Trying to figure out how microtonal music works is like early man trying to find patterns in the stars

It's so frustrating. I've been a member of this list for like 3 years
now and I still don't understand what's going on at all. I've learned
a ton of math, a bunch about temperaments, tons about harmonic entropy
and psychoacoustics, how to map things into a paradigm regularly, and
so on and so forth -- but I have still yet to figure out how to just
write expressive, emotional music with anything other than 12-tet that
doesn't sound "weird."

If we have all of these "rules" to stop things from sounding "weird"
in 12-tet -- why can't we come up with them for microtonal music as
well? Is it just such a new movement that the big picture hasn't been
figured out yet, or is it that it has, and I just have missed it?

OK, the cliffnotes:
- I V IV I is a beautiful progression
- I ii bVII I is also
- There are tons of amazing sounding 5-limit progressions
- My experiments to extend this and come up with intuitive, emotional,
aesthetically pleasing 7 and 11-limit progressions have basically
failed
- Does anyone see the big picture of all of this yet, and of how chord
progressions work in general?

Sincerely,
-A frustrated Mike Battaglia

PS: not sure if this is legit for the actual tuning list, so I'm posting it here

Hi Mike,

I hear you, and agree.
I personally think the answer is 5-limit JI, and figuring out exactly how it
works.

For what it's worth, 5-limit JI can sound very much like 7-limit only
without the out of tune weirdness, by use of the 75/64 interval etc.
Here my scale for 5-limit JI with major mode on the white keys if you put
1/1 on C.
1/1 25/24 9/8 75/64 5/4 4/3 45/32 3/2 25/16 5/3 225/128 15/8 2/1
The only trick is to play in such a way that you're staying in thesame tonic
(not modulate) or you'll go out of tune, but once you start hearing it (and
reference the tonic major a lot) it's a lot of fun playing with the micro
intervals out of the mode and they sound great.

Marcel

It's so frustrating. I've been a member of this list for like 3 years
> now and I still don't understand what's going on at all. I've learned
> a ton of math, a bunch about temperaments, tons about harmonic entropy
> and psychoacoustics, how to map things into a paradigm regularly, and
> so on and so forth -- but I have still yet to figure out how to just
> write expressive, emotional music with anything other than 12-tet that
> doesn't sound "weird."
>
> If we have all of these "rules" to stop things from sounding "weird"
> in 12-tet -- why can't we come up with them for microtonal music as
> well? Is it just such a new movement that the big picture hasn't been
> figured out yet, or is it that it has, and I just have missed it?
>
> OK, the cliffnotes:
> - I V IV I is a beautiful progression
> - I ii bVII I is also
> - There are tons of amazing sounding 5-limit progressions
> - My experiments to extend this and come up with intuitive, emotional,
> aesthetically pleasing 7 and 11-limit progressions have basically
> failed
> - Does anyone see the big picture of all of this yet, and of how chord
> progressions work in general?
>

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

Hi Mike,

I discovered JI in 1984, and it took me until 1991 before I could write a piece that was microtonal in concept, that couldn't be meaningfully approximated on the piano. I would continue basically in 5-limit, as Marcel suggests, but add in 7th and 11th harmonics to the chords until you start getting used to them. Then if you can pivot around some of the 7th and 11th harmonics (i.e., move from C major with a 7th harmonic to a major triad on that 7/4, or a major triad on 11/8), you might start appreciating some of the weird voice-leading. It took me about another 12 years to internalize the 13th harmonic so that it didn't just sound wrong. I think the trick is to expand outward from what you know and add new elements gradually. At least be reassured you're not the first to have it take so long. And best of luck with it.

