New standard tuning (s)

Of course, it's important to remember that millions of musicians all over the world already use intervals outside of the western 12 tone scale. Arabic, Central Asian, Indonesian, African, and others (who haven't embraced the western system wholeheartedly, that is) still use systems that have been in use for many years. Reading the liner notes to Rahim Alhaj's great CD "When the Soul is Settled" is fascinating...for example, he transposes the starting note of one maqam up a quartertone...and another scale is said to be very similar to the western version, except some of the notes vary by a few hundredths of a cent. The Arabic/Turkish oud maestros are very well versed in using many different sizes of intervals.

I personally don't see why artists can't use a number of different tuning systems...it would mean some hard work, but hey, why not? I do it. The reason I got into this in the first place was because I was looking for something different than 12 eq; at first I didn't know any of the theory behind it, but now that I do, I'm not sure that I see the need for another standard...and I don't think that's likely to happen any time soon, anyway. Again, to get folks into something different wil take, most likely, a very famous personality endorsing another system...and that could indeed happen, I believe. Hope it does...best...Hstick

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Neil,

Question: do I read correctly that the tuning described by the oud player differs a few *hundreths* of a cent? That seems wrong--it wouldn't be noticed at all!! Only electronic instruments approach that level of accuracy in their tuning/stability.

Also, just a side, off-topic note: it's funny to notice different posting styles of different folks, and I notice your addiction to ellipses, for example: "da da arabic music...dadada...another though...yet another...closing thought...no biggie...best, Neil!!! :)

I get a kick out of noticing this kind of thing, never mind me. :)

AKJ

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Neil Haverstick <microstick@...> wrote:
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> Of course, it's important to remember that millions of musicians all over the world already use intervals outside of the western 12 tone scale. Arabic, Central Asian, Indonesian, African, and others (who haven't embraced the western system wholeheartedly, that is) still use systems that have been in use for many years. Reading the liner notes to Rahim Alhaj's great CD "When the Soul is Settled" is fascinating...for example, he transposes the starting note of one maqam up a quartertone...and another scale is said to be very similar to the western version, except some of the notes vary by a few hundredths of a cent. The Arabic/Turkish oud maestros are very well versed in using many different sizes of intervals.
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> I personally don't see why artists can't use a number of different tuning systems...it would mean some hard work, but hey, why not? I do it. The reason I got into this in the first place was because I was looking for something different than 12 eq; at first I didn't know any of the theory behind it, but now that I do, I'm not sure that I see the need for another standard...and I don't think that's likely to happen any time soon, anyway. Again, to get folks into something different wil take, most likely, a very famous personality endorsing another system...and that could indeed happen, I believe. Hope it does...best...Hstick
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> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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