Morning

Hi Jacky,

Thanks for a nice early morning piece. It's dawn here though I'm about to go to bed.
I may go for a short early morning walk first.

When I was at school, we lived quite close to a church in a village, and the
bell ringers would often be ringing the bells there.

Actually some didn't like the bells, especially as they were amateurs and
their rhythm was a bit shaky 1 2 3 and 4 5 6 7 8, 1 2 3 and 4 5 6 7 8...
kind of thing. I liked it though, even with the shaky rhythm; added an
extra charm to it.

Robert

--- In MakeMicroMusic@y..., "jacky_ligon" <jacky_ligon@y...> wrote:

/makemicromusic/topicId_unknown.html#1818

> Hello All!
>
> Sometimes I will enjoy modal improvisations with my morning coffee,
> because I like the kinds of musical ideas that come forth as one
> begins to awake.
>
> I was able to capture one of these today to share here on MMM:
>
> http://www.geocities.com/jacky_ligon/Morning
>
>
> Enjoy!
>
> J:L

This is just great, Jacky. Wonderful bell sounds. About the only
person I know of who has even *approached* this is Jeff Harrington
with his "Jardin des Marveilles" and some other pieces, done with
Csound...

http://artists.mp3s.com/artist_song/433/433706.html

JP

--- In MakeMicroMusic@y..., "jacky_ligon" <jacky_ligon@y...> wrote:

/makemicromusic/topicId_unknown.html#1840

>
> Many Kind Thanks to all my friends for the many generous comments!
>
> It may be of interest to Dominique, Joseph and others, that the
bell timbre here was created using the venerable TX81Z.

This is *very* encouraging, since I'm using these for most of my
stuff... :)

Well, there *was* a good review of Shakespeare's _Tempest_ music that
mentioned the bells... which were done with the TX81Z modified with
Cool Edit...

The Z's bells are really something, it is true...

Now about the *strings...* :)

Still love it!

JP

Hi Alison,

> The bell of Jedburgh's Old Jail has a serious microtonal pitch in it's
> daily chime (you know the one - "Ding Dong Ding Dong"). I'm going to try
> to record it for analysis. Better be quick though - they have
> scaffolding up and might be going to repair it. BTW great photo of
> Robert on Skye - ever taken the boat from Elgol across Loch Coruisk?
> Midge Central!

No, I don't know it, I've only been in Jedburgh once when young - I know
it is close to where my sister lives, but when visiting my relatives in the
Borders, I generally don't travel far - as I like going for
walks we often go for walks around their place, or climb the neighbouring
hills (Cheviots).

I've walked into Loch Coruisk, many years ago with some friends, and
we camped at the head of loch Coruisk, and did some climbing of the
Cuillins with that as a base, at a time when I was rather more serious
about climbing. We walked in from Elgol.

Have never actually gone on that boat-trip as it happens.
Most of my visits to Skye have been autmun / winter / early spring /
- I like to avoid the main midge season when I have the choice...

Anyway good luck with your recording.

Do you know the Wavanal page of bell recordings?
http://www.hibberts.co.uk/index.htm (then choose Bell collection)

I wonder if he'd be interested in your recording when done; seems
likely he would.

Robert

> > http://www.geocities.com/jacky_ligon/Morning

hey jacky.. nice :) is this one of the examples you have
mentioned where the bell overtones somewhat match the tuning?

i played it for my sweetie and we listened together. one thing
that struck us was that while the bell tones sound nice and rich and
fairly real in the low pitches, they sound increasingly artifical/
synthetic in higher pitches. ive noticed this kind of thing myself
when making music with synthetic bell sounds. my guess is that
real bells with high pitch typically have quieter overtones compared
to lower pitched bells. a low bell is all rich and complex, while
high bells tend to be more pure? maybe...

it made me wonder how this piece would sound on a more vibraphone-like
instrument. or on real bells!

anyway, thanks for the mp3, very nice :) paul

--
. . . p f l y . . .
http://www.neuron.net/~pfly/duckapus.html
...the debut pfly CD...

--- In MakeMicroMusic@y..., "jacky_ligon" <jacky_ligon@y...> wrote:

> 6. It is a "Transposable Tuning", capable of stable modulation to
> other keys (another Kraig Grady(!) and Paul Erlich here!)

7. It's a Periodicity Block with all but one of the unison vectors
tempered out. There are several ways of thusly deriving it -- post to
tuning-math if interested, lots of neutral-third-generator scales
have been discussed there.