Yours,

Kyle

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, Marcel de Velde <m.develde@...> wrote:
>
> Hi Mike,
>
> I hear you, and agree.
> I personally think the answer is 5-limit JI, and figuring out exactly how it
> works.
>
> For what it's worth, 5-limit JI can sound very much like 7-limit only
> without the out of tune weirdness, by use of the 75/64 interval etc.
> Here my scale for 5-limit JI with major mode on the white keys if you put
> 1/1 on C.
> 1/1 25/24 9/8 75/64 5/4 4/3 45/32 3/2 25/16 5/3 225/128 15/8 2/1
> The only trick is to play in such a way that you're staying in thesame tonic
> (not modulate) or you'll go out of tune, but once you start hearing it (and
> reference the tonic major a lot) it's a lot of fun playing with the micro
> intervals out of the mode and they sound great.
>
> Marcel
>
> It's so frustrating. I've been a member of this list for like 3 years
> > now and I still don't understand what's going on at all. I've learned
> > a ton of math, a bunch about temperaments, tons about harmonic entropy
> > and psychoacoustics, how to map things into a paradigm regularly, and
> > so on and so forth -- but I have still yet to figure out how to just
> > write expressive, emotional music with anything other than 12-tet that
> > doesn't sound "weird."
> >
> > If we have all of these "rules" to stop things from sounding "weird"
> > in 12-tet -- why can't we come up with them for microtonal music as
> > well? Is it just such a new movement that the big picture hasn't been
> > figured out yet, or is it that it has, and I just have missed it?
> >
> > OK, the cliffnotes:
> > - I V IV I is a beautiful progression
> > - I ii bVII I is also
> > - There are tons of amazing sounding 5-limit progressions
> > - My experiments to extend this and come up with intuitive, emotional,
> > aesthetically pleasing 7 and 11-limit progressions have basically
> > failed
> > - Does anyone see the big picture of all of this yet, and of how chord
> > progressions work in general?
> >
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

Hey Kyle and Mike,
Good stuff. I really think persistence is the clue, like most things. I personally had to go through a lot of "deprogramming" to be able to conceive things "microtonally". BUT, there was a very distinct THRILL I got -at first!- from hearing the Just Intervals, which I believe is the same as anybody else delighting in hearing the notes in the crevices of any other tuning than 12-equal. Once you hear (!) them, you're hooked. Or, you remember them from centuries before common-practice, if I may be allowed such an eccentricity, and you won't allow any less sensitivity to be interesting. HARD, hard, hard to do these days, from what I see, most often.

--- On Mon, 3/15/10, kylegann1955 <kgann@...> wrote:

From: kylegann1955 <kgann@...>
Subject: [metatuning] Re: Trying to figure out how microtonal music works is like early man trying to
To: metatuning@yahoogroups.com
Date: Monday, March 15, 2010, 5:09 PM

Hi Mike,

I discovered JI in 1984, and it took me until 1991 before I could write a piece that was microtonal in concept, that couldn't be meaningfully approximated on the piano. I would continue basically in 5-limit, as Marcel suggests, but add in 7th and 11th harmonics to the chords until you start getting used to them. Then if you can pivot around some of the 7th and 11th harmonics (i.e., move from C major with a 7th harmonic to a major triad on that 7/4, or a major triad on 11/8), you might start appreciating some of the weird voice-leading. It took me about another 12 years to internalize the 13th harmonic so that it didn't just sound wrong. I think the trick is to expand outward from what you know and add new elements gradually. At least be reassured you're not the first to have it take so long. And best of luck with it.

Yours,

Kyle

--- In metatuning@yahoogro ups.com, Marcel de Velde <m.develde@. ..> wrote:

>

> Hi Mike,

>

> I hear you, and agree.

> I personally think the answer is 5-limit JI, and figuring out exactly how it

> works.

>

> For what it's worth, 5-limit JI can sound very much like 7-limit only

> without the out of tune weirdness, by use of the 75/64 interval etc.

> Here my scale for 5-limit JI with major mode on the white keys if you put

> 1/1 on C.

