Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup makemicromusic Invocation (mp3)

Hello, everyone, and here is a new recording of a piece I composed
some years ago, _Invocatio in Quarto Tono_ or "Invocation in the
Fourth Tone" (that is, a form of the medieval/Renaissance Phrygian
mode, here concluding on E):

<http://www.bestII.com/~mschulter/Invocation-ToneIV.mp3>

Magnus, I've included a greeting to you in a comment to this mp3,
because your pieces and focus on detail, as with the Josquin setting,
_Ave Maria, Virgo Serena_ (one of my favorites also) are really
inspirational.

I could comment more on some aspects of the invocation, but would
prefer first to invite feedback so that you can share your own
impressions.

Peace and love,

Margo
mschulter@...

🔗Aaron Krister Johnson <aaron@...>

Margo, this is really nice. The tuning threw me, not in a bad
way...The language was so 1/4-comma meantone, and the tuning was
so---I guess, superpythag-ish! It was interesting to hear how the
resolutions had the effect of "pulling the rug from under your ears"!

Best,
Aaron.

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Margo Schulter <mschulter@...>
wrote:
>
> Hello, everyone, and here is a new recording of a piece I composed
> some years ago, _Invocatio in Quarto Tono_ or "Invocation in the
> Fourth Tone" (that is, a form of the medieval/Renaissance Phrygian
> mode, here concluding on E):
>
> <http://www.bestII.com/~mschulter/Invocation-ToneIV.mp3>
>
> Magnus, I've included a greeting to you in a comment to this mp3,
> because your pieces and focus on detail, as with the Josquin setting,
> _Ave Maria, Virgo Serena_ (one of my favorites also) are really
> inspirational.
>
> I could comment more on some aspects of the invocation, but would
> prefer first to invite feedback so that you can share your own
> impressions.
>
> Peace and love,
>
> Margo
> mschulter@...
>

🔗Margo Schulter <mschulter@...>

> Margo, this is really nice. The tuning threw me, not in a bad
> way...The language was so 1/4-comma meantone, and the tuning was
> so---I guess, superpythag-ish! It was interesting to hear how the
> resolutions had the effect of "pulling the rug from under your
> ears"!

<http://www.bestII.com/~mschulter/Invocation.mp3>

Hello, Aaron, and thank you for such a prompt and helpful response!
You're absolutely right that this piece was originally conceived in
1/4-comma meantone, albeit an extended 24-note version with certain
characteristics shared with Nicola Vicentino's full 31-note cycle on
his archicembalo or "superharpsichord" of 1555. Here it's realized in
Zest-24, an irregular 24-note temperament based largely on Zarlino's
2/7-comma meantone.

Also, my intention was very much to "pull the rug" from under the
listener's ear -- and your comment is especially valuable to me
because I know that you are a master of this art, as in "The Juggler,"
to cite one example.

<http://www.akjmusic.com/audio/juggler.ogg>

What's happening in _Invocation_, in either 1/4-comma meantone or
Zest-24, is that resolutions are moving to vertical or harmonic
sonorities at or fairly close to the usual meantone sizes for major
and minor thirds at or near 5:4 and 6:5, for example -- but with the
notes of those sonorities transposed higher or lower than expected by
about 40 or 50 cents! In 2005, we each did a version of a Vicentino
piece using this effect in the closing section, mine with more
sustained timbres and yours a beautiful harpsichord realization, which
people might enjoy hearing:

<http://www.bestII.com/~mschulter/MusicaPriscaCaput.ogg>
<http://www.bestII.com/~mschulter/MusicaPriscaCaput.mp3>
<http://www.akjmusic.com/audio/musica_prisca_caput.ogg>

Actually the Zest-24 version of _Invocation_, unlike a version in
1/4-comma, does through its irregular temperament alter the sizes of
some vertical thirds and sixths like E-G# at 396 cents and Bb-G at 900
cents -- rather than the usual 383 and 887 cents for a meantone major
third or sixth in Zarlino's 2/7-comma (or 386 and 890 cents in
1/4-comma). However, I'd suspect that it's the shifts that have the
most noticeably "different" effect.

A good test, of course, would be to do a version in 1/4-comma, also,
and let people compare.

Finally, your "super-pythag-ish" intuition is correct on two counts.
First, the small melodic semitones in _Invocation_ at 58 and 71 cents
are in the same size range as those of super-Pythagorean tunings with
fifths tempered wide, for example 17-EDO or a 17-note unequal
temperament like George Secor's (64-78 cents).