8. It's a stretched version of one of Graham Breed's favorites:
http://x31eq.com/7plus3.htm
(see "The 7-Note Scales" on this page)

--- In MakeMicroMusic@y..., "jacky_ligon" <jacky_ligon@y...> wrote:

> Paul,
>
> Hello!
>
> Forgive me for not getting what you mean by "with all but one of
the
> unison vectors tempered out". Could you post to anywhere of your
> liking and explain what this means? Preferably with this tuning.

Do you understand the concept of periodicity blocks? Of tempering out
some of the unison vectors thereof? It's the basis of
my "Hypothesis", which first came up on the tuning list, and became
the first subject on tuning-math. It's the basis of what I call
the "Middle Path". Let me know what is and isn't clear to you,
perhaps on tuning or tuning-math, and we'll take it from there.

In-Reply-To: <a2krff+huqa@...>
jacky_ligon wrote:

> Forgive me for not getting what you mean by "with all but one of the
> unison vectors tempered out". Could you post to anywhere of your
> liking and explain what this means? Preferably with this tuning.

Unison vectors are simply intervals that approximate to be a unison in a
given temperament. So 81:80 is a unison vector in meantone. To
understand more, you do need to follow the references as Paul suggested.
Here's a good place to start:

<http://www.ixpres.com/interval/td/erlich/intropblock1.htm>

Paul:
> > 8. It's a stretched version of one of Graham Breed's favorites:
> > http://x31eq.com/7plus3.htm
> > (see "The 7-Note Scales" on this page)

Jacky:
> Thanks for posting this. Never have known of it, but it seems that
> Graham likes some "less than 12 tunings as well"! Neutral thirds are
> sweet - not surprising that he finds this a favorite.

I did mention when I found them on the main list. Perhaps you were away
then. So "less than 12" simply means a scale with less than 12 notes?
I've been mostly been interested in scales with around 7 notes to
something like an octave, and temperaments with an open number of notes.
Since the miracle rediscovery, I've been mostly working with that, and I
haven't found any 7-ish subsets I'm really happy with. Contrapuntal ideas
seem to work if you think of 10 nominally equal, fuzzily tuned notes to
the octave, and use miracle to remove the fuzziness.

Neutral third scales are linked to miracle. They both involve a 10 note
MOS and 31-equal. You can think of miracle as three interlocked neutral
third chains.

The original reason I started looking at neutral third scales was because
I wanted tetrachordal scales with only 2 step sizes that weren't based on
5-limit triads. Equally divided fifths were a good way of making that
work. It also means using 7 as 4+3 instead of 5+2, which is another idea
I'd been thinking of. The 11-limit approximation started as a bonus, but
it's what drew me into 11-limit harmony.

The MOS also fulfils a lot of Paul's criteria for being a generalised
diatonic, if you define neutral triads as primary consonances and the rest
of the 11-limit as the next consonance limit up.

So, Jacky, what tuning are you actually using? I missed it in all the
bustle, and I find the Yahoo! interface obnoxious these days. Doesn't it
involve a stretched octave?

Graham

--- In MakeMicroMusic@y..., graham@m... wrote:

> I've been mostly been interested in scales with around 7 notes to
> something like an octave, and temperaments with an open number of notes.
> Since the miracle rediscovery, I've been mostly working with that, and I
> haven't found any 7-ish subsets I'm really happy with.

Did you try the 7 and 8 note scales I posted? I think there are good possibilities there.

It also means using 7 as 4+3 instead of 5+2, which is another idea
> I'd been thinking of.

Watch out--that started a minor war on tuning. I think the idea must be dangerous. :)

> The MOS also fulfils a lot of Paul's criteria for being a generalised
> diatonic, if you define neutral triads as primary consonances and the rest
> of the 11-limit as the next consonance limit up.

What about my proposal to use 24, 31 or 55 and make the whole thing
consonant, more or less, in the 11-limit? It seems to actually work.

In-Reply-To: <a2o59r+vl3d@...>
genewardsmith wrote:

> Did you try the 7 and 8 note scales I posted? I think there are good
> possibilities there.

I don't remember anything special from the 7 and 8 note scales. They
looked like subsets of the 9 and 10 note scales. I'll find my own subsets
in good time, when I have plenty of experience with the tuning.

The 10 note scale that was supposed to be optimal I found not to my taste,
at least not as a "white-key scale". One of your more recent scales I did
like the sound of, and I might record a demonstration sometime.

Me:
> > The MOS also fulfils a lot of Paul's criteria for being a generalised
> > diatonic, if you define neutral triads as primary consonances and the
> > rest of the 11-limit as the next consonance limit up.

