Ritsu-Yang-Yin Scale for Shamisen Music

This is my first contribution to this group, though I subscribed two years ago. Shamisen is
a popular tranditional Japanese instrument with three strings played with a large club-
shaped bachi.
I am an amateur shamisen player and would-be composer. After studying some of the
classical genres like naga-uta (used in Kabuki theater etc.) and songs like ha-uta (short
song) and zokkyoku (popular song), I found a following scale could cover most of
traditional practice of hoso-zao ("narrow-pole" shamisen) playing. Common tunings are
hon-chosi (B-E-B'), ni-agari (B-F#-B') and san-sagari (B-E-A).
Below is a Scala print out with my notation system (the tonal center is E).
Shamisen_Ritsu_Yang_Yin
0: 1/1 E unison, perfect prime
1: 27/26 F tridecimal comma
2: 9/8 F# major whole tone
3: 243/208 Gb
4: 32/27 G Pythagorean minor third
5: 81/64 G# Pythagorean major third
6: 2187/1664 Ab
7: 4/3 A perfect fourth
8: 18/13 Bb tridecimal augmented fourth
9: 3/2 B perfect fifth
10: 81/52 C
11: 27/16 C# Pythagorean major sixth
12: 729/416 Db
13: 16/9 D Pythagorean minor seventh
14: 243/128 D# Pythagorean major seventh
15: 2/1 E octave

Followings are underlying observations.
1. The Ritsu-Yang-mode is made of Pythagorean pentatonic: E-F#-A-B-D-E: A and B are
perfect 4th and 5th, and all diatonic intervals (E-F#, A-B, D-E) are Pythagorean whole tone
(9/8).
2. The Ritsu-Yin-mode is made of minor pentatonic with less-than-half tone intervals
above the tonic E and 5th B: E-C-B-A-F-E (in a descending order). The intervals of the
half tones (C-B and F-E) are not rigorous and seem to depend genres, schools,
individuals, in particular songs or phrases etc. but they do not exceed the 12-ET half
tone. I prefer the string ratio (27/26), the one-third of the whole tone intervals, which
maybe the smallest end of the spectrum. One practical reason is that the one-third
interval is very easy to locate if the whole tone positions are marked on the pole.
3. Yang and Yin modes are freely mixed in compositions, although tones like F and F# do
not appear in same phrases.
4. In highly developed compositions like naga-utas, there are frequent modulations of the
tonal center. In most cases, the music starts in E but temporary modulates to B or A or F#
or C# and returns to E as shown by Haiko Ohtsuka ("Pitch Theory in the Music of the
Shamisen", Ongakunotomo-sha, 1995, in Japanese). This scale covers all the modulations
shown above.
5. Since this scale is essentially Pythagorean, it is easily adapted in MIDI hardware or
software synthesizers with Pythagorean tuning by selecting out F, C and "flat" tones into a
different instrumental channel tuned (100-65.33) cents below. By manipulating this value,
it is also possible to find out the most favorable intervals for the less-than-the-half
tones.
6. I made one realization from standard naga-uta repertories using Siberius V3 and
Cubase SX3 with FM7 softsynth in my home page though no attempt was made for faithful
simulation of shamisen sounds or rhythmic modulations.

Nobuo Munakata <http://www.toshima.ne.jp/~edogiku>

Thank you so much for sending this. buried in some papers here is a recent study done in Japan on Koto Tunings done by ear. Often they found a semitone 25/24 which would make sense having a difference tone a 'fifth below the lower note. I realize we are talking about different instruments.
Leaning your direction though a 28/27 has always been one of my favorite intervals.

/^_,',',',_ //^ /Kraig Grady_ ^_,',',',_
_'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere: North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>

_'''''''_ ^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria <http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>

',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',

edogiku wrote:
>
> This is my first contribution to this group, though I subscribed two > years ago. Shamisen is
> a popular tranditional Japanese instrument with three strings played > with a large club-
> shaped bachi.
> I am an amateur shamisen player and would-be composer. After studying > some of the
> classical genres like naga-uta (used in Kabuki theater etc.) and songs > like ha-uta (short
> song) and zokkyoku (popular song), I found a following scale could > cover most of
> traditional practice of hoso-zao ("narrow-pole" shamisen) playing. > Common tunings are
> hon-chosi (B-E-B'), ni-agari (B-F#-B') and san-sagari (B-E-A).
> Below is a Scala print out with my notation system (the tonal center > is E).
> Shamisen_Ritsu_Yang_Yin
> 0: 1/1 E unison, perfect prime
> 1: 27/26 F tridecimal comma
> 2: 9/8 F# major whole tone
> 3: 243/208 Gb
> 4: 32/27 G Pythagorean minor third
> 5: 81/64 G# Pythagorean major third
> 6: 2187/1664 Ab
> 7: 4/3 A perfect fourth
> 8: 18/13 Bb tridecimal augmented fourth
> 9: 3/2 B perfect fifth
> 10: 81/52 C
> 11: 27/16 C# Pythagorean major sixth
> 12: 729/416 Db
> 13: 16/9 D Pythagorean minor seventh
> 14: 243/128 D# Pythagorean major seventh
> 15: 2/1 E octave
>
> Followings are underlying observations.
> 1. The Ritsu-Yang-mode is made of Pythagorean pentatonic: > E-F#-A-B-D-E: A and B are
> perfect 4th and 5th, and all diatonic intervals (E-F#, A-B, D-E) are > Pythagorean whole tone
> (9/8).
> 2. The Ritsu-Yin-mode is made of minor pentatonic with less-than-half > tone intervals
> above the tonic E and 5th B: E-C-B-A-F-E (in a descending order). The > intervals of the
> half tones (C-B and F-E) are not rigorous and seem to depend genres, > schools,
> individuals, in particular songs or phrases etc. but they do not > exceed the 12-ET half
> tone. I prefer the string ratio (27/26), the one-third of the whole > tone intervals, which
> maybe the smallest end of the spectrum. One practical reason is that > the one-third
> interval is very easy to locate if the whole tone positions are marked > on the pole.
> 3. Yang and Yin modes are freely mixed in compositions, although tones > like F and F# do
> not appear in same phrases.
> 4. In highly developed compositions like naga-utas, there are frequent > modulations of the
> tonal center. In most cases, the music starts in E but temporary > modulates to B or A or F#
> or C# and returns to E as shown by Haiko Ohtsuka ("Pitch Theory in the > Music of the
> Shamisen", Ongakunotomo-sha, 1995, in Japanese). This scale covers all > the modulations
> shown above.
> 5. Since this scale is essentially Pythagorean, it is easily adapted > in MIDI hardware or
> software synthesizers with Pythagorean tuning by selecting out F, C > and "flat" tones into a
> different instrumental channel tuned (100-65.33) cents below. By > manipulating this value,
> it is also possible to find out the most favorable intervals for the > less-than-the-half
> tones.
> 6. I made one realization from standard naga-uta repertories using > Siberius V3 and
> Cubase SX3 with FM7 softsynth in my home page though no attempt was > made for faithful
> simulation of shamisen sounds or rhythmic modulations.
>
> Nobuo Munakata <http://www.toshima.ne.jp/~edogiku > <http://www.toshima.ne.jp/%7Eedogiku>>
>
>