Etude in 19edo

Hi everyone,

I managed to hook up with a guy named Steve Altoft, who plays a
19-tone trumpet, and I'm working on a piece for him that will
hopefully be published as well as performed at London's MicroFest '07.

Before anyone starts criticizing the tuning, I'm well aware of its
pitfalls ;) It's a unique opportunity to write for a performer and
get a (relatively, for me) high-profile performance... so the choice
was either 19 or 24. So it's a constraint I'm trying to approach
artistically...

Anyway, I did a harmonic etude to help my brain hear start thinking in
the right direction. It's not much, but I thought I would submit a
lo-fi ogg for anyone who's interested. And I'd be more than happy for
any feedback on whether you think the chords are nicely rich or too
dense, interesting or retarded, whatever crosses your mind. It's not
something I'm emotionally invested in, so feel free to trash it ;)
It's just under 3 megs, for the bandwidth impaired...

http://tinyurl.com/99rzs

-chris

Hi Bryan,

My first impressions after listening once are:
- This is higher up on the dissonance scale than I'm comfortably used to.
It seems to even avoid consonant chords or resting points.
- That said, there are very many beautiful passages and I appreciate
the composition more and more as I listen from beginning to end.

I like it. Just follow your own taste and I'm confident you will create
something beautiful and interesting.

- Magnus

On Sun, 29 Jan 2006, c.m.bryan wrote:

> Hi everyone,
>
> I managed to hook up with a guy named Steve Altoft, who plays a
> 19-tone trumpet, and I'm working on a piece for him that will
> hopefully be published as well as performed at London's MicroFest '07.
>
> Before anyone starts criticizing the tuning, I'm well aware of its
> pitfalls ;) It's a unique opportunity to write for a performer and
> get a (relatively, for me) high-profile performance... so the choice
> was either 19 or 24. So it's a constraint I'm trying to approach
> artistically...
>
> Anyway, I did a harmonic etude to help my brain hear start thinking in
> the right direction. It's not much, but I thought I would submit a
> lo-fi ogg for anyone who's interested. And I'd be more than happy for
> any feedback on whether you think the chords are nicely rich or too
> dense, interesting or retarded, whatever crosses your mind. It's not
> something I'm emotionally invested in, so feel free to trash it ;)
> It's just under 3 megs, for the bandwidth impaired...
>
> http://tinyurl.com/99rzs
>
> -chris
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Thanks for the quick reply!

> My first impressions after listening once are:
> - This is higher up on the dissonance scale than I'm comfortably used to.
> It seems to even avoid consonant chords or resting points.

Heehee, it reminds of an elementary school band. I'm used to
tight-fitting JI consonances, so I figure I might as well make the
most of the irrationality of ET-land ;) I've ruled out the enharmonic
semitone in vertical sonorities, but every other interval (in any
combination) is fair game... I might use this stuff as raw material to
develop for the trumpet and computer duo.

Thanks for listening.

-chris

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "c.m.bryan" <chrismbryan@g...>
wrote:

> Before anyone starts criticizing the tuning, I'm well aware of its
> pitfalls ;)

I get in enough trouble criticizing 14 and 15 around here. 19 is
pretty clearly the best candidate for a canonical Next Tuning Step, so
why criticize it. All we need is for a popular musician to adopt it
for an album.

> And I'd be more than happy for
> any feedback on whether you think the chords are nicely rich or too
> dense, interesting or retarded, whatever crosses your mind.

My approach to a tuning system is to analyze it, and then to go with
what seem to be its strengths. For 19, that would mean more triads,
and a generally tamer sound. There are lots of other things one might
consider; for example, you can split the (sharp) fourth in half, into
an interval which you can pretend is a 7/6 or 8/7, but which is more
like 15/13; some kind of small interval you can stack into chords at
any rate. Two of them are a sharp fourth, and three of them a flat
14/9; together this makes a chord. These kinds of chords,
characteristic of the particular tuning system, are interesting to
look at. They help define the individual personality of the system, as
do the scales and temperaments you get from particular generators,
such as 4 steps of 19, etc.

