Re: [MMM] Re: Guitar Retuning, FTS Midi Relay @Robert

Hi Robert.

* 1 * The question of a Microtonal Sequencer finding Midi Relay answers

Your mails made me being busy with FTS and I was, finding more and more windows with secret options, surprised of its possibilities, in the same moment somewhat helpless using them. I begin to understand that there is no way handling my hardware -wishfully intuitivly- without exactly understanding how it works and what the names of its modules are. I was a very lucky man playing "live" on my Standard-Midi-gear, relaying my Data. I found a sound on it, reproducing a kind of Guitar-Overdrive-Screaming, and I heard the merging sound waves of chords overtaking each other in screams of *yessss i like that*. I use the first channel to send Midi-Information, and the 15 left ones for relaying, having assigned the same programs/presets to them.

I am very happy to find you being busy with "faster tuning options", as retuning one note of a scale live with the Midi-Pitchbendwheel. Also the second idea you describe - finding pitches from audio file - sounds perfect and usable to me. It really makes me happy to see the gap between calculating and "direct listening" bridged.

I must admit that my FTS knowledge is very much like beginner. Sometimes I feel like people around me deal with things naturally where I try to reinvent the wheel. But without that I have to walk. So I ask: is there a possibility that I send Note 45 on from my Hardware Standard Midi Instrument and FTS makes it a pitched Note 57? I need that to group chords and melodies next to each other on the keyboard - otherwise my hands would have to jump much in some scale sourroundings. As far as I understood, technically it should be possible but I did not find an option like this when browsing through the help-htm-files.

* 2 * "Microtonal" Guitar ?

About the Guitar-thing: I mostly sit there and start to retune my strings without thinking or calculating, just by feeling and ear. The chords, usable through this, are anytime very different. I make the experience to feel these things as harmony that are often close to a "standard" - 7 notes scale, meaning the 7 (8 for octave) played notes out of a TET temperament. Just some pitches are a little different. I am aware of that the standard fretting does shape very much of the sound, also when string tuning defines an own harmony. When I first came to experimenting I thought of wholly different chords, but it is more like related but yet different colours and flavours made possible. Melodies are harder to play microtonally, because you are more dependent on the frets intervals, than chords, which sound "new" because of the different relationships between the single strings. New, differently tuned melodies can be played when two strings are tuned relatively close to each other, so that changing the strings plucked when playing a melody, does not fully escape the melodies feeling range. Still, this is not satisfying in the sense of a truly differently tuned scale, but a sense of experimenting. While some very nice chords and small tunes evolved themselves through just trying and practicing, I explored a whole new world with a fretless guitar. I was very lucky to find it at ebay for just some 150 Euro. I named her Hannah - don't laugh. I need this kind of sentimental relationship ;). I very much benefit also from SEEing the difference, comparing my finger positions to
the fret markers which are not there anymore but whose rests are still visible. Strange english - I hope you understand.

My head was kind of shocked when luckily experiencing that it could directly move the finger(s) to a desired sound. Realtime and without given parameters (frets, tuning definitions, whatever). I guess that's some initial feeling that any Microtonal Composer will have gone through, discovering there are more than "these twelve specific tones we all know", and when I realized what seems so clear in a logic way, I could hardly focus on what that thing means, that made my head hesitate.. Some millimeters of finger position difference were letting the scale sound much more tickling or responsive. I'd be even sure to say, through pitch independence we can create better resonance with the feelings of our fellow humans (audience, musicians), but I do know that I am far away from the skill of being able to apply that.

Still, through not being able to name the scales (ratios), I doubted if the "microtonal" folks would consider to be microtonal what I do. Especially because I do not really think in scales, but in "what i do". Only in translating "what i do" to for example my synthesizer, I need to learn the terminology of Midi-equipment and Tuning-Names. Also, even when I might be close to something that could microtonally be termed scale, I play a different melody that feels fine with the "scale" but not yet part of it - I move into something that I did not yet hear names of. Practically that means, i think: "no, that note must sound like (searching on the fretboard) - this one. once again. (plays)... yes". I do not know the mechanics of what I do, because my mind strives to be busy with how it sounds only. That makes it , often, difficult to communicate with people, because we need at least something for orientation, i mean, more than the melody I play. I'll upload some songs or fragments, and send the url to MMM, if someone is interested in how that must sound. I'd be very surprised if someone said: you play in that scale. If I tried to learn a certain scale on the fretless guitar, I'd have my problems with it. I seem to remember "what I do" more than "what its explanation is like".

All the best,
Clemens

----- Original Message -----
From: Robert Walker
To: MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2003 9:20 AM
Subject: [MMM] Re: Guitar Retuning and Tuning by Ear

HI Clemens,

> Do you know softwares, "thinking" in a way supporting this?
> For example a guitar tuner, saving lots of tunings it measured through the tunings I
> create by ear, using (guitar signal) microphone input to send to the tuner?

I did some preliminary work on a software approach to this in FTS
- but more to be done there.

Two ideas I'm exploring.
1. The idea that performer can retune any note while playing using
the pitch bend wheel, and this changes the scale for the rest of the piece.
I've just had a new look at that section and it needs a bit of bug fixing
and am doing a new upload for it.

Anyway the way it works is that it always retunes the most recently played note in a chord.
So you can play a diad, and it will retune only the second note played, and you can
tune it to the first one as you wish. Then you release the keys, and then release
the pitch bend wheel, and those notes in the scale then keep their current tuning
from then on.

2. Finding pitches of notes from a monophonic audio clip and using those
as ones current scale. Aim is to be able to find the pitch of a note to great accuracy,
better than most methods used for that. Works better for some instruments than others.
Guitar may be reasonable but might need some tweaking.

I understand that the idea of the performer making a new tuning like this
is common in performances of Turkish music. Perhaps those who know
about the subject can say more?

Robert

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

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "Clemens" <ontheway1@g...>
wrote:

> Still, through not being able to name the scales (ratios), I
>doubted if the "microtonal" folks would consider to be microtonal
>what I do.

why not?

p.s. all you would need is a midi hexaphonic pickup for your guitar --
unless you use nylon or gut strings, this is easy to obtain -- and
then you'll be able to record what you play onto six channels of midi
data, complete with pitch bend. in case you or anyone else wants to
analyze your actual pitch usage. nothing wrong with just keeping it
intuitive, though -- some people like premeditated new pitch systems
in order to force them to think in new and different ways, but that's
of course not the only valid path.