Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup makemicromusic Bad Michael S. Tuning

This one is an improvisation that I then worked at a bit. I did play with tempo a touch - despite that on repeated listening measures 1,2 and 3 could be a bit slower.

The 16th note resolution score is here:

http://micro.soonlabel.com/bad/bad-michaels2.pdf

The just under 2 minute mp3 is here:

http://micro.soonlabel.com/bad/bad-michaels2.mp3

I rather like most of this. A key to the performance was to map the 7 notes of the tuning to just the white keys via a pianoteq kbm file. This made performance much easier - playing a third gave, more or less, an interval that acted, more or less, like a third. But - you have the score and can see for yourself. (I did remove 4 ? sustain pedal applications in a row in the final mp3 that are still in the score. I didn't consider that a big enough deal to go back and redo the PDF.)

Chris

🔗cityoftheasleep <igliashon@...>

LOL, sounds great to me! Could easily have fooled me into thinking it was 13-limit JI. Well played, sir.

-Igs

--- In MakeMicroMusic@...m, "christopherv" <chrisvaisvil@...> wrote:
>
> This one is an improvisation that I then worked at a bit. I did play with tempo a touch - despite that on repeated listening measures 1,2 and 3 could be a bit slower.
>
>
> The 16th note resolution score is here:
>
> http://micro.soonlabel.com/bad/bad-michaels2.pdf
>
> The just under 2 minute mp3 is here:
>
> http://micro.soonlabel.com/bad/bad-michaels2.mp3
>
> I rather like most of this. A key to the performance was to map the 7 notes of the tuning to just the white keys via a pianoteq kbm file. This made performance much easier - playing a third gave, more or less, an interval that acted, more or less, like a third. But - you have the score and can see for yourself. (I did remove 4 ? sustain pedal applications in a row in the final mp3 that are still in the score. I didn't consider that a big enough deal to go back and redo the PDF.)
>
> Chris
>

🔗Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>

🔗Carl Lumma <carl@...>

🔗cityoftheasleep <igliashon@...>

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Carl Lumma <carl@...> wrote:
>
> You really think it sounds like 13-limit JI? I'm not trying
> to offend, I am genuinely curious. It sounds perfectly evocative
> as a piece of music to me, but nothing like JI, 13-limit or
> otherwise... -Carl

Put it this way: most 13-limit JI music I've heard (especially Jon Catler's) doesn't sound very JI to me, period. Even Partch's 11-limit music. I mean, NO, in Chris's piece I don't hear what sound to me like a bunch of 13-limit otonal heptads, that's ridiculous. But it seems like most 13-limit JI music that gets made rarely utilizes pure otonal chords, and anyway the beating in many of the chords he plays is actually pretty negligible. Maybe there's some proportional beating going on?

Hmm...I'll bet I could come up with a 13(prime)-limit JI retuning of Michael's scale that would lose very little of the character. Let's see...try:

1/1
16/15
7/6
40/27
33/20
26/15
20/11
(2/1)

I'm pretty sure all of those would pop up somewhere in most sufficiently-large 13-limit JI scales.

-Igs

🔗Carl Lumma <carl@...>

>> You really think it sounds like 13-limit JI? I'm not trying
>> to offend, I am genuinely curious. It sounds perfectly evocative
>> as a piece of music to me, but nothing like JI, 13-limit or
>> otherwise... -Carl
>
>Put it this way: most 13-limit JI music I've heard (especially Jon
>Catler's) doesn't sound very JI to me, period.

Really? Wow! Catler's guitar is like JI-city.

>Even Partch's 11-limit music.

A lot of Partch is percussion, intoning voice, ordinary brass,
and stuff like that. Only a subset of his instruments achieved
extended JI consistently (chief among them the Chromelodeon).
Where those instruments are involved the JI effect is excellent.
At times he also achieved good results with an orchestration of
his pitched percussion.

