Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup makemicromusic Over the Rivers

Hello everybody,

Over the Rivers is a piece I wrote as a personal homage to Charles
Ives for the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his passing.
Unfortunately it took a lot longer to complete than I hoped, over a
year for two minutes of music, and the anniversary came and went. But
I'm very happy with the piece and what's a date anyway; surely
nothing in the larger scope of appreciating Ives' unique and timeless
contributions!

Technically speaking, there's a lot going on in this piece, but I'd
like to take the time to call attention to one aspect in particular.
Over the Rivers is composed in 11-tone equal temperament. This
tuning, and other tunings like it, are routinely mentioned by
theorists as atonal or discordant tunings with little or no practical
purpose. This is simply not the case,and I intentionally kept this
piece on the threshold of tonality just to accentuate the unique
beauty these "atonal" and "discordant" tunings can express if one
takes the time to look...

http://zebox.com/daniel_anthony_stearns/

Thanks,
Dan Stearns

🔗Daniel Wolf <djwolf1@...>

🔗Jacob <jbarton@...>

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Daniel Wolf <djwolf1@a...> wrote:
> By popular request, I've put up an ogg file of two-thrds of the 13tet
> piece, _Change of Regime_.

This is splendid! Three cheers for 13tet and 11tet and 14tet which have for some strange
reason gotten a lot of attention here of late.
>
> home.snafu.de/djwolf/ChangeOfRegime.ogg (1.32mb, 2'22")
>
> I'll post a score and a complete audio file when I have figured out a
> more plausible notation than that used for composing the piece.

As soon as I get around to finishing it, Sibelius will have a plugin that re-notates an
unretuned MIDI (like those you posted first) in whatever scale you specify. It can do
traditional and/or Sagittal.

How exactly to notate 13tet, however, is still a problem. If you take it as every other note
of 26tet, naming the notes according to the circle of flat fifths, you get something like C
Cx D Dx...the double-sharp equalling one degree. This may make sense in context of
26tet harmony, but we don't have that. Then what? Arg.

(Perhaps this could be explored further in MakeMicroNotation if need be.)

🔗Daniel Wolf <djwolf1@...>

🔗Jacob <jbarton@...>

🔗Daniel Wolf <djwolf1@...>

As long as the subject of notation is current, here's a list of online, specialized, microtonal fonts:

Toccata & Fughetta (Shareware -- full TT set available as free download) http://www.efn.org/~bch/aboutfonts.html

Bach (A full musicological font set, for use in texts not notation programs, freeware for private users) http://www.music.qub.ac.uk/~tomita/bach-mf.html

November (EUR89 a full font set for Finale with many microtonal accidentals) http://www.klemm-music.de/november/index_e.htm

Tempera (MidiDesign is a series fonts especially for contemporary music, freeware) http://pro.wanadoo.fr/christian.texier/mididesi/

Micro 2 (Ted Mook's font for 12th tones, USD8 Shareware) https://www.mindeartheart.org/micro.html

Accidentals (Matthew Hindson's large set of microtonal accidentals, freeware) http://hindson.com.au/

Saggital --- I haven't used it yet, as it comes without a kep caps page.

In addition, these fonts associated with notation programs have large sets of microtonal accidentals:

TURANDOT has microtonal accidentals built into the toolbar. The Turandot/Turandot Text/Turandot Special fonts come with a large set of microtonal accidentals (32 in the toolbar). No playback yet, but it is promised.

FINALE handles playback-able microtones either (a) through pitch bend messages which can be attached to individual notes either visibly (as expressions) or invisibly (as midi instructions), or (b) as non-standard key signatures, with the tuning controlled externally. Graphic-only (non-playback) accidentals can also be used, as with Sibelius. The font sets (Maestro, Petrucci) that come with Finale have some microtonal accidentals.

LIME has microtonal playback via a built-in tuning table, which allows cent offsets for 35 pitches/octave (that is, one for each diatonic natural, sharp, flat, double flat, and double sharp). The included font set TUFA has several microtonal accidentals, and the handbook indicates that Sonata can be used as well (question: how microtonal is Sonata?).

GRAPHIRE MUSIC PRESS is a graphic-only program, but extremely flexible.

SIBELIUS -- perhaps a Sibelius user on the list would like to comment.

Any additions or corrections?

DJW

🔗George D. Secor <gdsecor@...>

🔗daniel_anthony_stearns <daniel_anthony_stearns@...>

Hello Daniel,thanks for the listen. Not sure that it matters much and
I'm also not sure if you weren't just being facetious
about "theorists", but let's just say that you don't find many
references to tunings like 11 and 13 that mention a use other than
avoiding consonance. Here's an excerpt from someone you know, I think
he's a theorists...

"Finally, it is worth noting that 11-tone equal temperament,
contained within 22-equal, is a ridiculously dissonant tuning,
containing hardly any tonal (root-defining) sounds, and none
whatsoever within the 5-limit. The serial composer who is willing to
subtract one from the number of notes in the row could be freed from
the constant effort to avoid those intervals in 12-equal which define
a key center."