> 1/1 25/24 9/8 75/64 5/4 4/3 45/32 3/2 25/16 5/3 225/128 15/8 2/1

> The only trick is to play in such a way that you're staying in thesame tonic

> (not modulate) or you'll go out of tune, but once you start hearing it (and

> reference the tonic major a lot) it's a lot of fun playing with the micro

> intervals out of the mode and they sound great.

>

> Marcel

>

> It's so frustrating. I've been a member of this list for like 3 years

> > now and I still don't understand what's going on at all. I've learned

> > a ton of math, a bunch about temperaments, tons about harmonic entropy

> > and psychoacoustics, how to map things into a paradigm regularly, and

> > so on and so forth -- but I have still yet to figure out how to just

> > write expressive, emotional music with anything other than 12-tet that

> > doesn't sound "weird."

> >

> > If we have all of these "rules" to stop things from sounding "weird"

> > in 12-tet -- why can't we come up with them for microtonal music as

> > well? Is it just such a new movement that the big picture hasn't been

> > figured out yet, or is it that it has, and I just have missed it?

> >

> > OK, the cliffnotes:

> > - I V IV I is a beautiful progression

> > - I ii bVII I is also

> > - There are tons of amazing sounding 5-limit progressions

> > - My experiments to extend this and come up with intuitive, emotional,

> > aesthetically pleasing 7 and 11-limit progressions have basically

> > failed

> > - Does anyone see the big picture of all of this yet, and of how chord

> > progressions work in general?

> >

>

>

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

>

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

Hi Kyle,

I know that you have a huge catalogue - are there any piece of yours online
that you felt represented a "breakthrough" for you in how you viewed
7/11-limit JI?

Also, another thing I've been trying is taking chord progressions in 12-tet
that I think already have 7-limit "implications", and tuning them into JI.
See the ||: Abmaj | F7 :|| example I posted. If you keep the C constant
between them, and make the Eb move down "chromatically" by 36/35, it sounds
very intuitive and sort of like the Beatles.

If you keep the Eb held constant, the root instead shifts by 7/6 instead of
6/5. This sounds kind of "off," although I'm sure there's a way to use that
progression somehow.

The thing I don't understand, really, and I think is necessary to understand
what's going on is how exactly the concept of a "key" works. The progression
in which the root moves down by 6/5 sort of creates a stronger tonal center
than the one in which it shifts down by 7/6. This might be because I'm just
"used" to the tonal center resulting from the 6/5 shift and I'm not aware of
an alternate brave new world 21st century type of tonality in which a 7/6
shift actually makes sense.

I've read Paul Erlich's paper on tonality a few times now, but there's still
some piece of the puzzle that's missing in my understanding of it.

-Mike

On Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 8:09 PM, kylegann1955 <kgann@...> wrote:

