My 2012-2013 60x60 UnTwelve contribution

As I see, the selections for the 60x60 Untwelve challenge have been made. Unfortunately, my contribution was not selected - *sniff* - but OTOH this gives me the possibility to publish it now. So here it is.

It is a piece in 17edo for two retuned pianos, harmonica, and percussion, and it is my first finished piece that uses oriental maqam scales, in the approximations that 17edo offers. There are, namely, Bayati and Rast phrases, combined with counterpoint lines, using my proprietary set of counterpoint rules for 17edo. So it is not only my first dabble in maqams but also in maqam polyphony. The result is, well, probably not very "oriental" any more - point is that the used counterpoint system tends to change (or even destroy) the original character of the melodies quite substantially. But, well, I hope it is more or less good music...

To listen or to download here:

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=697553&songID=12374800

http://www.jamendo.com/de/list/a122834/60x60-untwelve-challenge-2012-2013

http://mx3.ch/artist/hstraub
--
Hans Straub

You can get somewhat good arabic sounding polyphonic music in 17tet if
you follow the chain of fifths.
For maqam Rast for instance take C-D-Fb-F-G-A-Cb-C as a scale for the
main melody and harmonize it accordingly.
Dooon't play things like C-Fb-G and use it as if it's a major chord,
it's not!
It will mess things up and you end up destroying things like in you
example below. Follow the enharmonics correctly.
Though in 17tet the major third gets a somewhat dissonant character with
many timbres, you'll have to accept this if you wish to use major thirds.
You will find though that using augmented primes etc in melodies
requires a bit of a study since we're so used to using minor seconds in
western music.
For an example play the simple scale C-C#-E-G-G#-C and you will find the
stable chords at C-E-G and C#-E-G#, extended chords are for instance
C#-E-G-C or inversions of it, C-E-G#, etc.
If you harmonize it as such it will retain the feel, in fact highten the
"arabic" feel and not destroy it as in your example below. You can
change the E to an F in the scale and if you continue to harmonize it
correctly according to the enharmonics it will retain the feel.
If you harmonize it wrongly, for instance see it as C-Db-F-G-Ab-C and
play C-F-Ab or Db-F-Ab or Db-F-C etc then the whole arabic feel is
destroyed as you will have indicated a Db and Ab instead of a C# and G#.
You CAN use intervals like C-Fb but then you must use the Fb as a
nonchord tone (in other words, it must not indicate a stable major third
but instead be something like for instance a passing tone)

Classical counterpoint is of much less concern than harmony, and in fact
parallel fifths will work very well for arabic sounding music. It'll
also work for western music, it's just often not the "nicest" way to
make polyphonic music which has a strong individuality of voices but
it'll work just fine this shouldn't be your main concern at all when
trying to making polyphonic maqam music it seems to me.

Btw why 17tet?
In my experience Pythagorean will work best when using remote
enharmonics (which is what maqam music is about in my opinion) because
in any other temperament the error of the fifth becomes larger as the
chain of fifths becomes longer.
Maqam rast would be either C-D-Fb-F-G-A-Cb-C or C-D-Gbbb-F-G-A-Dbbb-C in
Pythagorean (it differs in practice it seems)

Kind regards,
Marcel de Velde

> As I see, the selections for the 60x60 Untwelve challenge have been
> made. Unfortunately, my contribution was not selected - *sniff* - but
> OTOH this gives me the possibility to publish it now. So here it is.
>
> It is a piece in 17edo for two retuned pianos, harmonica, and
> percussion, and it is my first finished piece that uses oriental maqam
> scales, in the approximations that 17edo offers. There are, namely,
> Bayati and Rast phrases, combined with counterpoint lines, using my
> proprietary set of counterpoint rules for 17edo. So it is not only my
> first dabble in maqams but also in maqam polyphony. The result is,
> well, probably not very "oriental" any more - point is that the used
> counterpoint system tends to change (or even destroy) the original
> character of the melodies quite substantially. But, well, I hope it is
> more or less good music...
>
> To listen or to download here:
>
> http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=697553&songID=12374800
>
> http://www.jamendo.com/de/list/a122834/60x60-untwelve-challenge-2012-2013
>
> http://mx3.ch/artist/hstraub
> --
> Hans Straub
>
>

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

Thanks for your feedback. I will give your examples a try.

