Re: Michael and his "wreckless mixing of theories" :-)

Carl>"Michael, I honestly wish you the best.  I think you will experience much greater satisfaction if you get off the defensive and honestly consider what I, Mike B., and Chris V., and others have been telling you."

    By which you mean exactly what, for example?

  I've had both positive and negative discussions with both of them and certainly have been taking both of them seriously and considering, if not always agreeing with, their suggestions.
    A huge majority of the negative ones were due to them jumping the gun and saying what they "knew my theory was aimed toward" without asking me or my missing a historical term and their getting really heated up as if I meant to do it IE song vs. piece of music or polyphony vs. heterophony or
personality/intention judgments.   And/or saying things akin to "tuning/scales doesn't matter" or other things that seem to imply, in many ways, that this artform does not matter. 

   The positive ones, meanwhile, are things like honest appraisals of my music to their ears (both good and bad), talking about what my scales had similarities to without saying they were the same straight out (with my at times, after thinking it through, admitting they were the same and other times not), and links to papers as alternatives towards an artistic direction but not as "the one and only do-or-die answers".

   If there has been some obvious "what to do" point beyond "read more books from the masters...learn theories from x prominent figure in microtonal music" (something I've found useful at some times and not others)...it apparently was not well-explained to me.  And again, I wish we could all go back to
judging each others music first and foremost before jumping into theories...and avoid any attitude personal judgment or "training the 'lesser student' " altogether.

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

   For the record (hopefully branching off into a less personal topic), I see a strong pattern (as I almost always have) in not just having few intervals per interval class and constant structure ALA MOS...but virtually any system that allows the brain to classify music into a few simple parts.  Be those a chain of fifths, a chain of only two interval sizes, where the set of intervals are off key but by a consistent/predictable amount (IE scales that beat a lot, but keep about the same amount of beating regardless of the intervals used)...  Plus a chord that is high limit IE 14:18:21...can be balanced out by what's "good" in it at a lower level IE the 7:6 and 9:7 dyads.  And a scale with terribly rough semitones IE the diatonic scale is balanced out by the fact those semitones are maximally spaced from each other.

  And figures that, in composition, I hear a lot of pieces with chords leaning toward "bad/sour" weaved into Motifs in ways where the predictability of the Motifs "cancel out" the unpredictability of the "bad ratios" used in the chord progressions.  Meanwhile, as Igs has pointed out, and Mike B made clear about Blackwood...just how much low-limit ratios can matter far as root notes of chord progressions IE that they aren't simply a tool for single chords, but also for chord progressions.  And this seems to stress the use of chains of low-limit ratios to make resolving chord progressions (using notes along those chains as roots for chords).  Then again if you use so much of such a "simplifying theory"...I've found you (just like with diatonic scales in 12TET) have to go the extra mile to find some way to get surprise and tension into a composition.  This seems to show a danger of getting too far into using one and only one theory.

  So, all in all...I've come to a conclusion that while scales, composition...all matter...what matters most is not what theory or theories a piece of music abides by but the overall balance of the concoction of the theories used.  Just about everything I've composed that I've felt has worked did not follow one theory completely, but instead chipped pieces off of each theory and assembled them into something stable.

  Has anyone else hear notes any combinations of theories, plus their own ideas, that have served them well for composition?

Michael wrote:

>Carl>"Michael, I honestly wish you the best. I think you will
>experience much greater satisfaction if you get off the defensive and
>honestly consider what I, Mike B., and Chris V., and others have been
>telling you."
>
> By which you mean exactly what, for example?

I know there's a real person in there somewhere. Knock knock!

Here's something more specific: the average message on MMM seems
to be about 5K. Your average message length seems to be about 9K,
and you don't post infrequently either. It's a bit like having a
conversation with someone and talking twice as much as them.
(For the record, my avg message size is about 5K.) -Carl

Hello Michael and Carl,

Don't involve me in these discussions anymore. This is old history for me.
I'm uninterested. I let it go. I suggest you both do too.

It is not within my power to change anyone else. If I don't agree or like
what you've said but have nothing intelligent to add - I simply do not
respond.

Much more valuable to me (and I suspect others) would be some honest
critique of the music posted to MakeMicroMusic. But that is just one man's
opinion.

Chris

On Fri, Mar 4, 2011 at 5:12 PM, Michael <djtrancendance@...> wrote:

>
>
> Carl>"Michael, I honestly wish you the best. I think you will experience
> much greater satisfaction if you get off the defensive and honestly consider
> what I, Mike B., and Chris V., and others have been telling you."
>
> By which you mean exactly what, for example?
>
> I've had both positive and negative discussions with both of them and
> certainly have been taking both of them seriously and considering, if not
> always agreeing with, their suggestions.
> A huge majority of the negative ones were due to them jumping the gun
> and saying what they "knew my theory was aimed toward" without asking me or
> my missing a historical term and their getting really heated up as if I
> meant to do it IE song vs. piece of music or polyphony vs. heterophony or
> personality/intention judgments. And/or saying things akin to
> "tuning/scales doesn't matter" or other things that seem to imply, in many
> ways, that this artform does not matter.
>
> The positive ones, meanwhile, are things like honest appraisals of my
> music to their ears (both good and bad), talking about what my scales had
> similarities to without saying they were the same straight out (with my at
> times, after thinking it through, admitting they were the same and other
> times not), and links to papers as alternatives towards an artistic
> direction but not as "the one and only do-or-die answers".
>
> If there has been some obvious "what to do" point beyond "read more
> books from the masters...learn theories from x prominent figure in
> microtonal music" (something I've found useful at some times and not
> others)...it apparently was not well-explained to me. And again, I wish we
> could all go back to
> judging each others music first and foremost before jumping into
> theories...and avoid any attitude personal judgment or "training the 'lesser
> student' " altogether.
>
> -------------------------------------
>
> For the record (hopefully branching off into a less personal topic), I
> see a strong pattern (as I almost always have) in not just having few
> intervals per interval class and constant structure ALA MOS...but virtually
> any system that allows the brain to classify music into a few simple parts.
> Be those a chain of fifths, a chain of only two interval sizes, where the
> set of intervals are off key but by a consistent/predictable amount (IE
> scales that beat a lot, but keep about the same amount of beating regardless
> of the intervals used)... Plus a chord that is high limit IE 14:18:21...can
> be balanced out by what's "good" in it at a lower level IE the 7:6 and 9:7
> dyads. And a scale with terribly rough semitones IE the diatonic scale is
> balanced out by the fact those semitones are maximally spaced from each
> other.
>
> And figures that, in composition, I hear a lot of pieces with chords
> leaning toward "bad/sour" weaved into Motifs in ways where the
> predictability of the Motifs "cancel out" the unpredictability of the "bad
> ratios" used in the chord progressions. Meanwhile, as Igs has pointed out,
> and Mike B made clear about Blackwood...just how much low-limit ratios can
> matter far as root notes of chord progressions IE that they aren't simply a
> tool for single chords, but also for chord progressions. And this seems to
> stress the use of chains of low-limit ratios to make resolving chord
> progressions (using notes along those chains as roots for chords). Then
> again if you use so much of such a "simplifying theory"...I've found you
> (just like with diatonic scales in 12TET) have to go the extra mile to find
> some way to get surprise and tension into a composition. This seems to show
> a danger of getting too far into using one and only one theory.
>
> So, all in all...I've come to a conclusion that while scales,
> composition...all matter...what matters most is not what theory or theories
> a piece of music abides by but the overall balance of the concoction of the
> theories used. Just about everything I've composed that I've felt has
> worked did not follow one theory completely, but instead chipped pieces off
> of each theory and assembled them into something stable.
>
> Has anyone else hear notes any combinations of theories, plus their own
> ideas, that have served them well for composition?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