>But it seems like most 13-limit JI music that gets made rarely
>utilizes pure otonal chords,

I guess it helps to talk about specific music. To me, it's
not 13-limit unless it is...

>and anyway the beating in many of the chords he plays
>is actually pretty negligible. Maybe there's some proportional
>beating going on?

Beating is almost never relevant in music. Roughness is, and
many of the chords and intervals in Chris' demo exhibit
considerable roughness, in addition to simply not sounding
like JI. -Carl

🔗Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>

1. I'm certainly not offended by any discussion of the music I write.
In fact I think its great to read such discussion as it helps me to
better form my ideas about composition.

2. Carl, isn't pretty much any (real) dissonance has roughness?

Almost all of the chords in the demonstration piece were intentional.
There was a couple places towards the middle I did get boxed in and
didn't have the alternative I was hearing in my head and settled for
something else. So I asert the roughness = dissonance was for the most
part intentional - and I see that as normal for any piece of music.

Chris

On Tue, Jan 4, 2011 at 7:14 PM, Carl Lumma <carl@...> wrote:

>
> Beating is almost never relevant in music. Roughness is, and
> many of the chords and intervals in Chris' demo exhibit
> considerable roughness, in addition to simply not sounding
> like JI. -Carl

🔗Carl Lumma <carl@...>

🔗Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>

🔗Carl Lumma <carl@...>

🔗Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>

Carl,

Read #2 below. I wasn't using Paul's definition.

Thanks,

Chris

On Tue, Jan 4, 2011 at 8:39 PM, Carl Lumma <carl@...> wrote:

>
>
> Sorry, what was your point? -C.
>
>
> Chris wrote:
>
> >Then... my point stands.
> >
> >On Tue, Jan 4, 2011 at 8:21 PM, Carl Lumma <carl@...<carl%40lumma.org>>
> wrote:
> >
> >> >2. Carl, isn't pretty much any (real) dissonance has roughness?
> >>
> >> That's often how it's explained in textbooks, but Paul Erlich
> >> discovered another form of discordance present in extended
> >> utonal chords that have little or no roughness. I posted some
> >> examples to the tuning list last year. -Carl
> >>
> >
>
>
>

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

🔗Carl Lumma <carl@...>

🔗Michael <djtrancendance@...>

Firstly, let me say that I found Igs's piece VERY listenable, though still
quite narrow in mood (and, again, I am guessing this is a property of the scale,
not the composer)..

I think it's fair to say (largely due to Igs's piece), that at least when
my "bad" scale is used in a fashion focused on melody, it can be made to sound
quite non-chaotic and quite intelligent...and perhaps that the human mind's
sense of melody is very loosely if at all affected by exclusion of harmonic
intervals (counter to my previous theory). Even up to having 2 or so notes
sustained...things can even sound well-defined and stable in this scale, it
seems.

However, I remain highly unconvinced of the scale's (or any scale with that
level of beating)'s aptitude at full chords (read: over 2 notes held at once)
and/or polyphonic music.
Chris's piece has a ghastly feel: nearly everything sounds inbetween IE
neither in a state of resolve or tension and holds the same narrow mood for
almost the whole song. Even Igs's crystal clear (for this scale) song sounds to
me like it shifts between three tonal/color roots, and no more (not bad: my
example sounded more like 2 roots). Plus in his song, it's (still) almost as if
my mind is "pulling the scale's ghastly beating echoes toward the nearest
chords"...rather than actually hearing chords. I'm not convinced the lack of
consonance is actually helping give more mood in the slightest...more like
looking at a Picasso painting while seriously drunk and partly guessing where
the lines are.
----------------
Now, the real test to me...in to test this song on musicians who have never
heard microtonal music (without telling them it is microtonal) and see how it
does against something middle-of-the-road (definitely not like 12TET, but not
inharmonic either) like Sethares' Seventeen Dragon Dreams
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mck2PcsZ44.
Actually, make that Igs vs. Sethares (lol)...both are very cleverly composed
so IMVHO it leaves the judgment down to what people think of the scales.