Also striking are the very good minor thirds, five steps of 19 rather
than 4; three of these, and one of the 4 step intervals, make for the
19-et version of a dimimished seventh.

At 01:52 PM 1/29/2006, you wrote:
>Hi everyone,
>
>I managed to hook up with a guy named Steve Altoft, who plays a
>19-tone trumpet, and I'm working on a piece for him that will
>hopefully be published as well as performed at London's MicroFest '07.

Awesome!

>Anyway, I did a harmonic etude to help my brain hear start thinking in
>the right direction. It's not much, but I thought I would submit a
>lo-fi ogg for anyone who's interested. And I'd be more than happy for
>any feedback on whether you think the chords are nicely rich or too
>dense, interesting or retarded, whatever crosses your mind. It's not
>something I'm emotionally invested in, so feel free to trash it ;)
>It's just under 3 megs, for the bandwidth impaired...
>
>http://tinyurl.com/99rzs

I just went to listen and ran into...

>First of all, the link I posted yesterday is now broken. This is due
>to Angelfire's termination of my account for using it as a
>file-server. Doh! I think if I post a link to the web page, and a
>link from that to the file, I should be ok... I'll have yesterday's
>etude up again by tonight.

Honestly, it baffles me why you people bother with antichrist-like
services like angelfire, when for $3/mo. you can have an http server
all to yourself.

-Carl

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Carl Lumma <ekin@l...> wrote:

> Honestly, it baffles me why you people bother with antichrist-like
> services like angelfire, when for $3/mo. you can have an http server
> all to yourself.

Good point. Of course, at the moment my server seems to be down. :(

>> Honestly, it baffles me why you people bother with antichrist-like
>> services like angelfire, when for $3/mo. you can have an http server
>> all to yourself.
>
>Good point. Of course, at the moment my server seems to be down. :(

Not that anyone would know, since you don't even have a domain
pointing at it. My mail client actually warns me not to click
on any of your links, since they're IP-based.

-Carl

C,

{you wrote...}
>Not that anyone would know, since you don't even have a domain pointing at it. My mail client actually warns me not to click on any of your links, since they're IP-based.

Ditto here. It would be in your best interest, Gene, to get some kind of domain set up.

I'll get to the 19edo piece soon enough... :)

Cheers,
Jon

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Carl Lumma <ekin@l...> wrote:
>
> >> Honestly, it baffles me why you people bother with antichrist-like
> >> services like angelfire, when for $3/mo. you can have an http server
> >> all to yourself.
> >
> >Good point. Of course, at the moment my server seems to be down. :(
>
> Not that anyone would know, since you don't even have a domain
> pointing at it. My mail client actually warns me not to click
> on any of your links, since they're IP-based.

What's wrong with www.xenharmony.org?

At 08:19 PM 1/30/2006, you wrote:
>--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Carl Lumma <ekin@l...> wrote:
>>
>> >> Honestly, it baffles me why you people bother with antichrist-like
>> >> services like angelfire, when for $3/mo. you can have an http server
>> >> all to yourself.
>> >
>> >Good point. Of course, at the moment my server seems to be down. :(
>>
>> Not that anyone would know, since you don't even have a domain
>> pointing at it. My mail client actually warns me not to click
>> on any of your links, since they're IP-based.
>
>What's wrong with www.xenharmony.org?

Yay! It's fixed!!

-Carl

Gene,

{you wrote...}
>>What's wrong with www.xenharmony.org?

It hadn't worked for a long time, but I'm glad it is up and running. Congrats.

Cheers,
Jon

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Carl Lumma <ekin@l...> wrote:

> >What's wrong with www.xenharmony.org?
>
> Yay! It's fixed!!

I told you that when you told me it was broken. Why is it so important?

c.m.bryan wrote:

> Heehee, it reminds of an elementary school band. I'm used to
> tight-fitting JI consonances, so I figure I might as well make the
> most of the irrationality of ET-land ;) I've ruled out the enharmonic
> semitone in vertical sonorities, but every other interval (in any
> combination) is fair game... I might use this stuff as raw material to
> develop for the trumpet and computer duo.