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

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...> wrote:

> Much more valuable to me (and I suspect others) would be some honest
> critique of the music posted to MakeMicroMusic. But that is just one man's
> opinion.

Not any kind of critique, but something I'd be interested in feedback on from you and others, is what you think of all these 12-note scales I've been concocting. Is that a good size in the sense of being a size people actually want to compose in?

12 certainly makes it easier to use more common programs and instruments. Given that I can mentally map up 17 well and up to 19 ok. Beyond that it becomes hard for performances. Sample based instruments become real restrictive above 20iish in my opinion. Now my axis49 in 98 key mode changes this view but I'm not very proficient in it yet.

Having discovered (finally) keyboard mapping in pianoteq I find less than 12 (say 10 note tunings) to be nice to work in as well. And Jacques doubling of strategic notes also works well.

I guess that is a little more than you asked.

Chris
-----Original Message-----
From: "genewardsmith" <genewardsmith@...>
Sender: MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com
Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2011 23:36:18
To: <MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com>
Reply-To: MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [MMM] Re: Michael and his "wreckless mixing of theories" :-)

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...> wrote:

> Much more valuable to me (and I suspect others) would be some honest
> critique of the music posted to MakeMicroMusic. But that is just one man's
> opinion.

Not any kind of critique, but something I'd be interested in feedback on from you and others, is what you think of all these 12-note scales I've been concocting. Is that a good size in the sense of being a size people actually want to compose in?

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

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, chrisvaisvil@... wrote:

> I guess that is a little more than you asked.

Here's another question: what's the best way to find music and/or other things on notonlymusic? I keep having trouble with that.

Use the RSS feed?

-----Original Message-----
From: "genewardsmith" <genewardsmith@...>
Sender: MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com
Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2011 00:09:45
To: <MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com>
Reply-To: MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [MMM] Re: Michael and his "wreckless mixing of theories" :-)

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, chrisvaisvil@... wrote:

> I guess that is a little more than you asked.

Here's another question: what's the best way to find music and/or other things on notonlymusic? I keep having trouble with that.

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

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, chrisvaisvil@... wrote:
>
> Use the RSS feed?

I've never done that, and would need to find out how.

Look up real simple syndication

But everything micro posted at NOM is posted here anyway. Unless you want to browse old material NOM is not of much use to you I'd think. Development stopped when Alister disappeared. I think he got caught up in the Pais riots last summer.

Nonoctave forum is much busier now.

Chris

Ps most of my micro material is at www.chrisvaisvil.com and is searchable etc.
-----Original Message-----
From: "genewardsmith" <genewardsmith@...>
Sender: MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com
Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2011 01:15:30
To: <MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com>
Reply-To: MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [MMM] Re: Michael and his "wreckless mixing of theories" :-)

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, chrisvaisvil@... wrote:
>
> Use the RSS feed?

I've never done that, and would need to find out how.

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

On Fri, Mar 4, 2011 at 6:36 PM, genewardsmith
<genewardsmith@...> wrote:
>
> --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...> wrote:
>
> > Much more valuable to me (and I suspect others) would be some honest
> > critique of the music posted to MakeMicroMusic. But that is just one man's
> > opinion.
>
> Not any kind of critique, but something I'd be interested in feedback on from you and others, is what you think of all these 12-note scales I've been concocting. Is that a good size in the sense of being a size people actually want to compose in?

I like them, but I won't be satisfied until I find a scale that "does
it for me" like the diatonic scale does, and then also has a chromatic
scale to modulate around within it. Machine was one of the first
scales I found that was successful in that endeavour, at least for me,
and it's 11 notes large. Blackwood also fits the bill pretty nicely,
and it's a 10 note scale.

I think that Graham complexity is important. I want to find scales
that have as many consonant chords over as many roots as possible
without having to resort to a 20-note sized MOS to do it. Barbados is
another good one. Machine is insane in that it has 4:7:9:11 all over
the place, although the accuracy isn't suitable for those who are into
microtemperament. Any others?

-Mike

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

> I think that Graham complexity is important. I want to find scales
> that have as many consonant chords over as many roots as possible
> without having to resort to a 20-note sized MOS to do it. Barbados is
> another good one. Machine is insane in that it has 4:7:9:11 all over
> the place, although the accuracy isn't suitable for those who are into
> microtemperament. Any others?

What did you think of the 352/351 and 364/363 temperament we discussed on the tuning list? It is like meantone in that a fifth is a generator and it has 5, 7, and 12 as MOS. Complexity is comparable to meantone, with the period part of the mapping being <0 1 -4 -7|. Accuracy, of course, is quite high.

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

> What did you think of the 352/351 and 364/363 temperament we discussed on the tuning list? It is like meantone in that a fifth is a generator and it has 5, 7, and 12 as MOS. Complexity is comparable to meantone, with the period part of the mapping being <0 1 -4 -7|. Accuracy, of course, is quite high.

Another shot is 2.3.11 tempered by 243/242. And there's always Hanson.

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

> I like them, but I won't be satisfied until I find a scale that "does
> it for me" like the diatonic scale does, and then also has a chromatic
> scale to modulate around within it. Machine was one of the first
> scales I found that was successful in that endeavour, at least for me,
> and it's 11 notes large. Blackwood also fits the bill pretty nicely,
> and it's a 10 note scale.

I think you are asking for a rank two temperament with a chromatic size and a melodic size MOS, analogous to meantone with its 7 and 12 size MOS. Could you give a range of sizes for these? There seem to be a number of choices, and this could be useful if there are other people who are looking for something like this, which I suspect is so. What would be a good name for such a thing?