Gene:
> What about my proposal to use 24, 31 or 55 and make the whole thing
> consonant, more or less, in the 11-limit? It seems to actually work.

I don't know how that became *your* proposal, because that's how I've been
using them all along. The consonances in 31 or 24 aren't as compelling as
those in a more optimal miracle. I haven't tried 55 yet. But a system in
which neutral triads are consonances and the characteristic dissonances
approximate 6:5 and 11:8 does remain promising.

The 11:8 approximation is common to all scales with a 3:2 fifth and 11:9
neutral third, the 6:5 approximation only to the meantone-like ones. With
the rast-like scales, 6:5 and 5:4 become consonances, and the 5-limit
chords will tend to dominate. I think that leaves 11:8 as the only
characteristic dissonance. Oh, and 16:11, of course.

The seconds are more problematic because they're small, complex and not
well tuned in 31-equal. But even without the SSSes, you can get
8:9:10:11:12 from them.

I looked at a chord make up of 11:8, 6:5 and 11:8 in relation to Margo's
neo-Gothic ideas. Taking this mohajira:

C D Ev F G Av Bv C
T t t T t T t

It'd be Av-D-F-Bv. F-Av and Bv-D are regular neutral thirds and Av-Bv
could be either 9:8 or 10:9. It contains all the characteristic
dissonances, and so uniquely defines the scale. If you resolve to C-Ev-G
you're using all the notes of the scale, and strongly marking it as a
tonic.

Graham

In-Reply-To: <a2ns2j+35is@...>
> J:L
> When you say "something like an octave" I get all goosepimply!

Well, partly I mean that scales I define as "octave equivalent" needn't
have the octave tuned to 2:1, although that is how I've tuned them so far.
But also that I've looked at the Bohlen-Pierce and O'Connell scales where
the equivalence interval isn't an octave, but works the same way.

> GB:
> > Since the miracle rediscovery, I've been mostly working with that,
> and I haven't found any 7-ish subsets I'm really happy with.
> Contrapuntal ideas seem to work if you think of 10 nominally equal,
> fuzzily tuned notes to the octave, and use miracle to remove the
> fuzziness.
>
> J:L:
> I'll have to take your word on this, because I'm not sure what you
> mean by "fuzzy" exactly. I do enjoy the sound of having a stretched
> or compressed octave in these varieties though. I also enjoy complex
> intervals as well. I do realize what the invervallic attributes of 72
> are.

You can think of traditional tonal or contrapuntal music as using 7 notes
to the octave, with key signatures and accidentals to specify how those 7
notes should be tuned. I'm doing the same kind of thing with 10 notes,
but so far no sense of mode or tonality, so it's all accidentals. That's
a very different approach to taking 7 specific notes and signalling
deviations, which is another way of looking at the tradition I mentioned
before. I don't specifically tune to 72-equal, but all miracle tunings
have similar properties to subsets of 72.

> GB:
> > Neutral third scales are linked to miracle. They both involve a 10
> note MOS and 31-equal. You can think of miracle as three interlocked
> neutral third chains.
>
> J:L:
> Seems there are many ETs besides 72 which have some worthy Neu-3rd
> structures too (not to mention other generator sizes which give
> scales with "less than 12" tones). My interest is predominantly in
> Rational MOS though, and here they mostly have stretched or
> compressed octaves.

72-equal as a neutral third scale simplifies down to 24. I was thinking
31 and 41 is the miracle/neutral third unification. I haven't looked at
tempered octaves yet, because I can only take so many revolutions per
calendar year.

> GB:
> > The MOS also fulfils a lot of Paul's criteria for being a
> generalised diatonic, if you define neutral triads as primary
> consonances and the rest of the 11-limit as the next consonance limit
> up.
>
> J:L:
> When you say "the MOS" do you mean "MOS" in general, or the Neu-3rd
> type MOS? Sorry!

The 7-note neutral third MOS, like Mohajira.

> /makemicromusic/topicId_unknown.html#1840

Ah, right, that's fairly clear about it being a neutral third MOS. And I
only had to navigate two obtrusive adverts to get to it!

So 27:22 is the complement of 11:9 with 3:2. And the equivalence interval
is this 59049:29282? Ah, and all the steps are 9:8 or 12:11.

> This is one of many of its ilk. If interested, I'm going to be
> showing another here soon of this variety.

Have you looked at 60:49 and 49:40 as neutral thirds?

> Very interesting to find that we share some common fascination with
> these kinds of structures.

Quite a few people have bumped into them for different reasons.

Graham