Also, while it doesn't come out so much in this particular piece, a
lot of Zest-24 is precisely a super-Pythagorean temperament on account
of the four wide fifths in each 12-note circle, with lots of thirds
and sixths in a range from Pythagorean to around septimal (or beyond,
if we mix notes from the two circles). My next piece posted will show
this side of the system.

Peace and love, with many thanks,

Margo
mschulter@...

🔗Gene Ward Smith <genewardsmith@...>

🔗Aaron Krister Johnson <aaron@...>

🔗Gene Ward Smith <genewardsmith@...>

🔗Aaron Krister Johnson <aaron@...>

🔗Gene Ward Smith <genewardsmith@...>

🔗Magnus Jonsson <magnus@...>

Margo,
This is a very nice piece! Very much to my taste. It is like a long sentence that is very slowly and carefully told from multiple angles all at once :). After that last chord I'm just waiting to hear the next sentence...

The quartertone(?) shifts were odd to me on first listen but after second or third they are quite tasty.

I'd love to hear a choir do this or an adapted version that is easier to sing.

/Magnus

PS. Where can I find your comments on this piece?

On Wed, 31 Jan 2007, Margo Schulter wrote:

> Hello, everyone, and here is a new recording of a piece I composed
> some years ago, _Invocatio in Quarto Tono_ or "Invocation in the
> Fourth Tone" (that is, a form of the medieval/Renaissance Phrygian
> mode, here concluding on E):
>
> <http://www.bestII.com/~mschulter/Invocation-ToneIV.mp3>
>
> Magnus, I've included a greeting to you in a comment to this mp3,
> because your pieces and focus on detail, as with the Josquin setting,
> _Ave Maria, Virgo Serena_ (one of my favorites also) are really
> inspirational.
>
> I could comment more on some aspects of the invocation, but would
> prefer first to invite feedback so that you can share your own
> impressions.
>
> Peace and love,
>
> Margo
> mschulter@...
>
>
>

🔗Magnus Jonsson <magnus@...>

🔗Margo Schulter <mschulter@...>

Dear Magnus,

Please let me thank you so warmly for your replies of the last couple
of days regarding both your charming piece in 1/6-comma meantone and a
couple of pieces I've posted.

It will take me a bit more time adequately to answer your gracious
posts, but I do want to say how delighted I am that you enjoyed
_Invocation_, which was indeed meant especially for you; your parallel
to a spoken sentence fascinates me, in part because the era around
1600 often focuses around musical rhetoric and figures as a kind of
counterpart to the art of oratory.

You were quite correct about "quartertone" shifts: _Invocation_ is in
a modified 2/7-comma meantone where the diesis is about 50.28 cents,
curiously almost identical to a 24-EDO step. This is the Zest-24 tuning.

To reply more fully, I'll need to hear some music I've been meaning to
hear for some time. Thanks for providing me with an occasion!

Finally, for now, why don't I quickly suggest something you could try
in your 1/6-comma, if you haven't already. As I recall, you're using a
regular Eb-G# tuning, where Eb-G# (used in your piece as a narrow
fourth Eb-Ab) is somewhat like 21:16. If so, try playing Eb-Bb-C# (I'm
using regular meantone spellings), then F-Bb-C (with Bb held from the
previous sonority as a suspension as the outer voices contract from
the augmented sixth or minor seventh Eb-C# to the fifth F-C), then a
usual 4-3 resolution of Bb to A, and then a cadence to Bb-Bb-D. Hoping
that at least with a nonproportional font, people may be able to read
this, and using C5 as middle C:

C#5 C5 D5
Bb4 A4 G4 A4 Bb4
Eb4 F4 Bb3

This progression is very typical of Monteverdi and the early 17th
century, with the caution that I'm not aware of any period precedent
for a specifically septimal intonation, so that it's more a familiar
historical idiom in a "xenharmonic" color. If you played this with
regular meantone sizes for the outer seventh and upper third of the
opening sonority, of course, then it would just be a beautiful example
of the Manneristic style around 1600:

C5 B4 C#5
A4 G#4 F#4 G#4 A4
D4 E4 A3

I wonder what kind of color this would have in 1/6-comma, and how you
like it -- or maybe have already used it in some of your music.

Peace and love, with many thanks,

Margo

🔗Gene Ward Smith <genewardsmith@...>

🔗Margo Schulter <mschulter@...>

--- In [34]MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Margo Schulter <mschulter@...>
wrote:
>> C#5 C5 D5
>> Bb4 A4 G4 A4 Bb4
>> Eb4 F4 Bb3
>
>> This progression is very typical of Monteverdi and the early 17th
>> century, with the caution that I'm not aware of any period precedent
>> for a specifically septimal intonation, so that it's more a familiar
>> historical idiom in a "xenharmonic" color.