Gene wrote:

>I think you are asking for a rank two temperament with a chromatic
>size and a melodic size MOS, analogous to meantone with its 7 and 12
>size MOS. Could you give a range of sizes for these? There seem to be
>a number of choices, and this could be useful if there are other
>people who are looking for something like this, which I suspect is so.
>What would be a good name for such a thing?

Howabout "chromatic pairs"?

One interesting thing to play with might be chormatic pairs similar
in size (with a small number of chromatic notes) such as pajara[8,10]
and porcupine[7,8]. And lest I be accused of playing favorites with
two of my favorite systems, I just can't think of any others with
relatively even MOS close in size like this (with the smaller being
between 5 and 10 notes/oct). -Carl

Could you guys post generator/period information, or Scala files, on some of these tunings/temperaments?

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "genewardsmith" <genewardsmith@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@> wrote:
>
> > I like them, but I won't be satisfied until I find a scale that "does
> > it for me" like the diatonic scale does, and then also has a chromatic
> > scale to modulate around within it. Machine was one of the first
> > scales I found that was successful in that endeavour, at least for me,
> > and it's 11 notes large. Blackwood also fits the bill pretty nicely,
> > and it's a 10 note scale.
>
> I think you are asking for a rank two temperament with a chromatic size and a melodic size MOS, analogous to meantone with its 7 and 12 size MOS. Could you give a range of sizes for these? There seem to be a number of choices, and this could be useful if there are other people who are looking for something like this, which I suspect is so. What would be a good name for such a thing?
>

On 3/5/2011 12:43 AM, Mike Battaglia wrote:

> I like them, but I won't be satisfied until I find a scale that "does
> it for me" like the diatonic scale does, and then also has a chromatic
> scale to modulate around within it. Machine was one of the first
> scales I found that was successful in that endeavour, at least for me,
> and it's 11 notes large. Blackwood also fits the bill pretty nicely,
> and it's a 10 note scale.
>
> I think that Graham complexity is important. I want to find scales
> that have as many consonant chords over as many roots as possible
> without having to resort to a 20-note sized MOS to do it. Barbados is
> another good one. Machine is insane in that it has 4:7:9:11 all over
> the place, although the accuracy isn't suitable for those who are into
> microtemperament. Any others?

It's hard to beat the diatonic scale. Diminished[8] and august[9] are good, but those temperaments aren't really good for more than 12 notes, and then you're just getting a minor variation on 12-ET. Keemun[11] is nice, and you've got a good 19-note "chromatic" scale to play with, but 11 notes is pushing the limit of a reasonable scale size for something comparable to the diatonic scale. I'm a fan of neutral seconds, so I like porcupine[7], and the 15-note MOS is a good "chromatic" scale for porcupine.

Probably the best thing I can suggest is orwell[9], with orwell[13] as a "chromatic" scale. But I think you'd want at least 22 notes to do much with orwell.

Here's another one that looks somewhat interesting: it's a 6&9 temperament with generators around 399.7 and 152.7 cents. The generator mapping is [<3 4 7 8 10], <0 2 0 1 1]], and it has MOS at 6, 9, 15, and 24 notes. Does this have a name? If not I suggest "triforce".

On 3/5/2011 3:00 AM, Carl Lumma wrote:
> Gene wrote:
>
>> I think you are asking for a rank two temperament with a chromatic
>> size and a melodic size MOS, analogous to meantone with its 7 and 12
>> size MOS. Could you give a range of sizes for these? There seem to be
>> a number of choices, and this could be useful if there are other
>> people who are looking for something like this, which I suspect is so.
>> What would be a good name for such a thing?
>
> Howabout "chromatic pairs"?
>
> One interesting thing to play with might be chormatic pairs similar
> in size (with a small number of chromatic notes) such as pajara[8,10]
> and porcupine[7,8]. And lest I be accused of playing favorites with
> two of my favorite systems, I just can't think of any others with
> relatively even MOS close in size like this (with the smaller being
> between 5 and 10 notes/oct). -Carl

Perhaps negri[9,10] if I understand what you're looking at here.

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Herman Miller <hmiller@...> wrote:

> Here's another one that looks somewhat interesting: it's a 6&9
> temperament with generators around 399.7 and 152.7 cents. The generator
> mapping is [<3 4 7 8 10], <0 2 0 1 1]], and it has MOS at 6, 9, 15, and
> 24 notes. Does this have a name? If not I suggest "triforce".

I called it something, but I changed that to "triforce".

By the way, an alternative xenwiki catalog of temperaments is now here:

http://xenharmonic.wikispaces.com/Optimal+patent+val

You can see I made the change to "triforce" in three places (7, 11, and 13 limit) on this page as well as the augmented page.

Gene wrote:

>By the way, an alternative xenwiki catalog of temperaments is now here:
>
> http://xenharmonic.wikispaces.com/Optimal+patent+val

Awesome, thanks! -Carl

Herman wrote:

>> One interesting thing to play with might be chormatic pairs similar
>> in size (with a small number of chromatic notes) such as pajara[8,10]
>> and porcupine[7,8]. And lest I be accused of playing favorites with
>> two of my favorite systems, I just can't think of any others with
>> relatively even MOS close in size like this (with the smaller being
>> between 5 and 10 notes/oct). -Carl
>
>Perhaps negri[9,10] if I understand what you're looking at here.

Oop yep, that's another one. -Carl

On Sat, Mar 5, 2011 at 2:42 AM, genewardsmith
<genewardsmith@...> wrote:
>
> --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> > I like them, but I won't be satisfied until I find a scale that "does
> > it for me" like the diatonic scale does, and then also has a chromatic
> > scale to modulate around within it. Machine was one of the first
> > scales I found that was successful in that endeavour, at least for me,
> > and it's 11 notes large. Blackwood also fits the bill pretty nicely,
> > and it's a 10 note scale.
>
> I think you are asking for a rank two temperament with a chromatic size and a melodic size MOS, analogous to meantone with its 7 and 12 size MOS. Could you give a range of sizes for these? There seem to be a number of choices, and this could be useful if there are other people who are looking for something like this, which I suspect is so. What would be a good name for such a thing?

I think that there are two components to it and one of them is not size:

1) the average concordance of the chords in the scale
2) the size

I think that #1 is important, and that there's a sweet spot where the
diatonic scale lies. #2 is also important because if you happen to
find a 32 note scale that's mostly concordant across the board, it's
probable that that'll be too large to really hear as diatonic.