Quite obviously, one better does not use neutral thirds in harmony... The 17edo major third appears acceptable to me, I indeed use it. I also use major seconds, and fifths parallels, too. One point is that the possibilities tend to be limited if the harmonization of, e.g., a
Rast melody has to use only notes of the same Rast scala. This is a condition a dropped - maybe that had it share in the change of the character.

I use 17edo because I like free transposability with, at the same time, not too many notes. I want to be able to play live, which, on my traditional keyboard, is only pracitcal for not more than 24 notes per octave. (24 is, in fact, already a little too much for me...) Pure pythagorean might become an issue once I get a generalized keyboard.

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Marcel de Velde <marcel@...> wrote:
>
> You can get somewhat good arabic sounding polyphonic music in 17tet
> if you follow the chain of fifths.
> For maqam Rast for instance take C-D-Fb-F-G-A-Cb-C as a scale for
> the main melody and harmonize it accordingly.
> Dooon't play things like C-Fb-G and use it as if it's a major
> chord, it's not!
> It will mess things up and you end up destroying things like in you
> example below. Follow the enharmonics correctly.
> Though in 17tet the major third gets a somewhat dissonant character
> with many timbres, you'll have to accept this if you wish to use
> major thirds.
> You will find though that using augmented primes etc in melodies
> requires a bit of a study since we're so used to using minor
> seconds in western music.
> For an example play the simple scale C-C#-E-G-G#-C and you will
> find the stable chords at C-E-G and C#-E-G#, extended chords are
> for instance C#-E-G-C or inversions of it, C-E-G#, etc.
> If you harmonize it as such it will retain the feel, in fact
> highten the "arabic" feel and not destroy it as in your example
> below. You can change the E to an F in the scale and if you
> continue to harmonize it correctly according to the enharmonics it
> will retain the feel.
> If you harmonize it wrongly, for instance see it as C-Db-F-G-Ab-C
> and play C-F-Ab or Db-F-Ab or Db-F-C etc then the whole arabic feel
> is destroyed as you will have indicated a Db and Ab instead of a C#
> and G#.
> You CAN use intervals like C-Fb but then you must use the Fb as a
> nonchord tone (in other words, it must not indicate a stable major
> third but instead be something like for instance a passing tone)
>
> Classical counterpoint is of much less concern than harmony, and in
> fact parallel fifths will work very well for arabic sounding music.
> It'll also work for western music, it's just often not the "nicest"
> way to make polyphonic music which has a strong individuality of
> voices but it'll work just fine this shouldn't be your main concern
> at all when trying to making polyphonic maqam music it seems to me.
>
> Btw why 17tet?
> In my experience Pythagorean will work best when using remote
> enharmonics (which is what maqam music is about in my opinion)
> because in any other temperament the error of the fifth becomes
> larger as the chain of fifths becomes longer.
> Maqam rast would be either C-D-Fb-F-G-A-Cb-C or C-D-Gbbb-F-G-A-
> Dbbb-C in Pythagorean (it differs in practice it seems)
>
> Kind regards,
> Marcel de Velde
>

I'm very glad you have the sense to see that neutral thirds should not
be used that way. Most people around these lists seem to lack this.
Yes to harmonize Rast with only the notes from the scale is indeed
limited, and only one place for a major triad and one for minor triad.
It can be done though and can resemble Georgian polyphonic music then.
But one does not have to limit oneselve to only notes of the scale, feel
free to put any stable chord (in other words, the ones you can play in
12tet) on any of the scale steps.
Also one can play for instance C-E-G chord and have a melody above that
be in C Rast and hit a Gbbb (which is very roughly a quarter note below
E) as long as its used as a nonchord tone as I explained before (so it
has to eventually resolve to a note that harmonizes with the C-E-G
chord, or the C-E-G chord has to change to harmonize with the Gbbb).
To keep in mind here one has to have the individual melodies that make
up the total harmonies make sense. One can't just randomly jump around,
all melodic phrases have to follow a certain scale / logic of course,
but one has to think this out even more so than in western classical
music because the structure is more complex and one can do nonsensical
things more easily (or to put it differently in 12tet one has much more
possibility to even accidentally do something musically sensible).
I'll post a few examples soon.
Good luck!

