So Sets the Rising Sun

Hey gang, here's my first recording of 19-EDO. It's just a mellow little improv, but it has some neat things going on:

/makemicromusic/files/Igliashon%20Jones/So%20Sets%2\
0the%20Rising%20Sun.mp3

I have to say, playing 19 on my electric guitar makes me feel like the whole world of guitar and bass is stupid for sticking with 12-TET. I know I've been no advocate of "more in-tune" in the past, but sweet jebus, 5-limit chords sound like BUTTER on this thing! Even the guitar techs who fixed up the frets for me were blown away when I played it for them in the shop.

I feel like 19 is also rapidly teaching me about what I'm "really" doing when I play in 12. Like how sometimes in 12, I really *am* trying to play augmented 5ths and not minor 6ths--my more musically-educated friends have always insisted that when, for instance, I'm playing an open E minor and I raise the fifth by a semitone, I'm moving to an inverted C major, but I really think I'm aiming for a B# and not a C sometimes. I say this because in 19, when I'm going for the same "effect", the C sounds wrong but the B# sounds right. It's so much fun to be able to make all these new distinctions in terms of tension and dissonance.

And speaking of dissonance--oh my goodness, does 19 ever deliver it! In 12, one of the standard "metal" guitar chords is the root-tritone-octave triad, and there are a ton of different ways to translate that chord into 19. I can do C-F#-C, C-Gb-C, C-Gb-Dbb, and C-F#-B#, of which the latter two are just absurdly dissonant. And using the ~63-cent chromatic semitone harmonically--man, that thing beats like no other! It's so cool! I like to just let it ring and meditate to the beat-frequency.

Needless to say, I'm stoked.

-Igs

On Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 1:28 PM, cityoftheasleep
<igliashon@...> wrote:
>
> Hey gang, here's my first recording of 19-EDO. It's just a mellow little improv, but it has some neat things going on:
>
> /makemicromusic/files/Igliashon%20Jones/So%20Sets%2\
> 0the%20Rising%20Sun.mp3
>
> I have to say, playing 19 on my electric guitar makes me feel like the whole world of guitar and bass is stupid for sticking with 12-TET. I know I've been no advocate of "more in-tune" in the past, but sweet jebus, 5-limit chords sound like BUTTER on this thing! Even the guitar techs who fixed up the frets for me were blown away when I played it for them in the shop.

Damn. Major chords resonate so well. Do you have an acoustic, too? Or
just an electric?

> I feel like 19 is also rapidly teaching me about what I'm "really" doing when I play in 12. Like how sometimes in 12, I really *am* trying to play augmented 5ths and not minor 6ths--my more musically-educated friends have always insisted that when, for instance, I'm playing an open E minor and I raise the fifth by a semitone, I'm moving to an inverted C major, but I really think I'm aiming for a B# and not a C sometimes. I say this because in 19, when I'm going for the same "effect", the C sounds wrong but the B# sounds right. It's so much fun to be able to make all these new distinctions in terms of tension and dissonance.

*Insert obligatory statement about jazz here*

Minor #5 chords though... never thought about that before.

Thanks for putting this together. I'd be down to hear some 19-tet
acoustic if you have any of that as well, since all of this will be
for acoustic guitar. If not, thanks for the help you've given so
far... 19 vs 22. Damn

-Mike

Listening to your description and to your music I think has made up my mind
to get a guitar in 19.

Thank you Igs

Chris

On Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 1:28 PM, cityoftheasleep <igliashon@...>wrote:

>
>
> Hey gang, here's my first recording of 19-EDO. It's just a mellow little
> improv, but it has some neat things going on:
>
>
> /makemicromusic/files/Igliashon%20Jones/So%20Sets%2\
> 0the%20Rising%20Sun.mp3</makemicromusic/files/Igliashon%20Jones/So%20Sets%20the%20Rising%20Sun.mp3>
>
> I have to say, playing 19 on my electric guitar makes me feel like the
> whole world of guitar and bass is stupid for sticking with 12-TET. I know
> I've been no advocate of "more in-tune" in the past, but sweet jebus,
> 5-limit chords sound like BUTTER on this thing! Even the guitar techs who
> fixed up the frets for me were blown away when I played it for them in the
> shop.
>
>

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

A tad octave-streched 19-equal would produce even better results I
suppose. Sometime ago I had worked it. In fact, 19 is a perfect
entry-level microtonal tone-system that can be applied to a multitude of
musical cultures from around the world including of course
Classical/Baroque. No need to go any further than 19-EDO if pleasing the
populace is your game.