Nonetheless I hear machine[11] and blackwood[10] as both "diatonic"
scales, despite that they're closer to being "chromatic" in size,
because there are tons of concordant chords everywhere. I think that
meantone[12] has less concordant chords than machine[11], especially
if the latter is tuned to 17-tet. Maybe my intuitions are wrong in
this last sense.

-Mike

On Sat, Mar 5, 2011 at 4:02 PM, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> Nonetheless I hear machine[11] and blackwood[10] as both "diatonic"
> scales, despite that they're closer to being "chromatic" in size,
> because there are tons of concordant chords everywhere. I think that
> meantone[12] has less concordant chords than machine[11], especially
> if the latter is tuned to 17-tet. Maybe my intuitions are wrong in
> this last sense.

Thinking about this more, I'm not sure that machine[11] is really
diatonic either. It's somewhere between diatonic and chromatic.
Blackwood[10] is a better example - it's closer to 12 than 7, but
still sounds diatonic to my ears.

Really I'm just looking for scales that have lots of concordant triads
everywhere in a "manageable" size. I do like machine and don't think
it's too large, so something that's 11 notes large might come across
to me as "diatonic" as long as it has certain properties.

It would be nice to find scales where there are lots of rooted
("major") and pseudo-rooted ("minor") chords that share
triad/tetrad/whatever classes with one another. The diatonic scale has
this property, but something like diminished[8] doesn't. Other folks
on here have said they don't care about the rootedness, but I can't
get into scales like myna for that reason - 3:5:7 by itself just
sounds like a type of minor chord to me, unless I kind of weakly focus
on the proper 1, and at that point I'd rather just be able to play the
one in the bass.

So far I've found three scales that fit the bill, and those are
machine[11], blackwood[10], and meantone[7]. Are there any others?

-Mike

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> It would be nice to find scales where there are lots of rooted
> ("major") and pseudo-rooted ("minor") chords that share
> triad/tetrad/whatever classes with one another. The diatonic scale has
> this property, but something like diminished[8] doesn't. Other folks
> on here have said they don't care about the rootedness, but I can't
> get into scales like myna for that reason - 3:5:7 by itself just
> sounds like a type of minor chord to me, unless I kind of weakly focus
> on the proper 1, and at that point I'd rather just be able to play the
> one in the bass.
>
> So far I've found three scales that fit the bill, and those are
> machine[11], blackwood[10], and meantone[7]. Are there any others?

Pajara[10]?

Kalle

On 3/5/2011 12:58 PM, genewardsmith wrote:
>
> --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Herman Miller<hmiller@...> wrote:
>
>> Here's another one that looks somewhat interesting: it's a 6&9
>> temperament with generators around 399.7 and 152.7 cents. The generator
>> mapping is [<3 4 7 8 10],<0 2 0 1 1]], and it has MOS at 6, 9, 15, and
>> 24 notes. Does this have a name? If not I suggest "triforce".
>
> I called it something, but I changed that to "triforce".
>
> By the way, an alternative xenwiki catalog of temperaments is now here:
>
> http://xenharmonic.wikispaces.com/Optimal+patent+val
>
> You can see I made the change to "triforce" in three places (7, 11, and 13 limit) on this page as well as the augmented page.

Nice reference. I was looking at some of the unfamiliar names and noticed "bischismic". This looks like the same temperament that I've seen as "hemischismic" on an 11-limit list. Is "bischismic" the correct name for the 11-limit temperament?

On Sat, Mar 5, 2011 at 4:21 PM, Kalle Aho <kalleaho@...> wrote:
>
> > So far I've found three scales that fit the bill, and those are
> > machine[11], blackwood[10], and meantone[7]. Are there any others?
>
> Pajara[10]?

Pajara[10] sounds further from meantone diatonic than blackwood[10] or
machine[11] to my ears. There are a lot of dissonant intervals in
pajara[10], and you have to try hard to find the consonant chords that
have are multiplexed within the structure. Blackwood[10], on the other
hand, makes it hard to NOT play a consonant chord.

-Mike

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Herman Miller <hmiller@...> wrote:

>Is "bischismic" the correct
> name for the 11-limit temperament?

I prefer "bi" for halving the period and "hemi" for halving the generator.

Gene wrote:

>By the way, an alternative xenwiki catalog of temperaments is now here:
>
> http://xenharmonic.wikispaces.com/Optimal+patent+val

Why the obsession with patent vals? -Carl

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

> So far I've found three scales that fit the bill, and those are
> machine[11], blackwood[10], and meantone[7]. Are there any others?

Have you even looked at my new page?

http://xenharmonic.wikispaces.com/Chromatic+pairs

No, but this looks awesome. I'll play around with it when I get back. WTF is
"Albitonic?" Is that like diatonic? What's a good term to generalize the
meantone "pentatonic" scale - small size, everything is consonant, good for
melodies and/or soloing (sometimes... sometimes.)

-Mike

On Sat, Mar 5, 2011 at 5:55 PM, genewardsmith
<genewardsmith@...>wrote:

>
>
>
> --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...>
> wrote:
>
> > So far I've found three scales that fit the bill, and those are
> > machine[11], blackwood[10], and meantone[7]. Are there any others?
>
> Have you even looked at my new page?
>
> http://xenharmonic.wikispaces.com/Chromatic+pairs
>
>
>

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

On Sat, Mar 5, 2011 at 6:00 PM, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> No, but this looks awesome. I'll play around with it when I get back. WTF is "Albitonic?" Is that like diatonic? What's a good term to generalize the meantone "pentatonic" scale - small size, everything is consonant, good for melodies and/or soloing (sometimes... sometimes.)

OK, a few things:

- All of these are awesome!
- Whatever secret magic and voodoo that you're using to produce these
scales, can you do it for subgroups that form rooted target chords?
Like 4:7:9:11 or 8:9:11:12 or something.
- One of the scales is the 17-tet superpyth-ish scale that hits 14/11
as a major third instead of 9/7. I think we've all thought of this
temperament before and I wouldn't be surprised if it's in not the
literature with a name already.
- If it's not, though, must we call it "Pepperoni"...? :| I'm going to
feel weird when I tell people that 17-equal supports machine, dicot,
and then the major scale is "pepperoni."

:|

- The Greeley thing is 7-notes, but if the target chord for that
subgroup is 6:7:10:11, which it seems to be - this only appears twice
in the scale. Most other chords seem to be dissonant. So while this
scale is "diatonic"-sized, it isn't diatonic in the same sense that I
was getting at - hence my message about the average concordance per
chord. Maybe "average complexity per chord" is a better way to put it.

-Mike

On Sat, Mar 5, 2011 at 6:15 PM, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
> Maybe "average complexity per chord" is a better way to put it.