That's from Paul Erlich's Tuning, Tonality, and Twenty-Two-Tone
Temperament. It's not that I find any great offence here or that I
don't understand what Paul means and how it's useful in the context
of his ideas and his paper, but it's wrong.

I recently went to an exhibit of Czech photographer Josef Sudek, and
in the snazzy MFA brochure there was a little quip of his where he
wrote "I have no particular leaning toward the all-too-clearly
defined. Life is very different from geometry, simplified security
has no place in life." I like that.

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Daniel Wolf <djwolf1@a...>
wrote:
> daniel_anthony_stearns wrote:
>
> >
> > Over the Rivers is composed in 11-tone equal temperament. This
> > tuning, and other tunings like it, are routinely mentioned by
> > theorists as atonal or discordant tunings with little or no
practical
> > purpose.
>
>
> Who are these "theorists" that everyone keeps complaining about? I
> haven't encountered them yet, and I've been around these parts for
a
> long time, at least since Christ left Chicago...
>
> Dan, I'd like to know more about how you put your pieces together
> technically. That aspect of your work is somewhat mysterious. Of
> course, if it's meant to be mysterious, that's fine too.
>
> Daniel Wolf

🔗Carl Lumma <ekin@...>

>Hello Daniel,thanks for the listen. Not sure that it matters much and
>I'm also not sure if you weren't just being facetious
>about "theorists", but let's just say that you don't find many
>references to tunings like 11 and 13 that mention a use other than
>avoiding consonance. Here's an excerpt from someone you know, I think
>he's a theorists...
>
>"Finally, it is worth noting that 11-tone equal temperament,
>contained within 22-equal, is a ridiculously dissonant tuning,
>containing hardly any tonal (root-defining) sounds, and none
>whatsoever within the 5-limit. The serial composer who is willing to
>subtract one from the number of notes in the row could be freed from
>the constant effort to avoid those intervals in 12-equal which define
>a key center."
>
>That's from Paul Erlich's Tuning, Tonality, and Twenty-Two-Tone
>Temperament. It's not that I find any great offence here or that I
>don't understand what Paul means and how it's useful in the context
>of his ideas and his paper, but it's wrong.

It isn't wrong, in the context of the paper. Also, note that Paul's
pointing this out as an *advantage* of 11.

>I recently went to an exhibit of Czech photographer Josef Sudek, and
>in the snazzy MFA brochure there was a little quip of his where he
>wrote "I have no particular leaning toward the all-too-clearly
>defined. Life is very different from geometry, simplified security
>has no place in life." I like that.

I might like it if I had a clue what it meant.

-Carl

🔗Daniel Wolf <djwolf1@...>

🔗daniel_anthony_stearns <daniel_anthony_stearns@...>

Hi Carl, thanks for the listen and the kind words btw. Unfortunately,
I've lost all passion for these types posts, but briefly...paul wrote
that 11-tone equal temperament "is a ridiculously dissonant tuning,
containing hardly any tonal (root-defining) sounds". Obviously I
disagree, but not so much so that I'll repeat it again in my defense.
If I'm shouted down or posted into oblivion, so be it, it's just not
that important. Simply put--there's more to these tunings than ugly
sounds and a liberation from pretty ones!

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Carl Lumma <ekin@l...> wrote:
> >Hello Daniel,thanks for the listen. Not sure that it matters much
and
> >I'm also not sure if you weren't just being facetious
> >about "theorists", but let's just say that you don't find many
> >references to tunings like 11 and 13 that mention a use other than
> >avoiding consonance. Here's an excerpt from someone you know, I
think
> >he's a theorists...
> >
> >"Finally, it is worth noting that 11-tone equal temperament,
> >contained within 22-equal, is a ridiculously dissonant tuning,
> >containing hardly any tonal (root-defining) sounds, and none
> >whatsoever within the 5-limit. The serial composer who is willing
to
> >subtract one from the number of notes in the row could be freed
from
> >the constant effort to avoid those intervals in 12-equal which
define
> >a key center."
> >
> >That's from Paul Erlich's Tuning, Tonality, and Twenty-Two-Tone
> >Temperament. It's not that I find any great offence here or that I
> >don't understand what Paul means and how it's useful in the
context
> >of his ideas and his paper, but it's wrong.
>
> It isn't wrong, in the context of the paper. Also, note that Paul's
> pointing this out as an *advantage* of 11.
>
> >I recently went to an exhibit of Czech photographer Josef Sudek,
and
> >in the snazzy MFA brochure there was a little quip of his where he
> >wrote "I have no particular leaning toward the all-too-clearly
> >defined. Life is very different from geometry, simplified security
> >has no place in life." I like that.
>
> I might like it if I had a clue what it meant.
>
> -Carl

🔗Daniel Wolf <djwolf1@...>

daniel_anthony_stearns wrote:

>
> Hello Daniel,thanks for the listen. Not sure that it matters much and
> I'm also not sure if you weren't just being facetious
> about "theorists", but let's just say that you don't find many
> references to tunings like 11 and 13 that mention a use other than
> avoiding consonance. Here's an excerpt from someone you know, I think
> he's a theorists...
>
> "Finally, it is worth noting that 11-tone equal temperament,
> contained within 22-equal, is a ridiculously dissonant tuning,
> containing hardly any tonal (root-defining) sounds, and none
> whatsoever within the 5-limit. The serial composer who is willing to
> subtract one from the number of notes in the row could be freed from
> the constant effort to avoid those intervals in 12-equal which define
> a key center."
>
> That's from Paul Erlich's Tuning, Tonality, and Twenty-Two-Tone
> Temperament. It's not that I find any great offence here or that I
> don't understand what Paul means and how it's useful in the context
> of his ideas and his paper, but it's wrong.