Those trumpets still have tuning slides, you know. It's a bit defeatest to rule out JI right from the start. You could try writing 7-limit music, but notated as 19-equal, and see what actually comes out. Only if you want to, of course, I have my own agenda about this tired dichotomy between ET and JI ...

Graham

Sorry -- what's the latest URL that actually works for this?

P.S. "Pitfalls" is *not* what comes to mind when 19-equal comes
up . . . it's a simple meantone so mostly it should fit Western
musicians' preconceptions very nicely, rather than thwarting them the
way, for example, 22-equal typically does . . .

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "c.m.bryan" <chrismbryan@...>
wrote:
>
> Hi everyone,
>
> I managed to hook up with a guy named Steve Altoft, who plays a
> 19-tone trumpet, and I'm working on a piece for him that will
> hopefully be published as well as performed at London's
MicroFest '07.
>
> Before anyone starts criticizing the tuning, I'm well aware of its
> pitfalls ;) It's a unique opportunity to write for a performer and
> get a (relatively, for me) high-profile performance... so the choice
> was either 19 or 24. So it's a constraint I'm trying to approach
> artistically...
>
> Anyway, I did a harmonic etude to help my brain hear start thinking
in
> the right direction. It's not much, but I thought I would submit a
> lo-fi ogg for anyone who's interested. And I'd be more than happy
for
> any feedback on whether you think the chords are nicely rich or too
> dense, interesting or retarded, whatever crosses your mind. It's
not
> something I'm emotionally invested in, so feel free to trash it ;)
> It's just under 3 megs, for the bandwidth impaired...
>
> http://tinyurl.com/99rzs
>
> -chris
>

> Sorry -- what's the latest URL that actually works for this?

Thanks for asking.

Etude in 19: www.cmbryan.com/etude.ogg

*New* ditty in 19: www.cmbryan.com/sample.ogg
www.cmbryan.com/sample.mp3

"A Great Crossing": www.cmbryan.com/a_great_crossing.ogg
(The eikosany thing) www.cmbryan.com/A_Great_Crossing_lo.ogg

Homepage with pretty fading text: www.cmbryan.com :)

By the way, if anyone can successfully download the Crossing, let me
know. Because of the size it keeps stalling on me, I think I'll have
to complain to the host. Silly me, I thought my troubles would be
over when I gave them my credit card number... ;)

-chris

p.s. Thanks to everyone for the input re: 19-et, especially about the
fallacy of "better" and "worse" tunings (Neil et al). My
non-excitement about 19-et is because it has over 150% more notes than
12 without drastically improving the overall consonance. BUT I'm
having fun with the added potential of those extra notes, especially
the small semi-tone, the aug. 2nd and 3rd, and the dim. 7th, which I
hear as caturing something of the restful quality of 7/4.

Thanks for the feedback, as usual,

-chris

Chris,

{you wrote...}
>By the way, if anyone can successfully download the Crossing, let me know.

Got it fine, downloaded at a consistent +500KB/sec.

Cheers,
Jon

Chris,

Sorry to write back, but... the bigger file of Great Crossing seemed to download fine, but I could not get it to load and/or play for me. And so I went to download the lo version, and that stalled out after about 20% of the file came in. Any possibility that your ogg encoder is messed up?

Cheers,
Jon

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "c.m.bryan" <chrismbryan@...>
wrote:

> Homepage with pretty fading text: www.cmbryan.com :)

These pages are really hard to read, but that shouldn't bother the
music. I'd redo them, though.

My
> non-excitement about 19-et is because it has over 150% more notes than
> 12 without drastically improving the overall consonance.

Moving to 31 is more in the nature of a drastic improvement, but 19 vs
12 already has a lot to be said for the 19 side of it.

> > Homepage with pretty fading text: www.cmbryan.com :)
>
> These pages are really hard to read, but that shouldn't bother the
> music. I'd redo them, though.

Any suggestions?? I'm no graphics designer. At least tell me why
they're "hard to read." I'd appreciate it. I guess it would be
better to respond OL.

-chris