> rigid-to-tonic tuning system.

Only if you arbitrary decided to limit yourself to 12 (or some other
number of notes), right? I mean, wouldn't merely extending the
meantone chain far enough solve all these problems for you? Or . . .
(?)

> But I haven't heard the oh-my-go-its-so-much-better feeling
I'm "supposed" to
> get with microtuning systems, at least on this piece.

You're "supposed" to? Hmm . . . it's definitely a subtle thing, but
listening to a lot of Renaissance music may certainly magnify the
effect for you (it did for me) . . .

> And I think that's because
> our friend Wendy Carlos is right: It's not the interaction of the
Fundamentals
> that are important to how good it sounds, it's the interactions of
the
> overtones, which is a function of the orchestration. So:
>
> Orchestration determines the overtone structure of chords;
> Moving the fundamentals in the chords gets the overtones to line up
better;
> Where those fundamentals end up determine tuning/temperment system;
> Tuning/temperment system determine available harmonic motion.

For typical sounds, you'd never get past strict JI.
This chain of reasoning does not hold very widely for a couple of
reasons:

(1) Temperament is typically determined by the desired harmonic
motion, not the other way around.

(2) Adaptive tuning starts from a temperament and moves the pitches
in each chord so that their overtones line up better.

So in some very important instances, you got it backwards!

> Most tuning theory I've seen starts with the relationships of the
fundamentals
> as being all-important, and the closer we can get these
relationships to line up
> with "magic numbers", why, the happier we all would be. I might not
be holding
> my jaw right, but this happiness continues to elude me with this
approach,

It's normally justified partly in terms of the overtones and/or
partly in terms of other psychoacoustic effects that favor simple
ratios. When this is done carefully, there's nothing backwards about
the approach. But you're missing other big aspects of tuning theory
which relate to scales & chord progressions, etc. . .

> because it's backwards:
>
> Determine "best" tuning/temperment system based on available
>interactions of the fundamentals in the piece, then Orchestration
>will automatically be better.

What you are saying doesn't appear to be likely to lead to much of an
change relative to the "backwards" approaches you mention above.
Meanwhile, the actual chord progressions and other pitch usage in the
piece should be a *huge* factor in determining the best tuning for
it, since one should allow adaptive tuning in general, and doesn't
want big pitch drifts or sudden retune motions.

> Overtone-alignment-based tuning is bloody hard. Human Acapella
Choirs manage a form of this: they tend toward Just intonations, and
as the pieces go through
> more and more elaborate harmonic gyrations, the choirs "go flat".
Well, they
> don't really *try* to go flat, they just continue to follow the
just resolutions
> beyond what the statically-tuned instruments they have accompanying
them
> (pianos, etc) can adjust for on-the-fly.

Actually, good choirs use *adaptive tuning*, adjusting the notes by
fractions of a comma to fit the harmonic context, and thus don't end
up having to go flat at all. The effect acheived is similar to Just
Intonation in the purity of the sonorities acheived but without any
drift or audible shifts in the notated pitches.

Since human voices have exactly harmonic timbres, though, I don't
really know why they serve to illustrate the distinction you
originally brought up here, between ratios-between-fundamentals and
overtone-alignment paradigms.

Verses Five Five, take 2

🔗brentishere@...

🔗Paul Erlich <paul@...>

🔗brentishere@...

🔗Paul Erlich <paul@...>