Surprise -- making it happen (thanks, Mary)

Hello, there, Mary and everyone.

In response to your question of how I find out about cool stuff like
the Colonna example, I guess that it's through a bit of serendipity --
happening across it, so to speak, while wandering around the general
area.

Maybe the general story might be amusing, especially because it leads
into the main theme of this group, one that you so well exemplify with
your own music: if you find it, and like it, then don't just talk
about it: Make it happen!

Maybe in the late 1970's, I learned about Nicola Vicentino and his use
of "enharmonic" intervals smaller than a semitone, but the idea of
actually doing about it wasn't really a question for me at the time,
although I much admired and was intrigued by the theory of the
different kinds and shadings of intervals.

Then, in 1999, with a synthesizer (TX-802, two 12-note manuals) that
could conveniently be tuned to a 24-note version of Vicentino's
system, I really looked into Vicentino and this era, generally one of
my favorites, including a complete translation of his _Ancient Music
Adapted to Modern Practice_ (1555) by Maria Rika Maniates and Claude
Palisca.

Now it was time to _tune it up_, with two manuals in the same standard
meantone tuning a fifthtone apart, 128:125 or around 41.06 cents. Each
keyboard has a usual 1/4-comma tuning with accidentals from Eb-G#, and
can be played in the usual way. Combining notes from the manuals or
moving from one to another, however, brings us into the realm of
enharmonic or fifthtone music.

Back then, I wrote some impressions of my first experiences -- really
awesome, at once radically new and intimately familiar, given that
Renaissance and earlier Gothic styles largely define my everyday
musical life in playing, listening, and improvising or composing.

Looking around for whatever I could find about Vicentino or
fifthtone music of the late 16th and early 17th centuries, I learned
about Colonna and the facsimile edition of his _La Sambuca Lincea_
(1618) edited by Patrizio Barbieri.

Playing his "sliding of the voice" in fifthtones was really something,
and thanks to Scala by Manuel Op de Coul, I can define MIDI files
sharing the experience with others by using the EXAMPLE feature.

Anyway, this discussion about singing suggested to me the idea of
sharing another example with fifthtone steps, and one providing a nice
occasion for a "surprise" -- an opportunity actually to start doing
what Paul Erlich and I have talked about on the Alternate Tuning List
quite a bit over the last couple of years!

For people following the notation, C4 is middle C; an asterisk (*)
show a note raised by a fifthtone, and "r" shows a rest:

1 & 2 | 1 & 2 ||
C5 C*5 C5
Ab4 G*4 Ab4 Ab*4 A4
F4 C*4 F4
r F4 E*4 F4

MIDI example, faster <http://value.net/~mschulter/qcmav004.mid>
MIDI example, slower <http://value.net/~mschulter/qcmav003.mid>

Here the alto makes a cadence Ab4-G*4-Ab4, using a small chromatic
semitone instead of a usual larger diatonic semitone (e.g. A4-G#4-A4).
In 31-tET, this small semitone would be precisely 2/5-tone, and the
large semitone (not used here) 3/5-tone.

Then the alto has a closing ornament: Ab4-Ab*4-A4 above the lowest
note F4, moving in two fifthtone steps from a usual minor third to a
"proximate minor" third which Vicentino describes as approximately
"5-1/2:4-1/2" (11:9), and then to a more conclusive major third (pure
in 1/4-comma meantone).

Now for the "surprise," which maybe some JI-loving audiophiles might
just notice listening with the right timbres.

While pure 5:4 major thirds are a routine part of 1/4-comma meantone,
this example also has pure vertical fifths, fourths, and minor thirds
or major sixths -- using a form of tuning with "perfect fifths"
introduced by Vicentino himself!

The basic idea is evidently to have _two_ 1/4-comma meantone tuning
sets, with the second set higher by 1/4-comma (~5.38 cents), the
amount by which the fifth is narrowed in this temperament. Thus the
notes of the second set form pure fifths with notes of the first set.

Since Vicentino's harpsichord was designed for 38 notes on two 19-note
manuals, with 36 notes the most he could fit on the instrument in
practice (19 on the lower manual, 17 on the upper), he described two
alternate tunings.

The first featured a complete 31-note meantone cycle dividing the
octave into fifthtones, plus a few extra keys to provide "perfect
fifths" with some of the most used diatonic steps.

The second tuning used the same 19-tone meantone set on the lower
manual (Gb-B#), but instead of completing a 31-note cycle of
fifthtones on the upper manual, tuned the notes of this manual all to
form "perfect fifths" with those of the first.

Putting these ideals together with a bit of 21st-century technology,
we can have the best of both worlds: a 62-note system, with the
equivalent of two 31-note manuals, each with a complete fifthtone
cycle, at the distance of 1/4-comma or ~5.38 cents.

That's what happens in this example, more accurately noted as follows,
borrowing Vicentino's "comma sign," here an ASCII apostrophe ('), to
show notes raised by 1/4-comma to obtain pure vertical fifths (3:2),
fourths (4:3), minor thirds (6:5), and major sixths (5:3):

! 1 & 2 | 1 & 2 ||
! C'5 C*5 C'5
! Ab'4 G*'4 Ab'4 Ab*4 A4
! F4 C*4 F4
! r F4 E*4 F4

<http://value.net/~mschulter/qcmav003.mid>

Also, here's a link to a Scala file of this 62-note tuning:

<http://value.net/~mschulter/qcm62a.scl>

Anyway, some of us have been talking about Vicentino's adaptive JI
system for some time, and it's been out since 1555, and now we have
the technology to use it for Renaissance and new Xeno-Renaissance
music without the complications of negotiating a keyboard in real time
-- especially helpful with 62 notes per octave.

Vicentino has given us some beautiful music and some wonderful
concepts and examples for making more; and Manuel Op de Coul has given
us the means to implement a comprehensive system of "enharmonic
adaptive JI," as I might call it.

This is the time and place to "make it happen"!

Thanks, Mary, for your catalytic inspiration and example.

Peace and love for all,

Margo

--- In MakeMicroMusic@y..., mschulter <MSCHULTER@V...> wrote:

> Now for the "surprise," which maybe some JI-loving audiophiles might
> just notice listening with the right timbres.

Hi Margo -- it's not easy for me to change the timbre of these
examples -- and the large vibrato that your "Puff Pipes" (I presume)
setting has on my soundcard pretty much precludes my noticing this
feature. Perhaps you could try putting these examples up using a
different setting -- perhaps "Reed Organ" or something would work
better?