Actually, Gene, is there any way you could run that metric? Get the
complexity of every chord in these scales and find some kind of
average? I'd be interested in seeing how meantone[7] plays up against
some of these other ones. If this is a task of impossible magnitude,
never mind.

-Mike

Mike wrote:

>I still wish people would check out that 11 out of 17-tet "machine"
>MOS I posted a while back. 3\17 was the generator. It has 4:7:9:11
>tetrads on almost every root there is,

7 of 11 roots, that is.

>I think that meantone[12] has less concordant chords than
>machine[11], especially if the latter is tuned to 17-tet.

Gah!

-Carl

On Sat, Mar 5, 2011 at 6:38 PM, Carl Lumma <carl@...> wrote:
>
> Mike wrote:
>
> >I still wish people would check out that 11 out of 17-tet "machine"
> >MOS I posted a while back. 3\17 was the generator. It has 4:7:9:11
> >tetrads on almost every root there is,
>
> 7 of 11 roots, that is.

> >I think that meantone[12] has less concordant chords than
> >machine[11], especially if the latter is tuned to 17-tet.

I meant a lesser amount of concordant chords on average. Obviously
meantone[31] has more concordant chords than both of them, but the
average chord in meantone[31] is dissonant. You have to pick and
choose carefully what notes you're using to get a consonant chord. On
the other hand, you can give a baby a Fisher price toy with the
pentatonic scale on it and it will be nearly impossible for them to
play anything really discordant.

-Mike

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> On Sat, Mar 5, 2011 at 4:21 PM, Kalle Aho <kalleaho@...> wrote:
> >
> > > So far I've found three scales that fit the bill, and those are
> > > machine[11], blackwood[10], and meantone[7]. Are there any others?
> >
> > Pajara[10]?
>
> Pajara[10] sounds further from meantone diatonic than blackwood[10] or
> machine[11] to my ears. There are a lot of dissonant intervals in
> pajara[10], and you have to try hard to find the consonant chords that
> have are multiplexed within the structure. Blackwood[10], on the other
> hand, makes it hard to NOT play a consonant chord.

Okay, I thought that you wanted just this:

"It would be nice to find scales where there are lots of rooted
("major") and pseudo-rooted ("minor") chords that share
triad/tetrad/whatever classes with one another."

Kalle

Mike

Can you do me a favor and post the 17 equal machine scale again?

Thanks

Chris
-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...>
Sender: MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com
Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2011 18:42:04
To: <MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com>
Reply-To: MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [MMM] Re: Michael and his "wreckless mixing of theories" :-)

On Sat, Mar 5, 2011 at 6:38 PM, Carl Lumma <carl@...> wrote:
>
> Mike wrote:
>
> >I still wish people would check out that 11 out of 17-tet "machine"
> >MOS I posted a while back. 3\17 was the generator. It has 4:7:9:11
> >tetrads on almost every root there is,
>
> 7 of 11 roots, that is.

> >I think that meantone[12] has less concordant chords than
> >machine[11], especially if the latter is tuned to 17-tet.

I meant a lesser amount of concordant chords on average. Obviously
meantone[31] has more concordant chords than both of them, but the
average chord in meantone[31] is dissonant. You have to pick and
choose carefully what notes you're using to get a consonant chord. On
the other hand, you can give a baby a Fisher price toy with the
pentatonic scale on it and it will be nearly impossible for them to
play anything really discordant.

-Mike

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

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> On Sat, Mar 5, 2011 at 6:38 PM, Carl Lumma <carl@...> wrote:
> >
> > Mike wrote:
> >
> > >I still wish people would check out that 11 out of 17-tet "machine"
> > >MOS I posted a while back. 3\17 was the generator. It has 4:7:9:11
> > >tetrads on almost every root there is,
> >
> > 7 of 11 roots, that is.
>
> > >I think that meantone[12] has less concordant chords than
> > >machine[11], especially if the latter is tuned to 17-tet.
>
> I meant a lesser amount of concordant chords on average. Obviously
> meantone[31] has more concordant chords than both of them, but the
> average chord in meantone[31] is dissonant. You have to pick and
> choose carefully what notes you're using to get a consonant chord. On
> the other hand, you can give a baby a Fisher price toy with the
> pentatonic scale on it and it will be nearly impossible for them to
> play anything really discordant.

Isn't this what Michael wants of his scales?

Kalle

On Sat, Mar 5, 2011 at 6:42 PM, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 5, 2011 at 6:38 PM, Carl Lumma <carl@...> wrote:
>>
>> Mike wrote:
>>
>> >I still wish people would check out that 11 out of 17-tet "machine"
>> >MOS I posted a while back. 3\17 was the generator. It has 4:7:9:11
>> >tetrads on almost every root there is,
>>
>> 7 of 11 roots, that is.

And a 4:7:9 triad on 9 of 11 roots. And a 4:7:9:11 tetrad on 7 of 11
roots. And 4:7:9:11:13 pentads on 4 of 11 roots. And if you decide to
map 3 in there you get even more stuff. And then if you play 4:7:9:11
and transpose it up and down the scale diatonically, the chords that
aren't 4:7:9:11 are still very consonant sounding - there's one
"minor"-ish sounding one on the 10th step of the scale (assuming all
generators are going up), on steps 3 and 5 you have a diatonic
"sus13"-ish sounding chord that will probably function very
differently in this scale, and on step 1 you have an ASS in inversion.

Well, I like that :)

-Mike

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Carl Lumma <carl@...> wrote:
>
> Gene wrote:
>
> >By the way, an alternative xenwiki catalog of temperaments is now here:
> >
> > http://xenharmonic.wikispaces.com/Optimal+patent+val
>
> Why the obsession with patent vals? -Carl

In terms of using them for IDs, I all I need do is say "13 limit, 9&15" and I'm done. This seems to be the most compact of the proposed alternatives. In terms of other uses, such as relating a temperament to a closely related one or using something for a tuning, it's often a convenient stopping point, but when I don't think it is, I don't use it.

What's the objection to patent vals?

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> No, but this looks awesome. I'll play around with it when I get back. WTF is
> "Albitonic?" Is that like diatonic?

Right. From the Latin for "white", it's the white-keys MOS of the pair.

Mike wrote:

>I think that meantone[12] has less concordant chords than
>machine[11], especially if the latter is tuned to 17-tet.
[snip]
>I meant a lesser amount of concordant chords on average. Obviously
>meantone[31] has more concordant chords than both of them, but the
>average chord in meantone[31] is dissonant. You have to pick and
>choose carefully what notes you're using to get a consonant chord. On
>the other hand, you can give a baby a Fisher price toy with the
>pentatonic scale on it and it will be nearly impossible for them to
>play anything really discordant.