I am also going to post a short example in what I think is my MOST tonally
colorful scale...Dimension^2 (a 12-tone version of my Dimension scale)...which
is based on precision around my favorite dyads from all possible roots to all
other notes...

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

🔗cityoftheasleep <igliashon@...>

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Michael <djtrancendance@...> wrote:
> However, I remain highly unconvinced of the scale's (or any scale with that
> level of beating)'s aptitude at full chords (read: over 2 notes held at once)
> and/or polyphonic music.

My piece was actually decently polyphonic, at least as polyphonic as the average piece of pop music on the radio. Save for the intro, most of the time there are 3 or more distinct notes held over each other at any given time.

> Now, the real test to me...in to test this song on musicians who have never
> heard microtonal music (without telling them it is microtonal) and see how it
> does against something middle-of-the-road (definitely not like 12TET, but not
> inharmonic either) like Sethares' Seventeen Dragon Dreams
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mck2PcsZ44.

Do you remember the piece I wrote in response to your last "bad scale"? It was called "Atlantean Geometry". Well, I showed that to a good friend of mine, a gifted musician who plays only in 12-tET. After I showed him, I told him it was written in a scale calculated to maximize dissonance, and his response was that he didn't believe that, and that he thought the opposite was the case (that it was calculated to maximize consonance). He thought it sounded utterly beautiful.

> I am also going to post a short example in what I think is my MOST tonally
> colorful scale...Dimension^2 (a 12-tone version of my Dimension scale)...which
> is based on precision around my favorite dyads from all possible roots to all
> other notes...

Have you posted this scale yet?

-Igs

🔗Michael <djtrancendance@...>

Me> However, I remain highly unconvinced of the scale's (or any scale with
that

> level of beating)'s aptitude at full chords (read: over 2 notes held at once)
> and/or polyphonic music.

Igs>"My piece was actually decently polyphonic, at least as polyphonic as the
average piece of pop music on >the radio. Save for the intro, most of the time
there are 3 or more distinct notes held over each other at any >given time."

First of all, as Chris pointed out (and I agree with), the not-so-polyphonic
intro/beginning is what really shines. I'm not going to argue...your song DOES
by and large have at least pop-level complexity in chords...however I don't
think the extra notes really add much of anything...they seem to act more like a
simple sound effect/textures over the other notes to me.

Igs>"Do you remember the piece I wrote in response to your last "bad scale"? It
was called "Atlantean Geometry". Well, I showed that to a good friend of mine, a
gifted musician who plays only in 12-tET....his response was...that he thought
the opposite was the case (that it was calculated to maximize consonance)"

Well, as you pointed out before
A) Atlantean Geometry has a decent amount of odd good dyads, many if not most of
which occurred over more than an octave gap (the ones I ignore).

B) You strategically tried to stick mostly only to said "good" notes (heck, I've
seen you tear apart things like 15TET, 20TET...and specifically mark the "good"
chords...even if it's a "bad" scale you seem to hunt for only "good"
subsets/chords to use...even if that means relatively few chords).

Also you say you friend is a "gifted musician"...what kind of music does he
normally listen to? If it includes something like Stravinsky or anything
relatively Neo-Classical like that or complex jazz (many of which border on as
or more atonal than inharmonic microtonal music despite being in 12TET)...I'm
not at all surprised.

However, if he listens to only pop/dance/country/rock...yes, that's a
shocker!

Me>"I am also going to post a short example in what I think is my MOST tonally
> colorful scale...Dimension^2 (a 12-tone version of my Dimension scale)...which

> is based on precision around my favorite dyads from all possible roots to all
> other notes..."

-------------------------------------------
Igs>"Have you posted this scale (Dimension^2, the 12 tone version of my maximum
consonance scale) yet?"