Methinks that Paul was writing within some deliberately narrow constraints: i.e. the article defines "tonality" from one point of view while 11tet actually has some features that are remarkably "tonal" from other plausible viewpoints. For example, I find the 11tet leading tone to be resolutely directional in both purely melodic and harmonic settings (although I'll add the caveat that I haven't been able to get 11 or 13 to work "tonally" in textures with much more than 2 tones at once, but I'd venture to guess that that's more likely due to a deficit in my technique that to anything intrinsic in either tuning). And the remark abour the "serial composer" strikes me as odd, because -- excepting some Webern and perhaps some Goeyvaerts -- I don't know of any serial music where key centers are undefined, but I know a lot of serial music that either enjoys or suffers an overabundance of key centers, and I don't reckon that 11tet will alter this quality. Might I be excused for making a theoretical observation (albeit a very low -level one) on this list? Following some work in 11 and 13, I have observed that these tunings, when compared to 12, shift weights among the intervallic neighborhoods with regard to their tonality-defining characters. The intervals in the middle of the octave strongly define tonal motion in 12, while 11 and 13 are defined more by intervals in the 2nd and 4th fifths of the octave. The "seconds" in all three tunings are strongly tonal, strongly directional, at least in their most local melodic forms.

DJW

🔗Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@...>

🔗Carl Lumma <ekin@...>

>Hi Carl, thanks for the listen and the kind words btw.
>Unfortunately, I've lost all passion for these types posts,

Yeah, they should be on the tuning list, not here.

>but briefly...paul wrote that 11-tone equal temperament "is a
>ridiculously dissonant tuning, containing hardly any tonal (root-
>defining) sounds". Obviously I disagree, but not so much so
>that I'll repeat it again in my defense. If I'm shouted down
>or posted into oblivion, so be it, it's just not that important.
>Simply put--there's more to these tunings than ugly sounds and
>a liberation from pretty ones!

Hi Dan,

The way I read Paul here, is not that 11-tET music can't have
tonality, just that it's one of the best tunings for avoiding it.
And I certainly don't think he was saying there are no pretty
sounds in 11-tET. Also note that words like "tonality" are
loaded. You have to get inside the headspace of the paper to
understand this comment.

By the way, can't remember if I posted this to metatuning or
if you saw it, but I got a Thinking Plague album on your
recommendation and quite enjoyed it. I think your stuff is
better in several ways though.

-Carl

🔗Carl Lumma <ekin@...>

🔗George D. Secor <gdsecor@...>

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Daniel Wolf <djwolf1@a...>
wrote:
> George D. Secor wrote:
>
> >
> > --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Daniel Wolf <djwolf1@a...>
wrote:
> > > As long as the subject of notation is current, here's a list of
online,
> > > specialized, microtonal fonts:
> > > ...
> > > Saggital --- I haven't used it yet, as it comes without a kep
caps page.
> >
> > What's a "kep caps page"?
> >
> It's a table showing what key or combination of keys is required to
> produce each symbol. Font mappings are wildly variable, and often
> tricky to access all elements, especially if the font was made on a
Mac
> and the user is on a Windows or Linux machine (or vice versa).
There
> are pieces of software that help with this, but a key caps page is
very
> useful.

Okay -- and oh dear! Your reason for not trying the Sagittal font
was something that Dave Keenan and I had not anticipated.

When we first discussed which symbols should go where in the font, we
had a logical keyboard layout in mind. Since keys are not arranged
on the keyboard in anything even remotely resembling ASCII order,
this resulted in a haphazard sequence of symbols corresponding to
ASCII values. Once Dave investigated how the font would actually be
used in musical notation software packages (such as Sibelius and
Finale), he concluded that arranging the symbols by ASCII values in
order of size would be better, since symbols are first arranged by
the user on a pallet, from which they are subsequently selected for
use. (A similar procedure is used for entering symbols into text
from a special font in a word processing program.) I agreed to this,
only because he assured me that it would be highly unlikely that
anyone would ever be entering the symbols directly from the
keyboard. But now you seem to be indicating that this is not so.

The way they're now ordered in the font, a user attempting to enter
them from a keyboard would probably find the layout highly
inconvenient, to say the least. It looks as if we may need to
reconsider this decision -- whether to keep the arrangement as is,
change it, or perhaps provide an alternate version of the font with a
logical symbol-to-key layout.

--George

🔗Daniel Wolf <djwolf1@...>

George,

for a good example of a well-mapped font, please see Matthew Hindson's "Accidentals" font. The keycaps are quite logically laid out for English QWERTY keyboards and his mappings between PCs and Macs work fine. I appreciate your line of thinking about a "logical keyboard", but it is simply not practical for someone who wants to open up Finale or Sibelius and tinker quickly with the accidentals.