Meantone[31], obviously. You said machine[11] vs meantone[12].
You've been talking about "average concordance" a bit now...
can you be a little bit quantitative about it? -Carl

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
I think we've all thought of this
> temperament before and I wouldn't be surprised if it's in not the
> literature with a name already.
> - If it's not, though, must we call it "Pepperoni"...? :| I'm going to
> feel weird when I tell people that 17-equal supports machine, dicot,
> and then the major scale is "pepperoni."

I called it that because of its close relationship to Margo Schulter's Pepper temperament.

> - The Greeley thing is 7-notes, but if the target chord for that
> subgroup is 6:7:10:11, which it seems to be - this only appears twice
> in the scale.

But 6:10:11 appears far more often.

Gene wrote:

>> > http://xenharmonic.wikispaces.com/Optimal+patent+val
>>
>> Why the obsession with patent vals? -Carl
>
>In terms of using them for IDs, I all I need do is say "13 limit,
>9&15" and I'm done. This seems to be the most compact of the proposed
>alternatives.

Alternatives to what? You don't say what you're trying to
be done with.

>What's the objection to patent vals?

Don't you miss some interesting vals?

-Carl

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Carl Lumma <carl@...> wrote:
>
> Gene wrote:
>
> >> > http://xenharmonic.wikispaces.com/Optimal+patent+val
> >>
> >> Why the obsession with patent vals? -Carl
> >
> >In terms of using them for IDs, I all I need do is say "13 limit,
> >9&15" and I'm done. This seems to be the most compact of the proposed
> >alternatives.
>
> Alternatives to what? You don't say what you're trying to
> be done with.

Alternative ways of specifying a regular temperament.

> >What's the objection to patent vals?
>
> Don't you miss some interesting vals?

Occasionally.

On Sat, Mar 5, 2011 at 6:47 PM, Kalle Aho <kalleaho@...> wrote:
>
> > Pajara[10] sounds further from meantone diatonic than blackwood[10] or
> > machine[11] to my ears. There are a lot of dissonant intervals in
> > pajara[10], and you have to try hard to find the consonant chords that
> > have are multiplexed within the structure. Blackwood[10], on the other
> > hand, makes it hard to NOT play a consonant chord.
>
> Okay, I thought that you wanted just this:
>
> "It would be nice to find scales where there are lots of rooted
> ("major") and pseudo-rooted ("minor") chords that share
> triad/tetrad/whatever classes with one another."

That's what I, personally, want. There are lots of people here who
don't mind using something like 3:5:7 as a base triad. This is just my
preference.

But insofar as we're classifying scales as diatonic, chromatic, etc,
I'm observing that there are two things that matter, at least to my
perception: the size of the scale, and something like the standard
deviation of consonance for the chords in the scale.

The meantone pentatonic scale is set up such that babies can smash on
pentatonic keyboards and anything will be consonant. On the other
hand, something like meantone[31] has chords in it that are more
consonant than anything in meantone[5], like 4:5:6:7:9:11. However,
playing in meantone[31] is more like wading through a thorny bush
looking for berries, whereas playing in meantone[5] is more like you
have a bucket of berries in front of you, but they don't taste as
good. Meantone[7] and meantone[12] strike different shades of gray
between the two extremes that I just laid out, and there are instances
beyond those extremes as well.

One of those shades of gray I think will work well as a generalization
of "diatonic" scales, and the other will work well as a generalization
of "chromatic" scales.

All of this is just speculation on my part, and until I have some way
to find the least complex JI rendering of a tempered chord, it'll stay
that way.

-Mike

On Sat, Mar 5, 2011 at 6:47 PM, <chrisvaisvil@...> wrote:
>
> Mike
>
> Can you do me a favor and post the 17 equal machine scale again?
>
> Thanks

Here you go:

! C:\Program Files\Scala22\scl\machine-11-17.scl
!
Machine Temperament, 11 out of 17-equal
11
!
70.58824
211.76471
282.35294
423.52941
494.11765
635.29412
705.88235
847.05882
917.64706
1058.82353
2/1

-Mike

On Sat, Mar 5, 2011 at 6:49 PM, Kalle Aho <kalleaho@...> wrote:
> >
> > I meant a lesser amount of concordant chords on average. Obviously
> > meantone[31] has more concordant chords than both of them, but the
> > average chord in meantone[31] is dissonant. You have to pick and
> > choose carefully what notes you're using to get a consonant chord. On
> > the other hand, you can give a baby a Fisher price toy with the
> > pentatonic scale on it and it will be nearly impossible for them to
> > play anything really discordant.
>
> Isn't this what Michael wants of his scales?

Michael wants a similar thing involving dyads and critical band
roughness. I want the equivalent involving triads and tetrads and
Tenney Height. Since we don't have HE for anything greater than
triads, that'll have to do for now.

-Mike

On Sat, Mar 5, 2011 at 6:56 PM, Carl Lumma <carl@...> wrote:
>
> Meantone[31], obviously. You said machine[11] vs meantone[12].

The machine[11] vs meantone[12] thing is just my initial guess from
looking at the two systems. Until I have a program that can actually
compute the TH for every chord in a scale and then find out the mean
and stdev of the resulting distribution, I won't know.

In general, until I have a program that can actually test this for a
wide range of scales, everything I'm saying is speculation and you
should treat it as such. I have no idea how to program that.

> You've been talking about "average concordance" a bit now...
> can you be a little bit quantitative about it? -Carl

I posted it on tuning-math a little while ago, I'll repost over there shortly.

-Mike

Mike wrote:
>> Meantone[31], obviously. You said machine[11] vs meantone[12].
>
>The machine[11] vs meantone[12] thing is just my initial guess from
>looking at the two systems. Until I have a program that can actually
>compute the TH for every chord in a scale and then find out the mean
>and stdev of the resulting distribution, I won't know.

To me it's evident from playing machine[11] and meantone[12]
that the latter does not have "less concordant chords" as you said.
Now you're saying standard deviation. I say, no time like the
present to get more precise about things.

>I have no idea how to program that.

Program what?

>> You've been talking about "average concordance" a bit now...
>> can you be a little bit quantitative about it? -Carl
>
>I posted it on tuning-math a little while ago, I'll repost over
>there shortly.

Or link to it. -Carl

On Sat, Mar 5, 2011 at 7:49 PM, Carl Lumma <carl@...> wrote:
>
> Mike wrote:
> >> Meantone[31], obviously. You said machine[11] vs meantone[12].
> >
> >The machine[11] vs meantone[12] thing is just my initial guess from
> >looking at the two systems. Until I have a program that can actually
> >compute the TH for every chord in a scale and then find out the mean
> >and stdev of the resulting distribution, I won't know.
>
> To me it's evident from playing machine[11] and meantone[12]
> that the latter does not have "less concordant chords" as you said.

