melody in 5-tet: Pentacle

A while ago, both Aaron and I posted pieces in 5-tet.
Both of these were primarily rhythmic in nature.
Since then I have been wondering whether it would
be possible to create a piece that emphasized the
*melodic* aspects of 5-tet... at first it seemed
hopeless, but a bit of playing around resulted in
a new piece "Pentacle."

http://www.cae.wisc.edu/~sethares/Pentacle.mp3

I'd be interested to hear your reactions.

--Bill Sethares

>The portamento certainly helps but it might be considered cheating.

Actually, I thought something like that, too! The fourths and fifths are on the
safe side, but the single step is the intriguing one...
Also, I would not say the other pieces were merely rhythmic or that there were
less melodies in them than in the current one.
But I like the piece!

>I
>think one thing all of this does is illustrate why it is possible to
>create an interesting piece of music in 5-et which can be lifted to
>9-limit JI; 5-et has enough resources, limited though those be, to
>count as music. In my view boostrapping it up to 9-limit JI adds a
>dimension which makes it more than merely mildly interesting, and turns
>it into a powerful compositional technique.

How would this be done? (Maybe this is a question for tuning...)
--
Hans Straub
http://home.datacomm.ch/straub

Bill,
I like it. There is melodic material where the composer focuses on
melody. It's up to us to exploit the hidden resources everywhere we
find them.

On an another topic, we have more to do ahead of us. As an example,
see the following posts to a synthesizer discussion group when a
microtonalists asks for guidance for how to microtune a synth, then is
dumped on as psychologically deranged and "un-natural". Yikes!

Prent Rodgers

> From: Mats Öljare <oljare@h...>
> Date: Fri Aug 13, 2004 5:25 am
> Subject: Weird discussion here...
>
> ADVERTISEMENT
>
> Another example of how most musicians don't have any idea about the
> relevance of tuning:
>
> http://forum.prosoniq.com/viewtopic.php?t=61
>
> /Ö

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "Bill Sethares" <sethares@e...>
wrote:
> A while ago, both Aaron and I posted pieces in 5-tet.
> Both of these were primarily rhythmic in nature.
> Since then I have been wondering whether it would
> be possible to create a piece that emphasized the
> *melodic* aspects of 5-tet... at first it seemed
> hopeless, but a bit of playing around resulted in
> a new piece "Pentacle."
>
> http://www.cae.wisc.edu/~sethares/Pentacle.mp3
>
> I'd be interested to hear your reactions.
>
> --Bill Sethares

About the 5-tet "melodic" piece Pentacle:

http://www.cae.wisc.edu/~sethares/Pentacle.mp3

Prent wrote:

> I like it. There is melodic material where the composer
> focuses on melody. It's up to us to exploit the hidden
> resources everywhere we find them.

Agreed -- this was part of the challenge... since 5-tet has
such "limited" melodic resources (i.e., only a few distinct intervals)
it was pretty daunting. I do agree with Hans here:

> The portamento certainly helps but it might be considered cheating

Of course, the pitch glides take place primarily from one 5-tet
scale step to another, but they seem to help to increase the melodic
"resources." Essentially, for each melodic interval considered
as a step, you also have the same melodic interval considered
as a glide. Taking this even one step further, a rapid
glide up and down (or down and up) are other kinds of melodic
intervals. So, by varying which kind of interval occurs in different
places, you can increase the variety.

Hans also wrote:

> Also, I would not say the other pieces were merely rhythmic
> or that there were less melodies in them than in the current one.
> But I like the piece!

I certainly did not intend to insult Aaron's piece:

http://www.akjmusic.com/audio/5tet_funk.mp3

or my own:

http://www.cae.wisc.edu/~sethares/PentaFunk.mp3

(And please note that I said "primarily rhythmic" and
not "merely rhythmic.") I guess what I was trying to do
was to contrast the overall feel of the pieces,
which may speak to compositional intent.
For my own piece (Pentafunk), I conceived it more as a
rhythmic chord pattern than as a melody line
(as in Pentacle). While I cannot speak to Aaron's intent, my
impression of 5-tet_funk is that it is built around an
extended bass line, which forms the basis for a complex and
fascinating improvisation. While there certainly are
melodic elements, I would be surprised to find that
these were at the heart of the piece -- rather, what melodies
there are appear to grow out of the bass.

--Bill Sethares

>From: "Prent Rodgers" <prentrodgers@c...>
>
>On an another topic, we have more to do ahead of us. As an example,
>see the following posts to a synthesizer discussion group when a
>microtonalists asks for guidance for how to microtune a synth, then is
>dumped on as psychologically deranged and "un-natural". Yikes!
>
>> From: Mats �ljare <oljare@h...>
>> Date: Fri Aug 13, 2004 5:25 am
>> Subject: Weird discussion here...
>>
>>
>> Another example of how most musicians don't have any idea about the
>> relevance of tuning:
>>
>> http://forum.prosoniq.com/viewtopic.php?t=61
>>
>> /�

Hmm, that one was not a very useful discussion - from both sides. I mean, what
is the need of calling other people "not properly educated in music"? It is
possible to say what you like, without insulting the ones who do not...
--
Hans Straub
http://home.datacomm.ch/straub

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "Bill Sethares"

/makemicromusic/topicId_7263.html#7263

<sethares@e...> wrote:
> A while ago, both Aaron and I posted pieces in 5-tet.
> Both of these were primarily rhythmic in nature.
> Since then I have been wondering whether it would
> be possible to create a piece that emphasized the
> *melodic* aspects of 5-tet... at first it seemed
> hopeless, but a bit of playing around resulted in
> a new piece "Pentacle."
>
> http://www.cae.wisc.edu/~sethares/Pentacle.mp3
>
> I'd be interested to hear your reactions.
>
> --Bill Sethares

***Well, this is very, very, very nice and I'm amazed at what you've
been able to do with this. Of course much is in the processing, with
an excellent sound and lots of special effects, so it seems it's as
much about the ingenuity of the composer as about the *tuning..* :)

J. Pehrson

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "Bill Sethares"

/makemicromusic/topicId_7263.html#7266

>
> > Also, I would not say the other pieces were merely rhythmic
> > or that there were less melodies in them than in the current one.
> > But I like the piece!
>
> I certainly did not intend to insult Aaron's piece:
>
> http://www.akjmusic.com/audio/5tet_funk.mp3
>
> or my own:
>
> http://www.cae.wisc.edu/~sethares/PentaFunk.mp3
>

***These pieces are also intriguing, but I also agree that Pentacle
is the pinnacle...

J. Pehrson