> If Monteverdi was doing it, wouldn't it likely be something close to
> 1/4-comma? That would clearly have a septimal intonation.

Dear Gene,

Please let me apologize to you, an innocent bystander who could very
easily conclude that I was quoting an actual transposition and
spelling from Monteverdi when in fact the transposition and spelling
for septimal color were mine. The example which follows, with
everything a semitone lower and usual meantone spellings, shows the
kind of thing I'm aware of Monteverdi actually writing -- but it's
quite natural that a reader might suppose that by "This progression is
very typical of Monteverdi" I meant specifically this spelling with
the augmented second and sixth.

When I added "I'm not aware of any period precedent for a specifically
septimal intonation," I mean precisely this, that the transposition
was mine rather than Monteverdi's as far as I know from the examples
I've seen. However, that's not necessarily so obvious to someone other
than the author <grin>.

It's a lesson for me on the possible hazards of casually chatting
about MMM matters like, "Hey, Magnus, this might be fun to try in your
1/6-comma tuning" rather than practicing defensive musicology and
realizing that an unsuspecting reader could very well conclude that
Monteverdi wrote the augmented second and sixth rather than me!

If only I had put Monteverdi's normal version first, and mine second,
with a clear disclaimer that this is a 21st-century rather than
17th-century transposition, you might have been spared this
explanation.

Anyway, to return to your question -- _if_ Monteverdi had written
something like this with the augmented meantone intervals, I'd agree
that 1/4-comma or 31-EDO would be very close to just ratios of 7:6 and
7:4. This was precisely the point that Christian Huygens made in 1691
in recommending 31-EDO (which he saw as almost identical to
1/4-comma): you get near-pure septimal intervals, which he strongly
recommends as useful consonances.

However, I should caution that early 17th-century sources, to my best
knowledge, don't make this kind of observation about septimal ratios
and how to approximate them in meantone -- although there's a love for
chromaticism, new dissonances, and other "special effects" that might
have people trying a lot of things. If we do (or someone already has)
found the kind of transposition I use above, it would indeed be
interesting evidence for further consideration.

My point to Magnus was that although this version of Monteverdi's
progression might not have been in use in the early 17th century, he
might, as I do, enjoy it as a bit of "alternative history." While
1/4-comma or 31-EDO, as you have observed, is indeed within the
optimal region for 7:6 and 7:4, anything from Magnus's 1/6-comma to
around 2/7-comma should have a generally "septimal" cast. Indeed the
1/6-comma augmented sixth at around 984 cents isn't too far from
22-EDO at about 982 cents, which people often consider a reasonable
representation of 7:4.

Of course, people could also do this in your Cauldron temperament, in some
ways a bit like a single 12-note circle of Zest-24, with Eb as the
starting note in the bass for what looks like a neat transposition with a
virtually just 7:6 at the opening and 5:4 at the end (let's hope I
figured this correctly -- with corrections invited):

D6 C6 D6
Bb5 A5 G5 A5 Bb5
Eb5 F5 Bb4

978 695 1586
711 497 378 189 378 1200

Peace and love,

Margo

🔗Magnus Jonsson <magnus@...>

On Thu, 8 Feb 2007, Margo Schulter wrote:

> Finally, for now, why don't I quickly suggest something you could try
> in your 1/6-comma, if you haven't already. As I recall, you're using a
> regular Eb-G# tuning, where Eb-G# (used in your piece as a narrow
> fourth Eb-Ab) is somewhat like 21:16. If so, try playing Eb-Bb-C# (I'm
> using regular meantone spellings), then F-Bb-C (with Bb held from the
> previous sonority as a suspension as the outer voices contract from
> the augmented sixth or minor seventh Eb-C# to the fifth F-C), then a
> usual 4-3 resolution of Bb to A, and then a cadence to Bb-Bb-D. Hoping

While it didn't sound great in 1/6 quarter comma I noticed yesterday that I naturally gravitated to this when I was using a just intonation tuning. Very interesting. Here are the JI ratios:

4/3 1/1 7/6
3/2 1/1 9/8
3/2 15/8 9/8
3/2 1/1 5/4

or in quasi-just pythagorean notation with G as 1/1:

C G Cbb
D G A
D Gb A
D G Cb.

This sequence almost automatically suggested itself by the limitations of having only 12 JI tones to choose from, and it actually sounded pretty good this time being in JI.

/ Magnus