rhythm temperament

I guess the key thing is to consider why you need temperament, in the pitch
world.

Because, when you cycle through 12 3/2s, it doesn't bring you to quite the
same place as X 2/1s.
So, figure out how to generate that problem in rhythmic terms, and you've
got something that can be "tempered."

CB

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

At 07:09 AM 11/15/2007, you wrote:
>I guess the key thing is to consider why you need temperament, in the pitch
>world.
>
>Because, when you cycle through 12 3/2s, it doesn't bring you to quite the
>same place as X 2/1s.
>So, figure out how to generate that problem in rhythmic terms, and you've
>got something that can be "tempered."
>
>CB

I think the difference is rhythms are additive. 3 beats plus 3 beats
is 6 beats, not 9. So there's no problem with things never closing,
since you never get into powers.

-Carl

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Carl Lumma <carl@...> wrote:
>
> At 07:09 AM 11/15/2007, you wrote:
> >I guess the key thing is to consider why you need temperament, in
the pitch
> >world.
> >
> >Because, when you cycle through 12 3/2s, it doesn't bring you to
quite the
> >same place as X 2/1s.
> >So, figure out how to generate that problem in rhythmic terms, and
you've
> >got something that can be "tempered."
> >
> >CB

An composition assignment: show a comma (syntonic, pythagorean, etc.)
in the domain of rhythm. Optionally, show your discontent that the
comma exists in a non-zero way.

My obvious take on it - "A polyrhythm of 81:80" - is no answer, for
it sounds like no problem at all...

Decay 'rhythm' into mere repetitive frequency and it's easy to extend
the language of harmony/melody/tuning into the domain of sub-audible
tuning/rhythms.

Show the syntonic comma in a drift progression using sub-audio
frequency counterpoint.

-jacob

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

> I think the difference is rhythms are additive. 3 beats plus 3 beats
> is 6 beats, not 9. So there's no problem with things never closing,
> since you never get into powers.

This is a great insight!

I was however, thinking of the world of polytempo/polyrhythmic
textures, the macro-version of what happens with periodic waves. For
example, think of what happens when you play a looped pitched sample
with a very simple looping oscillator, like 'loscil' in CSound. If you
play a pure fifth, the rhythm of the sample will be 3:2. If it was a
meantone fifth, it would be 1:1.4953

One could easily set up textures this way with a very simple sampler
engine, and if you used multisamples, make sure that the various
lengths of each .wav closely correspond to a theoretical ideal of
temperament (or not fr JIers) by using the correct ratios between .wav
files of the number of frames.

I've done this type of thing with noise based samples, for instance ,
I have a recording I did of someone cutting open a box with a
boxcutter that I made with binaural mics, and I loaded it into CSound
as a sample, and play it from a MIDI keyboard. Of course using one
sample gets one into aliasing issues if it gets stretched to far, you
can however use some interpolation features of CSound I
think....anyway, you can get some nice 'summer evening with crickets'
or 'inside the clock shop with Ligeti' type textures going, especially
if you do some random panning of each instance...it would be nice to
hear this kind of thing with wine glass or Tibetan bowl samples.

-AKJ