I say, another fine piece by Igs AKA Jason.

Oz.

--

✩ ✩ ✩
www.ozanyarman.com

cityoftheasleep wrote:
> Hey gang, here's my first recording of 19-EDO. It's just a mellow little improv, but it has some neat things going on:
>
> /makemicromusic/files/Igliashon%20Jones/So%20Sets%2\
> 0the%20Rising%20Sun.mp3
>
> I have to say, playing 19 on my electric guitar makes me feel like the whole world of guitar and bass is stupid for sticking with 12-TET. I know I've been no advocate of "more in-tune" in the past, but sweet jebus, 5-limit chords sound like BUTTER on this thing! Even the guitar techs who fixed up the frets for me were blown away when I played it for them in the shop.
>
> I feel like 19 is also rapidly teaching me about what I'm "really" doing when I play in 12. Like how sometimes in 12, I really *am* trying to play augmented 5ths and not minor 6ths--my more musically-educated friends have always insisted that when, for instance, I'm playing an open E minor and I raise the fifth by a semitone, I'm moving to an inverted C major, but I really think I'm aiming for a B# and not a C sometimes. I say this because in 19, when I'm going for the same "effect", the C sounds wrong but the B# sounds right. It's so much fun to be able to make all these new distinctions in terms of tension and dissonance.
>
> And speaking of dissonance--oh my goodness, does 19 ever deliver it! In 12, one of the standard "metal" guitar chords is the root-tritone-octave triad, and there are a ton of different ways to translate that chord into 19. I can do C-F#-C, C-Gb-C, C-Gb-Dbb, and C-F#-B#, of which the latter two are just absurdly dissonant. And using the ~63-cent chromatic semitone harmonically--man, that thing beats like no other! It's so cool! I like to just let it ring and meditate to the beat-frequency.
>
> Needless to say, I'm stoked.
>
> -Igs
>
>

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

Ron Sword, with whom I have been in contact recently, might interest you
with his detachable fret-board guitars that feature the pitch-palette of
your desires. That means one guitar and on-the-fly tuning switches.
Otherwise, my colleague Tolgahan can supply you with the details of his
slide-fret guitar.

Oz.

--

✩ ✩ ✩
www.ozanyarman.com

Chris Vaisvil wrote:
> Listening to your description and to your music I think has made up my mind
> to get a guitar in 19.
>
> Thank you Igs
>
> Chris
>
> On Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 1:28 PM, cityoftheasleep<igliashon@...>wrote:
>
>> Hey gang, here's my first recording of 19-EDO. It's just a mellow little
>> improv, but it has some neat things going on:
>>
>>
>> /makemicromusic/files/Igliashon%20Jones/So%20Sets%2\
>> 0the%20Rising%20Sun.mp3</makemicromusic/files/Igliashon%20Jones/So%20Sets%20the%20Rising%20Sun.mp3>
>>
>> I have to say, playing 19 on my electric guitar makes me feel like the
>> whole world of guitar and bass is stupid for sticking with 12-TET. I know
>> I've been no advocate of "more in-tune" in the past, but sweet jebus,
>> 5-limit chords sound like BUTTER on this thing! Even the guitar techs who
>> fixed up the frets for me were blown away when I played it for them in the
>> shop.
>>
>>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>

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

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "cityoftheasleep" <igliashon@...> wrote:

/makemicromusic/files/Igliashon%20Jones/So%20Sets%2\
> 0the%20Rising%20Sun.mp3
>
> I have to say, playing 19 on my electric guitar makes me feel like the whole world of guitar and bass is stupid for sticking with 12-TET.

Wow, Igs, what took you so long? I suppose I thought most people would be like me--try 19 first, then 22. Though Paul Erlich told me when I said something like that once that back in the 70's hardly anyone was trying 22 at all.

> I know I've been no advocate of "more in-tune" in the past, but sweet jebus, 5-limit chords sound like BUTTER on this thing!

Much of the point of dissonance is to be able to contrast it with consonance. Consonant chords are also intelligible chords, and sometimes that is likely to be what you want.