Btw, I think that with 29 tone Pythagorean one can do almost everything
in this area. (with some exceptions though)
But I find that a lot of notes as well. What I do is first figure out
which notes I'll actually use in harmonizing a makam, and then make the
scale. For harmonizing makam Rast I'm using a 14 tone scale right now.
And if I want to go outside this then I simply make a new scale. Up till
18 notes is somewhat playable on a normal keyboard.

Kind regards,
Marcel de Velde

> Thanks for your feedback. I will give your examples a try.
>
> Quite obviously, one better does not use neutral thirds in harmony...
> The 17edo major third appears acceptable to me, I indeed use it. I
> also use major seconds, and fifths parallels, too. One point is that
> the possibilities tend to be limited if the harmonization of, e.g., a
> Rast melody has to use only notes of the same Rast scala. This is a
> condition a dropped - maybe that had it share in the change of the
> character.
>
> I use 17edo because I like free transposability with, at the same
> time, not too many notes. I want to be able to play live, which, on my
> traditional keyboard, is only pracitcal for not more than 24 notes per
> octave. (24 is, in fact, already a little too much for me...) Pure
> pythagorean might become an issue once I get a generalized keyboard.
>
> --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com
> <mailto:MakeMicroMusic%40yahoogroups.com>, Marcel de Velde
> <marcel@...> wrote:
> >
> > You can get somewhat good arabic sounding polyphonic music in 17tet
> > if you follow the chain of fifths.
> > For maqam Rast for instance take C-D-Fb-F-G-A-Cb-C as a scale for
> > the main melody and harmonize it accordingly.
> > Dooon't play things like C-Fb-G and use it as if it's a major
> > chord, it's not!
> > It will mess things up and you end up destroying things like in you
> > example below. Follow the enharmonics correctly.
> > Though in 17tet the major third gets a somewhat dissonant character
> > with many timbres, you'll have to accept this if you wish to use
> > major thirds.
> > You will find though that using augmented primes etc in melodies
> > requires a bit of a study since we're so used to using minor
> > seconds in western music.
> > For an example play the simple scale C-C#-E-G-G#-C and you will
> > find the stable chords at C-E-G and C#-E-G#, extended chords are
> > for instance C#-E-G-C or inversions of it, C-E-G#, etc.
> > If you harmonize it as such it will retain the feel, in fact
> > highten the "arabic" feel and not destroy it as in your example
> > below. You can change the E to an F in the scale and if you
> > continue to harmonize it correctly according to the enharmonics it
> > will retain the feel.
> > If you harmonize it wrongly, for instance see it as C-Db-F-G-Ab-C
> > and play C-F-Ab or Db-F-Ab or Db-F-C etc then the whole arabic feel
> > is destroyed as you will have indicated a Db and Ab instead of a C#
> > and G#.
> > You CAN use intervals like C-Fb but then you must use the Fb as a
> > nonchord tone (in other words, it must not indicate a stable major
> > third but instead be something like for instance a passing tone)
> >
> > Classical counterpoint is of much less concern than harmony, and in
> > fact parallel fifths will work very well for arabic sounding music.
> > It'll also work for western music, it's just often not the "nicest"
> > way to make polyphonic music which has a strong individuality of
> > voices but it'll work just fine this shouldn't be your main concern
> > at all when trying to making polyphonic maqam music it seems to me.
> >
> > Btw why 17tet?
> > In my experience Pythagorean will work best when using remote
> > enharmonics (which is what maqam music is about in my opinion)
> > because in any other temperament the error of the fifth becomes
> > larger as the chain of fifths becomes longer.
> > Maqam rast would be either C-D-Fb-F-G-A-Cb-C or C-D-Gbbb-F-G-A-
> > Dbbb-C in Pythagorean (it differs in practice it seems)
> >
> > Kind regards,
> > Marcel de Velde
> >
>
>

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