>
>
> Hi Mike,
>
> I discovered JI in 1984, and it took me until 1991 before I could write a
> piece that was microtonal in concept, that couldn't be meaningfully
> approximated on the piano. I would continue basically in 5-limit, as Marcel
> suggests, but add in 7th and 11th harmonics to the chords until you start
> getting used to them. Then if you can pivot around some of the 7th and 11th
> harmonics (i.e., move from C major with a 7th harmonic to a major triad on
> that 7/4, or a major triad on 11/8), you might start appreciating some of
> the weird voice-leading. It took me about another 12 years to internalize
> the 13th harmonic so that it didn't just sound wrong. I think the trick is
> to expand outward from what you know and add new elements gradually. At
> least be reassured you're not the first to have it take so long. And best of
> luck with it.
>
> Yours,
>
> Kyle
>
> --- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com <metatuning%40yahoogroups.com>, Marcel
> de Velde <m.develde@...> wrote:
> >
> > Hi Mike,
> >
> > I hear you, and agree.
> > I personally think the answer is 5-limit JI, and figuring out exactly how
> it
> > works.
> >
> > For what it's worth, 5-limit JI can sound very much like 7-limit only
> > without the out of tune weirdness, by use of the 75/64 interval etc.
> > Here my scale for 5-limit JI with major mode on the white keys if you put
> > 1/1 on C.
> > 1/1 25/24 9/8 75/64 5/4 4/3 45/32 3/2 25/16 5/3 225/128 15/8 2/1
> > The only trick is to play in such a way that you're staying in thesame
> tonic
> > (not modulate) or you'll go out of tune, but once you start hearing it
> (and
> > reference the tonic major a lot) it's a lot of fun playing with the micro
> > intervals out of the mode and they sound great.
> >
> > Marcel
> >
> > It's so frustrating. I've been a member of this list for like 3 years
> > > now and I still don't understand what's going on at all. I've learned
> > > a ton of math, a bunch about temperaments, tons about harmonic entropy
> > > and psychoacoustics, how to map things into a paradigm regularly, and
> > > so on and so forth -- but I have still yet to figure out how to just
> > > write expressive, emotional music with anything other than 12-tet that
> > > doesn't sound "weird."
> > >
> > > If we have all of these "rules" to stop things from sounding "weird"
> > > in 12-tet -- why can't we come up with them for microtonal music as
> > > well? Is it just such a new movement that the big picture hasn't been
> > > figured out yet, or is it that it has, and I just have missed it?
> > >
> > > OK, the cliffnotes:
> > > - I V IV I is a beautiful progression
> > > - I ii bVII I is also
> > > - There are tons of amazing sounding 5-limit progressions
> > > - My experiments to extend this and come up with intuitive, emotional,
> > > aesthetically pleasing 7 and 11-limit progressions have basically
> > > failed
> > > - Does anyone see the big picture of all of this yet, and of how chord
> > > progressions work in general?
> > >
> >
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
>
>
>

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

Mike,

You might look at the score

http://www.kylegann.com/SuperparticularWoman.pdf

and listen to the recording

http://www.kylegann.com/boing.mp3

of my earliest microtonal piece, Superparticular Woman. Not a great piece by any standard, but I wrote it around a group of harmonic series' which all contained the pitch G, either as 1st harmonic, 3rd, 5th, 7th, etc. In the early days I found it easiest to have some drone pitch around which the chords revolved. I was impressed that so simple a stratagem gave me such exotic pitch shifts in the voice leading. In a more recent piece Solitaire

http://www.kylegann.com/Solitaire.mp3

and

http://www.kylegann.com/Solitaire.pdf

I used simple chords in the key of Eb (ii, IV, V, vi) along with others based on the 7th harmonic, 7th subharmonic, 11th harmonic, and 13th harmonic. Maybe these will suggest a way to start with the familiar and move slowly into the more exotic. And thanks for your interest.