I meant a lesser number of concordant chords, not that the chords
themselves are less concordant.

> Now you're saying standard deviation. I say, no time like the
> present to get more precise about things.

I talked about this all before. It's a rough concept and I'm
interested in testing it, and I'm not sure exactly what's going to
work the best. Mean and std. dev are two different metrics I'd like to
test out.

I have no idea how to run these tests, though, because I have no idea
how to open MATLAB and figure out what the least complex meantone
mapping for C C# D is. How do I come up with the complexity for that
chord and make some kind of histogram when I don't even know what the
mapping for the chord is?

Precisely, what I want to do is this:
1) Come up with a one-sided PMF for a scale that represents the
concordance (measured right now in complexity) of a random chord in
that scale.
2) I predict that the meantone pentatonic scale will have a higher
mean concordance than the meantone diatonic scale, and the meantone
diatonic scale will have a higher mean concordance than the meantone
chromatic scale, for obvious reasons.
3) I predict that the maximum value of concordance in the PMF will be
higher in meantone[12] then meantone[7] and likewise with meantone[5].
4) Thus predictable changes in both the mean and standard deviation
will occur with this PMF if more notes are added, and experiment will
show which of the two, if any, turn out to be more relevant. There are
advantages to both.
5) I predict that if you compare blackwood[10] to meantone[7], it'll
match up more closely than if you compare blackwood[10] to
meantone[12]. I think the same will apply to machine[11].

I think that scales that strike a nice balance between everything
being concordant with no contrast at all (meantone[5]) and most things
being discordant but there being a few ultra-concordant gems
(meantone[12] and higher) - scales in between those two extremes will
be in the "diatonic" sweet spot. Scales like these will have plenty of
concordances, but enough discordances to allow you to have things like
leading tones, or the tritone hypothesis if that's your thing, or in
some way establish temporary tonal centers at other places in the
scale. You can do this with chromatic scales, if you want, but with
scales like these the whole thing will still be of manageable enough
size such that it will be comprehensible in a Rothenberg-like fashion
(or at least useful as a simple tool to aid in composition).

I think that this is more relevant to generalizing diatonicity than
the number of notes in the scale.

> >I have no idea how to program that.

How to program this:

> > Until I have a program that can actually
> >compute the TH for every chord in a scale and then find out the mean
> >and stdev of the resulting distribution, I won't know.

> >I posted it on tuning-math a little while ago, I'll repost over
> >there shortly.
>
> Or link to it. -Carl

Never mind, I wrote it above.

-Mike

Mike wrote:
>I talked about this all before. It's a rough concept and I'm
>interested in testing it, and I'm not sure exactly what's going to
>work the best. Mean and std. dev are two different metrics I'd like to
>test out.

Those are easy enough to compute. Not sure what you're computing
the mean of though. Also we should move this to tuning.

>I have no idea how to run these tests, though, because I have no idea
>how to open MATLAB and figure out what the least complex meantone
>mapping for C C# D is.

I don't know what you mean with this notation.

>How do I come up with the complexity for that
>chord and make some kind of histogram when I don't even know what the
>mapping for the chord is?

Don't you just take all the chords in the scale and score their
concordance?

>Precisely, what I want to do is this:
>1) Come up with a one-sided PMF for a scale that represents the
>concordance (measured right now in complexity) of a random chord in
>that scale.

PMF?

>2) I predict that the meantone pentatonic scale will have a higher
>mean concordance than the meantone diatonic scale, and the meantone
>diatonic scale will have a higher mean concordance than the meantone
>chromatic scale, for obvious reasons.
>3) I predict that the maximum value of concordance in the PMF will be
>higher in meantone[12] then meantone[7] and likewise with meantone[5].
>4) Thus predictable changes in both the mean and standard deviation
>will occur with this PMF if more notes are added, and experiment will
>show which of the two, if any, turn out to be more relevant. There are
>advantages to both.

If you want to use this on larger scales you'll have to normalize
it to step size. But since you only want small scales to come
out good, you might not normalize it.

>>> Until I have a program that can actually
>>>compute the TH for every chord in a scale and then find out the mean
>>>and stdev of the resulting distribution, I won't know.

Yeah I read that. Have no idea what it means.

-Carl

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Carl Lumma <carl@...> wrote:
> Also we should move this to tuning.

Capital idea.

Thanks.

I'm going to try using it as a scale on my 17 guitar - I'll be back to you.

Chris

On Sat, Mar 5, 2011 at 7:13 PM, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...>wrote:

>
>
> On Sat, Mar 5, 2011 at 6:47 PM, <chrisvaisvil@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Mike
> >
> > Can you do me a favor and post the 17 equal machine scale again?
> >
> > Thanks
>
> Here you go:
>
> ! C:\Program Files\Scala22\scl\machine-11-17.scl
> !
> Machine Temperament, 11 out of 17-equal
> 11
> !
> 70.58824
> 211.76471
> 282.35294
> 423.52941
> 494.11765
> 635.29412
> 705.88235
> 847.05882
> 917.64706
> 1058.82353
> 2/1
>
> -Mike
>
>

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

On 3/5/2011 5:53 PM, genewardsmith wrote:
>
> --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Herman Miller<hmiller@...> wrote:
>
>> Is "bischismic" the correct
>> name for the 11-limit temperament?
>
> I prefer "bi" for halving the period and "hemi" for halving the generator.

So hemischismic (or hemischismatic) would be something like [<1 1 7 -1 2|, <0 2 -16 13 5|], then?

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Herman Miller <hmiller@...> wrote:

> So hemischismic (or hemischismatic) would be something like [<1 1 7 -1
> 2|, <0 2 -16 13 5|], then?

That would be a good name if it hasn't been named already.

On 3/5/2011 7:12 PM, Mike Battaglia wrote:

> The meantone pentatonic scale is set up such that babies can smash on
> pentatonic keyboards and anything will be consonant. On the other
> hand, something like meantone[31] has chords in it that are more
> consonant than anything in meantone[5], like 4:5:6:7:9:11. However,
> playing in meantone[31] is more like wading through a thorny bush
> looking for berries, whereas playing in meantone[5] is more like you
> have a bucket of berries in front of you, but they don't taste as
> good. Meantone[7] and meantone[12] strike different shades of gray
> between the two extremes that I just laid out, and there are instances
> beyond those extremes as well.

Have you tried semaphore / godzilla? Generator around 252 cents, generator mapping [<1 2 4 3|, <0 -2 -8 -1|]; it has a pentatonic that you can smash keys on a pentatonic keyboard, and MOS scales at 9, 14, and 19 notes.