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:

> Damn. Major chords resonate so well. Do you have an acoustic, too? Or
> just an electric?

I do have an acoustic, but the intonation is complete crap. It was the first conversion done by one of Ron Sword's apprentices, and it looks it. But it only cost me $300. I plan to bring it in to the guys who fixed up my electric and have them make a new nut and bridge for it to correct the intonation. Or I might try to do it myself, see if getting a Tusq nut and bridge works it out.

> *Insert obligatory statement about jazz here*

I think 19 might be good for jazz, but it also might not be. Something about the tritones feels a little bland, though I have found some good altered chords. I will admit, though: I think George Secor is right on with the dominant 7ths in 19 not really cutting it, being too high if you use the ~9/5 and too low if you use the ~7/4 (which is practically a 12/7). On the other hand it feels great for blues...I'll post another, livelier improv in a few days to try out some bluesy lead licks.

-Igs

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "genewardsmith" <genewardsmith@...> wrote:

> Wow, Igs, what took you so long? I suppose I thought most people would be like me--
> try 19 first, then 22. Though Paul Erlich told me when I said something like that once
> that back in the 70's hardly anyone was trying 22 at all.

I tried 22 first, and honestly was less than impressed. So I guess I figured, "well, 22 is supposed to be better harmonically than 19, and I don't find this to be very significant of an improvement, so f*** 19!" Turns out it was a mistake to write it off based on my dislike of 22. Maybe Ivor was right, and it's a personality thing. I really wanted to prefer 22 because I thought 22 was "weirder", and maybe it is weirder but I really like 19 a lot better in spite of myself.

> Much of the point of dissonance is to be able to contrast it with consonance. Consonant
> chords are also intelligible chords, and sometimes that is likely to be what you want.

I think 19 will fit well into my general microtonal oeuvre well for this reason--I think it's good not just to have contrast within a tuning, but also contrast between tunings. In 11-EDO and 13-EDO, the contrast is weak and more toward the dissonant end; in 12-EDO the contrast is also weak and more toward the consonant end. EDOs 14, 15, and 16 are also pretty low contrast but still pretty much in the middle of the spectrum (though 15 is more consonant than either 14 or 16). 17-EDO is high-contrast, but there are more dissonances than consonances; 19-EDO is high-contrast but with more consonances than dissonances. Then you get to 20-EDO and the contrast goes down again (though still toward the consonant end of the spectrum), and then 21 the contrast stays low but is more toward dissonant, etc. And I'm not just making this up, either: I calculated the dyadic H.E. for all the intervals in EDOs up to 37, and I'm basing this off of a combination of the mean and the range of each one.

-Igs

Igs wrote:

>I know I've been no advocate of "more in-tune" in the past, but
>sweet jebus, 5-limit chords sound like BUTTER on this thing!

You noticed. :P

>Maybe Ivor was right, and it's a personality thing. I really
>wanted to prefer 22 because I thought 22 was "weirder", and maybe it
>is weirder but I really like 19 a lot better in spite of myself.

It's good to be able to feel out a preference and run with it, but
keep in mind it took hundreds of years to flesh out what 12 was
capable of. Making snap judgements could potentially close you
off to experiences later down the road.

>I think 19 will fit well into my general microtonal oeuvre well for
>this reason--I think it's good not just to have contrast within a
>tuning, but also contrast between tunings. In 11-EDO and 13-EDO, the
>contrast is weak and more toward the dissonant end; in 12-EDO the
>contrast is also weak and more toward the consonant end. EDOs 14, 15,
>and 16 are also pretty low contrast but still pretty much in the
>middle of the spectrum (though 15 is more consonant than either 14 or
>16). 17-EDO is high-contrast, but there are more dissonances than
>consonances; 19-EDO is high-contrast but with more consonances than
>dissonances. Then you get to 20-EDO and the contrast goes down again
>(though still toward the consonant end of the spectrum), and then 21
>the contrast stays low but is more toward dissonant, etc. And I'm not
>just making this up, either: I calculated the dyadic H.E. for all the
>intervals in EDOs up to 37, and I'm basing this off of a combination
>of the mean and the range of each one.

Another thing is simply that as ET number goes up, the steps
get smaller and the amount of hell that can break loose (to quote
Norman Henry) increases rather quickly.

-Carl