Mark Gould's duet

Here's my rendering of it:

http://66.98.148.43/~xenharmo/coll.htm

More along these lines I hope will appear--I've got some stuff by
Margo ready to go if I get permission.

Gene,

On your web page you write:

"The four movements of this duet are by Mark Gould, in a scale of his own devising consisting of 11 notes out of Meantone[17]."

When Mark posted it, he wrote:

"They are all in 19EDO using the 11 from 19 scale."

Is Meantone[17] = 19EDO? (I think not, but I don't know for sure)

Cheers,
Jon

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "Jonathan M. Szanto"
<JSZANTO@A...> wrote:
> Gene,
>
> On your web page you write:
>
> "The four movements of this duet are by Mark Gould, in a scale of
his own
> devising consisting of 11 notes out of Meantone[17]."
>
> When Mark posted it, he wrote:
>
> "They are all in 19EDO using the 11 from 19 scale."
>
> Is Meantone[17] = 19EDO? (I think not, but I don't know for sure)

I looked at the pitch bends, and it is nowhere near 19edo. Judged as a
meantone it's in the region between 31 and 43, or 1/4 to 1/5 comma.
Meantone[17] is simply what you get from 16 sucessive meantone fifths.
If you take these meantone fifths to be those of 43 equal, you can get
something quite close to the pitch bends of Mark's scale from a
particular choice of 11 out of the 17 notes.

At this point if someone wants to verify my conclusions independently
it would be nice; I'd also like to hear from Mark concerning how,
precisely, he tuned his scale, and if he knows why it seems more like
43 than 19. In any case, the scale and tuning he used seems to work to
produce actual music, which is the bottom line.

On Friday 07 May 2004 11:18 pm, Gene Ward Smith wrote:
> Here's my rendering of it:
>
> http://66.98.148.43/~xenharmo/coll.htm

Mark,

This is an *excellent* piece, the scale is full of what reminds me of 'vivid
French color' mixed with what sounded to me to be a little Gyorgi Ligeti
influence thrown into the mix. Bravo !!! I was particularly moved by the
minimal hypnotic effect of the 'Lento'. Your music made me itch to compose,
and was inspiring, because it opened up some interesting new doors.

In the Lento, might there be a couple of interesting oppurtunities towards the
beginning for terrace dynamics? (just what I heard and wanted to suggest--you
could leave it as is and it would remain a great piece)

Gene, nice rendition. Question-am I hearing the pitch bend sometimes adjusting
*after* the attack of the note, or is the scale fooling my ear? This happens
when an event scheduler doesn't give first priority to the bend data over the
midi note data, and would indicate a bug in the software. (I know this
because I wrote a midi file player in Python, and found this out by trial and
error) The only way to confirm that this is happening in your rendition,
Gene, would be to hear the .wav file slowed down somehow, with DSP software
like 'sox' or something...

I like seeing this kind of thing on MMM....it makes my day to hear good new
music and collaboration like this !

Best,
Aaron Krister Johnson
http://www.dividebypi.com
http://www.akjmusic.com

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "Aaron K. Johnson"
<akjmicro@c...> wrote:

> Gene, nice rendition. Question-am I hearing the pitch bend sometimes
adjusting
> *after* the attack of the note, or is the scale fooling my ear?

The tuning question is still being pondered, I guess. I've uploaded
what I think is a correctly rendered version of Mark's music, and
would be interested in learning what you think.

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "Gene Ward Smith"
<gwsmith@s...> wrote:
> --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "Aaron K. Johnson"
> <akjmicro@c...> wrote:
>
> > Gene, nice rendition. Question-am I hearing the pitch bend
sometimes
> adjusting
> > *after* the attack of the note, or is the scale fooling my ear?
>
> The tuning question is still being pondered, I guess. I've uploaded
> what I think is a correctly rendered version of Mark's music, and
> would be interested in learning what you think.

I hear what Aaron hears particularly in the second movement. Did Mark
write these "swoops" into his piece (which I was otherwise quite
enjoying, by the way)? Gene's 'piano' piece _The 45000 fingers of Dr
S_ also exhibited these effects, as I mentioned, but Gene didn't seem
to think it was a problem. I wonder if it isn't an artifact of
Gene's rendering process . . . I know I've heard these sorts of
problems before when trying out various MIDI relaying programs . . .

Here's an experiment to try:

Two files.

One simply alternates between C and C# 50 times, using a single
instrument and single channel.

The other alternates C -50 cents and C +50 cents, 50 times, using a
single instrument and single channel.

Make them both the same speed, quite fast.

Do the two files sound like the same sound, 50 cents different from
one other, or do they sound rather different?

This might help us test Aaron's question . . .