On Sat, Mar 5, 2011 at 11:57 PM, Herman Miller <hmiller@...> wrote:
>
> On 3/5/2011 7:12 PM, Mike Battaglia wrote:
>
> > The meantone pentatonic scale is set up such that babies can smash on
> > pentatonic keyboards and anything will be consonant. On the other
> > hand, something like meantone[31] has chords in it that are more
> > consonant than anything in meantone[5], like 4:5:6:7:9:11. However,
> > playing in meantone[31] is more like wading through a thorny bush
> > looking for berries, whereas playing in meantone[5] is more like you
> > have a bucket of berries in front of you, but they don't taste as
> > good. Meantone[7] and meantone[12] strike different shades of gray
> > between the two extremes that I just laid out, and there are instances
> > beyond those extremes as well.
>
> Have you tried semaphore / godzilla? Generator around 252 cents,
> generator mapping [<1 2 4 3|, <0 -2 -8 -1|]; it has a pentatonic that
> you can smash keys on a pentatonic keyboard, and MOS scales at 9, 14,
> and 19 notes.

Yes! That's also the generator for one of the "island" archipelago
scales we've been talking about. There are strong 10:13:15 triads
everywhere, and 10:13:15 is notable in that it's not much more complex
than 10:12:15.

The 9-note MOS is good for this but also vaguely disconcerting in a
way - I need to get used to it. But this is exactly the kind of thing
I'm talking about. I really want to find similar scales for rooted
base chords, though, like 4:6:7:11 or 4:7:9:11 or, ideally,
4:6:7:9:11.

-Mike

Carl>"Here's something more specific: the average message on MMM seems to be about 5K. Your average message length seems to be about 9K, and you don't post infrequently either. It's a bit like having a conversation with someone and talking twice as much as them. (For the record, my avg message size is about 5K.) -Carl"
 
   So on this list, it seems, your are saying being "socially appropriate" matters more than giving a complete answer. 
  I very often see people given one sentence answers stating subjective opinions without evidence/examples or even using that sentence simply to name call...that general trend disturbs me much more than feeling sorry for what I am doing.

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MikeB>"Barbados is another good one. Machine is insane in that it has
4:7:9:11 all over the place, although the accuracy isn't suitable for
those who are into microtemperament. Any others?"

  What are the Scala files for those scales?  I'm interested...
------------------------------------------------------------------

"A scale that "does it for me" like the diatonic scale does and then also has a chromatic

scale to modulate around within it." -Mike B

    Try this one (Dimension ECF or "Easy Composition Fifths")...which is loaded with neutral chords along with standard ones...a special version of the Dimension scale optimized to have more pure fifths (10 of 12 of the fifths are pure...and there are actually 5 or so more "alternatives to fifths" available if you accept 22/15 or 11/7 or 14/9 as fifths).

! E:\DimensionECF.scl
!
Dimension ECF
 12
!
 119.55822
 28/25
 6/5
 613/500
 505.77499
 621.75868
 3/2
 201/125
 837/500
 1011.52634
 1831/1000
 2/1

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> So on this list, it seems, your are saying being "socially
>appropriate" matters more than giving a complete answer.

Michael, I was trying to reach out to you as a human being.
You must realize you're caught in a horrible script that you
keep repeating. I can't imagine it's very pleasant for you.
You do have the power to improve. Wishing you luck!

-Carl

On Sun, Mar 6, 2011 at 1:22 PM, Michael <djtrancendance@...> wrote:
>
> MikeB>"Barbados is another good one. Machine is insane in that it has
> 4:7:9:11 all over the place, although the accuracy isn't suitable for
> those who are into microtemperament. Any others?"
>
>   What are the Scala files for those scales?  I'm interested...

You can think of Barbados as using 24-tet's 250 cent interval as a
generator, and the 9-note MOS is pretty good. Machine can be thought
of as using 17-tet's whole tone as a generator, and the 11-note MOS is
great if you like 4:7:9:11.

> "A scale that "does it for me" like the diatonic scale does and then also has a chromatic
>
> scale to modulate around within it." -Mike B
>
>     Try this one (Dimension ECF or "Easy Composition Fifths")...which is loaded with neutral chords along with standard ones...a special version of the Dimension scale optimized to have more pure fifths (10 of 12 of the fifths are pure...and there are actually 5 or so more "alternatives to fifths" available if you accept 22/15 or 11/7 or 14/9 as fifths).

A few things -

1) That's just a chromatic scale, I need a simpler diatonic scale to
think about inside of it.
2) I'm trying to stick with MOS for the moment.

-Mike

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

> You can think of Barbados as using 24-tet's 250 cent interval as a
> generator, and the 9-note MOS is pretty good.

I don't know why you keep talking up 24 when 29 does it so much better.

Machine can be thought
> of as using 17-tet's whole tone as a generator, and the 11-note MOS is
> great if you like 4:7:9:11.

What do you think of machine in 28et?

On Sun, Mar 6, 2011 at 6:55 PM, genewardsmith
<genewardsmith@...> wrote:
>
> --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> > You can think of Barbados as using 24-tet's 250 cent interval as a
> > generator, and the 9-note MOS is pretty good.
>
> I don't know why you keep talking up 24 when 29 does it so much better.

Sorry, you're right. I'm just used to playing it in 24-tet, I guess.

> Machine can be thought
> > of as using 17-tet's whole tone as a generator, and the 11-note MOS is
> > great if you like 4:7:9:11.
>
> What do you think of machine in 28et?

I prefer 17 just because it also has killer approximations to 3/2 as
well. In fact, 3/2 appears in the scale in two separate ways, and the
fifths are the perfectly slightly wide 17-tet fifths. I'm sold.

-Mike

Kalle> "On the other hand, you can give a baby a Fisher price toy with the pentatonic scale on it and it will be nearly impossible for them to play anything really discordant.Isn't this what Michael wants of his scales? "

    Not quite...though I realize how one can get confused.

    Firstly, I'm going for a large amount and variety of chords (and tonal color from such chords) possible per note in scale...call it "low badness" or what ever you want to.

  But secondly, yes, I'm going for an environment where hitting seriously sour sounding chords (the type that make you wonder if the musician bothered to learn any music theory or "even knows what he's doing") is quite tricky to do.

  Though comparing it to the pentatonic scale is a bit extreme.  Let me put it this way...
1) If you take a diminished chord in 12TET...no chord possible in my scale should be much worse than that.
2) Possible chords seven tone scale under my tuning should not sound any more dissonant than chords from a typical very pure sounding  6-tone scale under most tunings (12TET included).

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