Compared with a full notation font, Saggital is quite modest in size, so there seems to be no reason to use the most exotic postions in the character set. You should limit the characters to those associated with the standard alphabet in upper and lower cases, the numerals, and the common punctuation set plus characters reached by alt+(any of the above) or its Mac equivalent.

In the non-standard key signatures feature of Finale, the user specifies a font and then assigns an accidental to each degree of alteration. For example, in the Accidentals font, for a score in quartertones, I assign the flat sign (key cap "b") to -2 degrees, the quarter-flat sign (key cap "d") to -1 degree, the natural (key cap "=") to 0 degrees, the quarter-sharp sign (key cap "+") to 1 degree etc.. Finale appears to accept only the key caps described above. The same seems to be true for Lime and Turandot.

Daniel Wolf

George D. Secor wrote:

>
> --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Daniel Wolf <djwolf1@a...>
> wrote:
> > George D. Secor wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Daniel Wolf <djwolf1@a...>
> wrote:
> > > > As long as the subject of notation is current, here's a list of
> online,
> > > > specialized, microtonal fonts:
> > > > ...
> > > > Saggital --- I haven't used it yet, as it comes without a kep
> caps page.
> > >
> > > What's a "kep caps page"?
> > >
> > It's a table showing what key or combination of keys is required to
> > produce each symbol. Font mappings are wildly variable, and often
> > tricky to access all elements, especially if the font was made on a
> Mac
> > and the user is on a Windows or Linux machine (or vice versa). > There
> > are pieces of software that help with this, but a key caps page is
> very
> > useful.
>
> Okay -- and oh dear! Your reason for not trying the Sagittal font
> was something that Dave Keenan and I had not anticipated.
>
> When we first discussed which symbols should go where in the font, we
> had a logical keyboard layout in mind. Since keys are not arranged
> on the keyboard in anything even remotely resembling ASCII order,
> this resulted in a haphazard sequence of symbols corresponding to
> ASCII values. Once Dave investigated how the font would actually be
> used in musical notation software packages (such as Sibelius and
> Finale), he concluded that arranging the symbols by ASCII values in
> order of size would be better, since symbols are first arranged by
> the user on a pallet, from which they are subsequently selected for
> use. (A similar procedure is used for entering symbols into text
> from a special font in a word processing program.) I agreed to this,
> only because he assured me that it would be highly unlikely that
> anyone would ever be entering the symbols directly from the
> keyboard. But now you seem to be indicating that this is not so.
>
> The way they're now ordered in the font, a user attempting to enter
> them from a keyboard would probably find the layout highly
> inconvenient, to say the least. It looks as if we may need to
> reconsider this decision -- whether to keep the arrangement as is,
> change it, or perhaps provide an alternate version of the font with a
> logical symbol-to-key layout.

🔗daniel_anthony_stearns <daniel_anthony_stearns@...>

The primary melodic set I used in this piece is the maximally even 6-
out-of-11. I see this piece and its tuning's emotional space as sunny
achy/yearny, at least that's certainly the effect I was going for,
and it's perhaps one not generally associated with 11-tone equal
temperament. One thing I tried here,and it took a long time to get it
happening,was to have the piano and the melodies in the clarinets and
the strings carry the rhythm and use the percussion as a sort of
coloristic counterpoint that gives the impression of an entirely
different temponic (sic) plane or area of activity. To make this work
I kept having to blur the section changes by letting them linger one
into the next,or by starting one before the previous one had changed.
This took a lot of work but gave me some new ideas and ways to
organize these types of phantasmagoric materials and ideas. The
instrumentation is basically piano, strings, clarinets, some brass,
and a boatload of percussion (with a few additional guests at the big
climax).
Ives really had a thing for extreme density and simultaneity, and a
lot of my work in that style is a combination of my natural
inclinations, likes and dislikes and having heard Ives' and Ornette's
and even Braxton's--I'm thinking of the quartet music as detailed in
Graham Lock's book, Forces in Motion--example.