Not yet, but I will. Also, actually I ALREADY posted the short melodic
example for this scale. It's at
/makemicromusic/files/djtrancendance/DimensionSquaredColorfulMelodies.mp3

BTW (a note before Ozan jumps in), none of the melodies repeat at all through
the entire example....consider it like a short guitar solo only with tetrads
instead of single notes and dyads.

I also wonder what your mysterious friend would think of that crazy
"Dimension^2" scale demonstration solo....

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

🔗Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>

sounds like a tuning for an African thumb piano - or the music
reminds me of such.

I really don't hear this as super consonant - but then I think it is
apparent we hear things like this very differently.

I would like the scala file to see if I can avoid "ghastly" - or
perhaps I should *try* for ghastly?

Chris

>
> Not yet, but I will. Also, actually I ALREADY posted the short melodic
> example for this scale. It's at
> /makemicromusic/files/djtrancendance/DimensionSquaredColorfulMelodies.mp3
>
> BTW (a note before Ozan jumps in), none of the melodies repeat at all through
> the entire example....consider it like a short guitar solo only with tetrads
> instead of single notes and dyads.
>

🔗Michael <djtrancendance@...>

Chris>"I really don't hear this as super consonant - but then I think it is
apparent we hear things like this very differently."

Well, in short, that example was going for MAXIMIZING TONAL COLOR NOT
MAXIMIZING CONSONANCE. Also note, something like a straight harmonic series
(IE something purely "ultraconsonant") would likely do terribly at a test
involving tonal color.
Also, note the title "Colorful melodies" and the fact I'm using a significantly
less consonant 12-tone version of the scale and not the ultra-consonant 9-tone
version.
And I purposefully did tons of modulation and such in that piece (which isn't
exactly conducive to consonance).

Now back to the original argument (mainly between myself and Igs) from which
this example spurred from...

Igs argued that if you make a scale with too many chords of different moods,
they will somehow all blend together into one mood and thus DECREASE the tonal
color (the opposite of what you'd think they'd do).
Meanwhile I argue that NOT "making maximum consonance" but rather "making a
system with both many possible points/chords of relative resolve and
dissonance...but none of which are very dissonant (mildly dissonant at "worst")
is the way to go.

Chris>"I would like the scala file to see if I can avoid "ghastly" - or perhaps
I should *try* for ghastly?"

Firstly I'll say, it's meant to avoid sounding "ghastly" for the most part,
but can be made "ghastly" if you focus on the 15% or so of odd 11-limit-like
dyads in there. You can go for either or, what would be perhaps more
fascinating, make one tune that goes for "ghastly" on purpose and one that
doesn't. It's all down to artistic preference.

Far as churning out the Scala file for the Dimension^2 12-tone?
I'll work on it when I get home...in Dimension^2 getting anything to sound
"ghastly" should be pretty hard UNLESS you go for the subset of tones in common
with the Pentra scale (IE the set including the new 11/7 and 10/7 (despite the
latter being 7-limit) dyads along with the not-so-straight 18/11 and 15/11
dyads...those are about as "dissonant"/"ambiguous-sounding" as Dimension^2 gets)
:-D

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

🔗Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>

Mike,

Have you listened to much of Michael Harrison's harmonic series work?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ieHZ5qmJZI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1vaXBotrAI&feature=related

I think he does a lot with color - I bought 2 of his CDs - and he's a
nice guy as well.
If I remember right Prent mentioned him and I followed up.

I'll wait until you get home and I have the scala file to respond to
the rest of this.
(I'm busy right now but thought you might be able to listen)

Chris

On Thu, Jan 6, 2011 at 10:41 AM, Michael <djtrancendance@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> Chris>"I really don't hear this as super consonant - but then I think it is
>
> apparent we hear things like this very differently."
>
> Well, in short, that example was going for MAXIMIZING TONAL COLOR NOT
> MAXIMIZING CONSONANCE. Also note, something like a straight harmonic series
> (IE something purely "ultraconsonant") would likely do terribly at a test
> involving tonal color.

