Xenharmonic

Hi Gene,

Just to say I agree with Jeff's comment. There is a lot in a name.

I wonder what a good word for it might be...

Some of your transformations would be genuinely zenharmonic
- I'm thinking of your transformations that I now include in FTS
- the ones that change five limit chords to e.g. seven limit
ones in such a way that the melody line remains intact and the
harmonies still function - but in new transformed ways.
I think those would be counted as xenharmonic.

Also some twelve tone inspired music could be xenharmonic if it
explores diesis shifts or such like new ideas like some
of Margo's pieces. But I think they would probably need
to be composed especially, not sure you could take
a piece composed for a twelve tone system and
retune it in another tuning and call it xenharmonic
- unless somehow transformed so that the way it functions
is completely different and no longer based
on twelve tone harmonies. I mean - if it works because
when you listen to it then you hear the original piece
still coming through and somehow working much as it did originally
as in your seven equal tuning of Bach,
then I think it is microtonal, and strange, and it is well
possible that one could get xenharmonic ideas as a result
of listening to it, but not yet really xenharmonic.
It isn't yet starting afresh from a new origin
which I suppose is what I think of xenharmony as boing
about.

Of course it is microtonal - as the more general word.

Just feel one shouldn't confuse people - many will be entirely
new to the word xenharmonic (it is fairly new to me)
and a shame to let them go away
with an idea of what it means which could delay their
understanding of what it is about.

Well just my two cents as they say... And I'm quite new
to this field, so it's quite possible I haven't quite got
the right idea about what xenharmony is about either,

If the focus is to be on retuned twelve tone pieces I'd have thought
it might be worth considering a new domain name for it, and to
reserve this one for the more truly xenharmonic music which
you compose.

Thanks,

Robert

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "Robert Walker"
<robertwalker@n...> wrote:

> Hi Gene,
>
> Just to say I agree with Jeff's comment. There is a lot in a name.

Yes, which is why I didn't use "microtonal".

> I wonder what a good word for it might be...

Xenharmonic seems to fit the bill quite well, except for the meantone
examples.

> Also some twelve tone inspired music could be xenharmonic if it
> explores diesis shifts or such like new ideas like some
> of Margo's pieces.

And what do you think I've been doing? Exploring new ideas, very much
like Margo. In fact my temperaments are a bolder departure than her
temperaments extraordinare.
> Of course it is microtonal - as the more general word.

"Microtonal" is really incorrect, strictly speaking, and to me is
clearly the less general word.

> Just feel one shouldn't confuse people - many will be entirely
> new to the word xenharmonic (it is fairly new to me)
> and a shame to let them go away
> with an idea of what it means which could delay their
> understanding of what it is about.

I think my site is going to show what xenharmonics is, once I get
something other than retunings up. The retunings count, but of course
there is much more to it.

Hi Gene,

> I looked up what Joe has in his dictionary, which agrees exactly with
> my use of the word. It seems to me you and Scott have simply gotten
> the wrong idea somewhere.

xenharmonic

> a term coined by Ivor Darreg from the Greek words for "strange
> music". Darreg used it to refer to any non-12-EQ (microtonal) scales,
> which presented strange and wonderful new intervals and sonic worlds
> to explore.

Thanks Gene. Yes, that must be so (in my case anyway). Maybe it was confusion with
xentonality that did it in fact. Sorry.

I suppose the point here is that the word applies to the scales rather than the
music composed in them - so your site so far presents conventional twelve tone
music in xenharmonic scales. No question about the scales being xenharmonic!
So your domain name is accurate as a description of the scales used.

But perhaps one could still hesitate about calling music retuned to xenhrmonic scales
as also inevitably xenharmonic. It might be that when used to describe music rather
than scales one would do well to reserve its use to
music actually inspired by the scales... As in Xenharmonic music meaning
music inspired by xenharmonic scales, and maybe we need another word for
music not originally inspired in this fashion but retuned to such scales.
I don't know, xentransformed music or something...

Like - retuning music to such a scale presents the strange and wonderful
new intervals and sonic worlds to explore, but doesn't really explore them
yet, not thoroughly anyway. Like in the case of the seven equal tuning of
Bach obviously it is going to miss out on the particular progressions of chords by
thirds that I was exploring because he wouldn't have composed in such a
fashion since the original piece wasn't in seven equal and I don't think
it would make so much sense in a twelve tone piece. I think if you
took one of my seven tone pieces and transformed it back
to say twelve equal it probably wouldn't work because I think
they rely on the 11/9 approximation - and they also sometimes
rely on the intervals in the seven tone scale being equally
spaced in order to work.

So - will bring out some things and not others and give a few
landmarks probably but maybe not necessarily the ones that one will get
most involved in when one sets down to compose in the tuning.

I can understand that it may be a good way into xenharmonic
tunings for composers who have a very thorough background in twelve
tone composition and naturally want to apply their training to
their xenharmonic pieces. Eventually they will absorb the idiom
of the tunings they are attracted to and start to produce
mature pieces in it.

While others seem to like to just dive into a new tuning
straight away and forget any connections it may have with
any other tuning and try to explore it afresh. Then you may
have many falls and stumbles to start with and no pattern
to follow but it is a lot of fun if one is attracted to that
approach. I think this isn't a matter of experience and
training, rather of temperament.

Robert