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Daniel Wolf <djwolf1@a...>
wrote:
> daniel_anthony_stearns wrote:
>
> >
> > Hello Daniel,thanks for the listen. Not sure that it matters much
and
> > I'm also not sure if you weren't just being facetious
> > about "theorists", but let's just say that you don't find many
> > references to tunings like 11 and 13 that mention a use other than
> > avoiding consonance. Here's an excerpt from someone you know, I
think
> > he's a theorists...
> >
> > "Finally, it is worth noting that 11-tone equal temperament,
> > contained within 22-equal, is a ridiculously dissonant tuning,
> > containing hardly any tonal (root-defining) sounds, and none
> > whatsoever within the 5-limit. The serial composer who is willing
to
> > subtract one from the number of notes in the row could be freed
from
> > the constant effort to avoid those intervals in 12-equal which
define
> > a key center."
> >
> > That's from Paul Erlich's Tuning, Tonality, and Twenty-Two-Tone
> > Temperament. It's not that I find any great offence here or that I
> > don't understand what Paul means and how it's useful in the
context
> > of his ideas and his paper, but it's wrong.
>
>
> Methinks that Paul was writing within some deliberately narrow
> constraints: i.e. the article defines "tonality" from one point of
view
> while 11tet actually has some features that are remarkably "tonal"
from
> other plausible viewpoints. For example, I find the 11tet leading
tone
> to be resolutely directional in both purely melodic and harmonic
> settings (although I'll add the caveat that I haven't been able to
get
> 11 or 13 to work "tonally" in textures with much more than 2 tones
at
> once, but I'd venture to guess that that's more likely due to a
deficit
> in my technique that to anything intrinsic in either tuning). And
the
> remark abour the "serial composer" strikes me as odd, because --
> excepting some Webern and perhaps some Goeyvaerts -- I don't know
of any
> serial music where key centers are undefined, but I know a lot of
serial
> music that either enjoys or suffers an overabundance of key
centers, and
> I don't reckon that 11tet will alter this quality.
>
> Might I be excused for making a theoretical observation (albeit a
very
> low -level one) on this list? Following some work in 11 and 13, I
have
> observed that these tunings, when compared to 12, shift weights
among
> the intervallic neighborhoods with regard to their tonality-
defining
> characters. The intervals in the middle of the octave strongly
define
> tonal motion in 12, while 11 and 13 are defined more by intervals
in the
> 2nd and 4th fifths of the octave. The "seconds" in all three
tunings are
> strongly tonal, strongly directional, at least in their most local
> melodic forms.
>
> DJW

🔗George D. Secor <gdsecor@...>

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Daniel Wolf <djwolf1@a...>
wrote:
> George,
>
> for a good example of a well-mapped font, please see Matthew
Hindson's
> "Accidentals" font. The keycaps are quite logically laid out for
English
> QWERTY keyboards and his mappings between PCs and Macs work fine.
I
> appreciate your line of thinking about a "logical keyboard", but
it is
> simply not practical for someone who wants to open up Finale or
Sibelius
> and tinker quickly with the accidentals.

Yes, that's what Dave concluded.

> Compared with a full notation font, Saggital is quite modest in
size,

For a moment I was puzzled by this statement, since there are a grand
total of 222 characters in the font, which requires every possible
position to be used. But I quickly realized that there's an
explanation: you're not playing with a full deck (see next). ;-)

> so
> there seems to be no reason to use the most exotic postions in the
> character set. You should limit the characters to those associated
with
> the standard alphabet in upper and lower cases, the numerals, and
the
> common punctuation set plus characters reached by alt+(any of the
above)
> or its Mac equivalent.

The font with the complete symbol set is not presently out on the
Sagittal website (but will be provided to anyone who requests it),
because our documentation does not yet cover the use of some of the
more exotic symbols. These less-used symbols were removed from the
introductory versions of the font so as not to overwhelm a new user,
who is not yet adept in perceiving subtle differences between symbols
having a similar appearance. In order to make the font files
compatible with one another, symbols should not be located in
different positions in different font versions. The symbols
occupying positions 38 through 250 are in order of amount of pitch
alteration, and therefore, when the least-used symbols are removed,
there will be vacant positions in every region of the range of ASCII
values.

> In the non-standard key signatures feature of Finale, the user
specifies
> a font and then assigns an accidental to each degree of
alteration. For
> example, in the Accidentals font, for a score in quartertones, I
assign
> the flat sign (key cap "b") to -2 degrees, the quarter-flat sign
(key
> cap "d") to -1 degree, the natural (key cap "=") to 0 degrees, the
> quarter-sharp sign (key cap "+") to 1 degree etc.. Finale appears
to
> accept only the key caps described above. The same seems to be true
for
> Lime and Turandot.

So am I correct in believing that there's no point in reassigning the
symbols so that the least-used symbols are given the most exotic
positions? In other words, do you think that anyone would want to
enter symbols from the keyboard rather than from a palette on the
screen?

--George

🔗Daniel Wolf <djwolf1@...>

🔗George D. Secor <gdsecor@...>

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Daniel Wolf <djwolf1@a...>
wrote:
> George D. Secor wrote:
>
> > So am I correct in believing that there's no point in reassigning
the
> > symbols so that the least-used symbols are given the most exotic
> > positions? In other words, do you think that anyone would want to
> > enter symbols from the keyboard rather than from a palette on the
> > screen?
> >
> > --George
>
> I'm sure that most users would prefer to use a palette, but AFAIK
none
> of the notation programs out there at the moment allow such
selection,
> all require keyboard entry.

Daniel,

Dave Keenan has read our discussion and has asked me to forward his
reply, which follows.

--George

--------------------------------------------------------------------
The key caps and character codes for the Sagittal subset so far
described, are now listed at
http://dkeenan.com/sagittal/map/

This table also contains lots of other information about the symbols.
Such a table was long overdue. Thanks for prompting me to finish it
Daniel.

It consists of 6 GIF files, each of which should print at 67% in
landscape format on an A4 sheet.

You will notice that less than half of the symbols (code 126 and
below) can be typed from the keyboard in a straightforward manner,
and they do not include any upward-pointing symbols. As George
explained, the gaps in the character codes are to allow the complete
superset to appear in order of size of pitch alteration (relative to
Pythagorean).