🔗Michael <djtrancendance@...>

Chris's examples of Michael Harrison>
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ieHZ5qmJZI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1vaXBotrAI&feature=related"

It does sound very strong and with lot of color (if very typical sounding
color), but look at the tuning
http://www.michaelharrison.com/harmonic-tunings.html

It looks like like more than a JI-aligned version of meantone....and is
certainly not a straight harmonic series (I was saying the straight harmonic
series was an example of a colorless scale).
Correct me if I'm wrong but it sounds like he's using his mind and an extra 12
note set (making it 24 tones per octave "merging" very near 12 per octave) to do
what an adaptive JI computer program would do in real time.

So yes, it seems to work well, but I'd think that kind of "real-time adaptive
JI" is likely far beyond what most composers can manage and, in the end of the
day, sounds more like a very pure version of 12TET and it's implied dyads/chords
than any gateway to new moods...it also looks like about a 1/8th tone error is
about as far as any one note gets from 12TET on his piano!

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

🔗Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>

Let me read his tuning section - that is new to me - it was blank page every
other time I looked at it.

Chris

On Thu, Jan 6, 2011 at 12:01 PM, Michael <djtrancendance@...> wrote:

>
>
> Chris's examples of Michael Harrison>
>
> "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ieHZ5qmJZI
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1vaXBotrAI&feature=related"
>
> It does sound very strong and with lot of color (if very typical sounding
> color), but look at the tuning
> http://www.michaelharrison.com/harmonic-tunings.html
>
> It looks like like more than a JI-aligned version of meantone....and is
> certainly not a straight harmonic series (I was saying the straight
> harmonic
> series was an example of a colorless scale).
> Correct me if I'm wrong but it sounds like he's using his mind and an extra
> 12
> note set (making it 24 tones per octave "merging" very near 12 per octave)
> to do
> what an adaptive JI computer program would do in real time.
>
> So yes, it seems to work well, but I'd think that kind of "real-time
> adaptive
> JI" is likely far beyond what most composers can manage and, in the end of
> the
> day, sounds more like a very pure version of 12TET and it's implied
> dyads/chords
> than any gateway to new moods...it also looks like about a 1/8th tone error
> is
> about as far as any one note gets from 12TET on his piano!
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>

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

🔗Michael <djtrancendance@...>

Chris>"Let me read his tuning section - that is new to me - it was blank page
every
other time I looked at it."

Indeed...it's interesting stuff. I noted one cool, heavily new interval
substantially different from 12TET, a 9/7 between B and G#. The rest of the new
dyads seem more like commatic adjustments the achieve purity...then new
ratios...again getting generally about 25 cents maximum error and typically 20
cents or less error.

________________________________
From: Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>
To: MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thu, January 6, 2011 11:08:46 AM
Subject: Re: [MMM] Re: My "bad" tuning and ranges of mood and/or roughness

Let me read his tuning section - that is new to me - it was blank page every
other time I looked at it.

Chris

On Thu, Jan 6, 2011 at 12:01 PM, Michael <djtrancendance@...> wrote:

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

------------------------------------

Yahoo! Groups Links

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

Bad Michael S. Tuning - version 2

🔗christopherv <chrisvaisvil@...>

🔗cityoftheasleep <igliashon@...>

🔗Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>

🔗Carl Lumma <carl@...>

🔗cityoftheasleep <igliashon@...>

🔗Carl Lumma <carl@...>

🔗Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>

🔗Carl Lumma <carl@...>

🔗Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>

🔗Carl Lumma <carl@...>

🔗Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>

🔗Carl Lumma <carl@...>

🔗Michael <djtrancendance@...>

🔗cityoftheasleep <igliashon@...>

🔗Michael <djtrancendance@...>

🔗Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>

🔗Michael <djtrancendance@...>

🔗Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>

🔗Michael <djtrancendance@...>

🔗Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>

🔗Michael <djtrancendance@...>