To type the characters whose codes are greater than 126 decimal, in
Microsoft Windows, enable Num Lock, then hold down the Alt key while
typing the decimal character code on the numeric keypad. The
character does not appear until you release the Alt key.

I'm sorry we don't know how to type these using other operating
systems, but we would appreciate it if anyone can tell us. You might
try searching for "typing unicode characters" in your operating
system help. To obtain the unicode for a Sagittal symbol, prefix the
given hexadecimal code with "F0" or add 61440 to its decimal value.

However, using a _character_palette_ to insert these characters is a
far better solution than looking up a list and figuring out how to
type them.

Such a palette may be provided by the application program itself, as
is the case with Microsoft Word and Sibelius, but in any case should
always be available from the operating system since users already
have to deal with entering characters from non-textual fonts such as
mathematical symbols and wingdings.

Microsoft Windows XP has the Character Map utility found at Start/All
Programs/Accessories/System Tools/Character Map.

Mac OS X has a similar utility called Character Palette. These
utilities may exist in earlier versions of these OS's too.

If you're using a Unix-based OS such as Linux I hope that a search on
either "Character Map" or "Character Palette" will reveal a suitable
utility.

These utilities can be used with Finale and other programs that don't
have their own symbol palettes.

If you happen to have Microsoft Word running on your OS, then as a
second-last resort you could presumably use its character palette to
obtain the desired Sagittal symbol and then cut and paste it into
your notation software.

As a last resort you may have to search the web for a third-party
utility like PopChar http://www.ergonis.com/products/popchar/

For Microsoft Word you simply choose Insert/Symbol and choose
Sagittal from the Font menu in the palette window that pops up.

In Sibelius it's a little more involved. You choose House Style/Edit
Symbols then click Music Fonts, then New and Yes. Then type the
word "Sagittal" and choose Sagittal from the Font menu and click OK
and Close. You only have to do that part once, just to let Sibelius
know that Sagittal is a music font. Now back at the symbol editing
window you double-click a blank cell on the palette and choose
Sagittal from the Music Font menu. Then you will see a palette of
Sagittal symbols to choose from.

However, thanks to Jacob Barton there is a much simpler way to use
the most common Sagittal symbols with Sibelius, via his scripts and
saved House Styles, which he has kindly allowed us to provide for
free on the Sagittal website. I'm hoping to obtain an updated version
from him in the next day or so.

Jacob's script allows you to insert a Sagittal symbol by typing either
a) an ASCII character that somewhat resembles it (available for the
most common symbols only), (see the "mixed short ASCII" column in the
table) or
b) a series of ASCII characters that represent the various kinds of
half-arrowheads and shafts making up the Sagittal symbol (see
the "pure long ASCII" column).

We're happy to work with anyone considering Sagittal, to ensure that
it's as easy as possible for you. If you can't find the information
or tools you need on the Sagittal website, don't hesitate to ask.

-- Dave Keenan

🔗Prent Rodgers <prentrodgers@...>

🔗Daniel Wolf <djwolf1@...>

>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> The key caps and character codes for the Sagittal subset so far
> described, are now listed at
> http://dkeenan.com/sagittal/map/
>
> This table also contains lots of other information about the symbols.
> Such a table was long overdue. Thanks for prompting me to finish it
> Daniel.
>

Thanks, Dave

> It consists of 6 GIF files, each of which should print at 67% in
> landscape format on an A4 sheet.
>
> You will notice that less than half of the symbols (code 126 and
> below) can be typed from the keyboard in a straightforward manner,
> and they do not include any upward-pointing symbols. As George
> explained, the gaps in the character codes are to allow the complete
> superset to appear in order of size of pitch alteration (relative to
> Pythagorean).
>
> To type the characters whose codes are greater than 126 decimal, in
> Microsoft Windows, enable Num Lock, then hold down the Alt key while
> typing the decimal character code on the numeric keypad. The
> character does not appear until you release the Alt key.
>
These alt+decimals codes are all do-able in Finale for non-standard key signature accidentals.

>
>
> In Sibelius it's a little more involved. You choose House Style/Edit
> Symbols then click Music Fonts, then New and Yes. Then type the
> word "Sagittal" and choose Sagittal from the Font menu and click OK
> and Close. You only have to do that part once, just to let Sibelius
> know that Sagittal is a music font. Now back at the symbol editing
> window you double-click a blank cell on the palette and choose
> Sagittal from the Music Font menu. Then you will see a palette of
> Sagittal symbols to choose from.
>
> However, thanks to Jacob Barton there is a much simpler way to use
> the most common Sagittal symbols with Sibelius, via his scripts and
> saved House Styles, which he has kindly allowed us to provide for
> free on the Sagittal website. I'm hoping to obtain an updated version
> from him in the next day or so.
>
> Jacob's script allows you to insert a Sagittal symbol by typing either
> a) an ASCII character that somewhat resembles it (available for the
> most common symbols only), (see the "mixed short ASCII" column in the
> table) or
> b) a series of ASCII characters that represent the various kinds of
> half-arrowheads and shafts making up the Sagittal symbol (see
> the "pure long ASCII" column).

Jacob -- Am I correct that in Sibelius, these accidentals can only play back microtonally if attached to a pitchbend message?

🔗daniel_anthony_stearns <daniel_anthony_stearns@...>

thanks prent, I really appreciate the listen and the kind words! And
I agree,this is a very multilayered piece that I think it takes a
while to get the whole thing comfortably ambulatory in your ears.
--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "Prent Rodgers"
<prentrodgers@c...> wrote:
>
> Dan,
> This is a terrific piece. I thoroughly enjoyed every second of it,
> especially the crescendo at the end and the piano/clarinet duo that
> emerges at the 1:50 point. Charles would be proud of your work.
>
> I haven't had a chance to read what others have had to say yet, but
I
> expect a terrific response from the rest of the microtonalists who
> listen to each other's efforts. Great work! It really benefits from
> multiple listenings, as does Ives' work as well.
>
> Prent Rodgers
>
> --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "daniel_anthony_stearns"
> <daniel_anthony_stearns@y...> wrote:
> >
> > Hello everybody,
> >
> > Over the Rivers is a piece I wrote as a personal homage to
Charles
> > Ives for the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his passing.
> > Unfortunately it took a lot longer to complete than I hoped, over
a
> > year for two minutes of music, and the anniversary came and went.
> But
> > Dan Stearns

🔗Prent Rodgers <prentrodgers@...>

🔗Aaron K. Johnson <akjmicro@...>

On Tuesday 12 October 2004 08:52 pm, daniel_anthony_stearns wrote:
> Hello everybody,
>
> Over the Rivers is a piece I wrote as a personal homage to Charles
> Ives for the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his passing.
> Unfortunately it took a lot longer to complete than I hoped, over a
> year for two minutes of music, and the anniversary came and went. But
> I'm very happy with the piece and what's a date anyway; surely
> nothing in the larger scope of appreciating Ives' unique and timeless
> contributions!
>
> Technically speaking, there's a lot going on in this piece, but I'd
> like to take the time to call attention to one aspect in particular.
> Over the Rivers is composed in 11-tone equal temperament. This
> tuning, and other tunings like it, are routinely mentioned by
> theorists as atonal or discordant tunings with little or no practical
> purpose. This is simply not the case,and I intentionally kept this
> piece on the threshold of tonality just to accentuate the unique
> beauty these "atonal" and "discordant" tunings can express if one
> takes the time to look...

Thanks for sharing this Dan. I really enjoyed it ! I'm glad people are doing
work in these 'discordant' tunings. I think in a way they lend themselves
nicely to some of the more esoteric procedures one can use compositionally.
For instance, I think serialism and it's goals are more suited to 11-tet or
13-tet than they are to 12-tet.

Keep 'em coming! This is an exciting time to be on MMM.

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

🔗Aaron K. Johnson <akjmicro@...>

🔗idealordid <jeff@...>

🔗Carl Lumma <ekin@...>

🔗daniel_anthony_stearns <daniel_anthony_stearns@...>

thanks aaron, one of the things I've tried to do is demphasize the
often mentioned atonal aspect of the tunings--tunings lacking close
approximation to tertian sonorities--and emphasize is the unusual,
exotic _tonal possibilities of these types of tunings. So Over the
Rivers is a tonal piece in 11-tone equal temperament, and here's a
link to a tonal piece in 13-tone equal temperament, With Eyes so Blue
and Dreaming.

http://meowing.memh.uc.edu/~chris/micromp3s/suite.html

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "Aaron K. Johnson"
<akjmicro@c...> wrote:
> On Tuesday 12 October 2004 08:52 pm, daniel_anthony_stearns wrote:
> > Hello everybody,
> >
> > Over the Rivers is a piece I wrote as a personal homage to Charles
> > Ives for the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his passing.
> > Unfortunately it took a lot longer to complete than I hoped, over
a
> > year for two minutes of music, and the anniversary came and went.
But
> > I'm very happy with the piece and what's a date anyway; surely
> > nothing in the larger scope of appreciating Ives' unique and
timeless
> > contributions!
> >
> > Technically speaking, there's a lot going on in this piece, but
I'd
> > like to take the time to call attention to one aspect in
particular.
> > Over the Rivers is composed in 11-tone equal temperament. This
> > tuning, and other tunings like it, are routinely mentioned by
> > theorists as atonal or discordant tunings with little or no
practical
> > purpose. This is simply not the case,and I intentionally kept this
> > piece on the threshold of tonality just to accentuate the unique
> > beauty these "atonal" and "discordant" tunings can express if one
> > takes the time to look...
>
> Thanks for sharing this Dan. I really enjoyed it ! I'm glad people
are doing
> work in these 'discordant' tunings. I think in a way they lend
themselves
> nicely to some of the more esoteric procedures one can use
compositionally.
> For instance, I think serialism and it's goals are more suited to
11-tet or
> 13-tet than they are to 12-tet.
>
> Keep 'em coming! This is an exciting time to be on MMM.
>
> Best,
> Aaron Krister Johnson
> http://www.akjmusic.com
> http://www.dividebypi.com

🔗Joseph Pehrson <jpehrson@...>

🔗Daniel Wolf <djwolf1@...>

🔗Prent Rodgers <prentrodgers@...>

Daniel,
I have been enjoying multiple plays of the Nocturne in 9 equal. It has
marvelous way of leading to expectations of tones. Then what we hear
is not what we expect, which is jarring. But then the tone is so sweet
and pleasant and the pitch makes sense for a second. And then there's
another note we have to somehow come to grips with. Which we do. It is
like a very gentle dance walking on rocks across a steam. You have to
be careful to step in the right place, or risk getting wet and cold.
And then you stop on the way and realize where you are, in a very
beautiful spot. I have really enjoyed this work.

I'm not so fond of the string quartet, but I bet it has much more
drama in person than online. I can imagine the dropped bows and
polyrhythms building tension. The bow dragging can be made into a
theatre piece by the right performer.

Prent Rodgers

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Daniel Wolf <djwolf1@a...> wrote:
> A revised soundfont version of the 9tet Nocturne is now online,
> replacing the previous ogg and mp3 versions,
>
> home.snafu.de/djwolf/Nocturne.ogg
> home.snafu.de/djwolf/Nocturne.mp3
>
> as well as a complete ogg of my FIELDWORK (String Quartet II.) , which

🔗Daniel Wolf <djwolf1@...>

Prent Rodgers wrote:

>
> Daniel,
> I have been enjoying multiple plays of the Nocturne in 9 equal. It has
> marvelous way of leading to expectations of tones. Then what we hear
> is not what we expect, which is jarring. But then the tone is so sweet
> and pleasant and the pitch makes sense for a second. And then there's
> another note we have to somehow come to grips with. Which we do. It is
> like a very gentle dance walking on rocks across a steam. You have to
> be careful to step in the right place, or risk getting wet and cold.
> And then you stop on the way and realize where you are, in a very
> beautiful spot. I have really enjoyed this work.
>

Thanks for the kind words. Your description of your listening experience mirrors very closely the way in which 9tet unraveled itself during composition. Some pieces take lots of work, this one almost wrote itself. (Actuall, the hardest part of composing was editing out two phrases. I had originally written nine time nine measures of music plus a cadence, but I felt it needed to be thrown off a bit, and figuring out how to do that was hard.)

> I'm not so fond of the string quartet, but I bet it has much more
> drama in person than online. I can imagine the dropped bows and
> polyrhythms building tension. The bow dragging can be made into a
> theatre piece by the right performer.

Mileage definitely varies. If anything, the quartet resists the dramatic, with a pace like East Asian court music and the battuto playing defintely helps with the comparison. The piece is notated only in whole notes with a very slow tempo, so any faster rhythmic activity is essentially a surface accident. The strangest thing about the piece is that Americans tell me it sounds "European", and Europeans tell me it sounds "American". (As if those adjectives meant anything pin-downable).

Best,

Daniel

Over the Rivers

🔗daniel_anthony_stearns <daniel_anthony_stearns@...>

🔗Daniel Wolf <djwolf1@...>

🔗Daniel Wolf <djwolf1@...>

🔗Jacob <jbarton@...>

🔗Daniel Wolf <djwolf1@...>

🔗Jacob <jbarton@...>

🔗Daniel Wolf <djwolf1@...>

🔗Daniel Wolf <djwolf1@...>

🔗George D. Secor <gdsecor@...>

🔗daniel_anthony_stearns <daniel_anthony_stearns@...>

🔗Carl Lumma <ekin@...>

🔗Daniel Wolf <djwolf1@...>

🔗daniel_anthony_stearns <daniel_anthony_stearns@...>

🔗Daniel Wolf <djwolf1@...>

🔗Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@...>

🔗Carl Lumma <ekin@...>

🔗Carl Lumma <ekin@...>

🔗George D. Secor <gdsecor@...>

🔗Daniel Wolf <djwolf1@...>

🔗daniel_anthony_stearns <daniel_anthony_stearns@...>

🔗George D. Secor <gdsecor@...>

🔗Daniel Wolf <djwolf1@...>

🔗George D. Secor <gdsecor@...>

🔗Prent Rodgers <prentrodgers@...>

🔗Prent Rodgers <prentrodgers@...>

🔗Daniel Wolf <djwolf1@...>

🔗daniel_anthony_stearns <daniel_anthony_stearns@...>

🔗Prent Rodgers <prentrodgers@...>

🔗Aaron K. Johnson <akjmicro@...>

🔗Aaron K. Johnson <akjmicro@...>

🔗idealordid <jeff@...>

🔗Carl Lumma <ekin@...>

🔗daniel_anthony_stearns <daniel_anthony_stearns@...>

🔗Joseph Pehrson <jpehrson@...>

🔗Daniel Wolf <djwolf1@...>

🔗Daniel Wolf <djwolf1@...>

🔗Prent Rodgers <prentrodgers@...>

🔗Daniel Wolf <djwolf1@...>

🔗Prent Rodgers <prentrodgers@...>

🔗Jonathan M. Szanto <JSZANTO@...>