Yours,

Kyle

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> Hi Kyle,
>
> I know that you have a huge catalogue - are there any piece of yours online
> that you felt represented a "breakthrough" for you in how you viewed
> 7/11-limit JI?
>
> Also, another thing I've been trying is taking chord progressions in 12-tet
> that I think already have 7-limit "implications", and tuning them into JI.
> See the ||: Abmaj | F7 :|| example I posted. If you keep the C constant
> between them, and make the Eb move down "chromatically" by 36/35, it sounds
> very intuitive and sort of like the Beatles.
>
> If you keep the Eb held constant, the root instead shifts by 7/6 instead of
> 6/5. This sounds kind of "off," although I'm sure there's a way to use that
> progression somehow.
>
> The thing I don't understand, really, and I think is necessary to understand
> what's going on is how exactly the concept of a "key" works. The progression
> in which the root moves down by 6/5 sort of creates a stronger tonal center
> than the one in which it shifts down by 7/6. This might be because I'm just
> "used" to the tonal center resulting from the 6/5 shift and I'm not aware of
> an alternate brave new world 21st century type of tonality in which a 7/6
> shift actually makes sense.
>
> I've read Paul Erlich's paper on tonality a few times now, but there's still
> some piece of the puzzle that's missing in my understanding of it.
>
> -Mike
>
>
> On Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 8:09 PM, kylegann1955 <kgann@...> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > Hi Mike,
> >
> > I discovered JI in 1984, and it took me until 1991 before I could write a
> > piece that was microtonal in concept, that couldn't be meaningfully
> > approximated on the piano. I would continue basically in 5-limit, as Marcel
> > suggests, but add in 7th and 11th harmonics to the chords until you start
> > getting used to them. Then if you can pivot around some of the 7th and 11th
> > harmonics (i.e., move from C major with a 7th harmonic to a major triad on
> > that 7/4, or a major triad on 11/8), you might start appreciating some of
> > the weird voice-leading. It took me about another 12 years to internalize
> > the 13th harmonic so that it didn't just sound wrong. I think the trick is
> > to expand outward from what you know and add new elements gradually. At
> > least be reassured you're not the first to have it take so long. And best of
> > luck with it.
> >
> > Yours,
> >
> > Kyle
> >
> > --- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com <metatuning%40yahoogroups.com>, Marcel
> > de Velde <m.develde@> wrote:
> > >
> > > Hi Mike,
> > >
> > > I hear you, and agree.
> > > I personally think the answer is 5-limit JI, and figuring out exactly how
> > it
> > > works.
> > >
> > > For what it's worth, 5-limit JI can sound very much like 7-limit only
> > > without the out of tune weirdness, by use of the 75/64 interval etc.
> > > Here my scale for 5-limit JI with major mode on the white keys if you put
> > > 1/1 on C.
> > > 1/1 25/24 9/8 75/64 5/4 4/3 45/32 3/2 25/16 5/3 225/128 15/8 2/1
> > > The only trick is to play in such a way that you're staying in thesame
> > tonic
> > > (not modulate) or you'll go out of tune, but once you start hearing it
> > (and
> > > reference the tonic major a lot) it's a lot of fun playing with the micro
> > > intervals out of the mode and they sound great.
> > >
> > > Marcel
> > >
> > > It's so frustrating. I've been a member of this list for like 3 years
> > > > now and I still don't understand what's going on at all. I've learned
> > > > a ton of math, a bunch about temperaments, tons about harmonic entropy
> > > > and psychoacoustics, how to map things into a paradigm regularly, and
> > > > so on and so forth -- but I have still yet to figure out how to just
> > > > write expressive, emotional music with anything other than 12-tet that
> > > > doesn't sound "weird."
> > > >
> > > > If we have all of these "rules" to stop things from sounding "weird"
> > > > in 12-tet -- why can't we come up with them for microtonal music as
> > > > well? Is it just such a new movement that the big picture hasn't been
> > > > figured out yet, or is it that it has, and I just have missed it?
> > > >
> > > > OK, the cliffnotes:
> > > > - I V IV I is a beautiful progression
> > > > - I ii bVII I is also
> > > > - There are tons of amazing sounding 5-limit progressions
> > > > - My experiments to extend this and come up with intuitive, emotional,
> > > > aesthetically pleasing 7 and 11-limit progressions have basically
> > > > failed
> > > > - Does anyone see the big picture of all of this yet, and of how chord
> > > > progressions work in general?
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> > >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

Damn, I can't believe I missed this. Sorry to revive an old thread, but I've got a few ideas on this. It has become my main area of interest!

There are a few basic ways that we can work effectively with chord progressions in microtonal scales, and they are all derived from ways that we work with 12-tET. I'll list them:

1. Start with a melody and harmonize it.

2. Use a scale based on a chain of some interval, analogous to the circle of fifths, and apply tonic/dominant/subdominant/mediant/etc.-esque relationships to this structure. For example, in the Porcupine scale (generated by, say, a chain of 160-cent intervals), the dominant is the chord 160 cents up from the tonic, and the subdominant is 160 cents down. Leads to some odd cadences, but works surprisingly well!

3. Use common tones. Rare is the scale that you can't move from one consonant triad to another by raising or lowering a single note. Depending on the scale, you will have different common-tone linkages between the notes in the scale.

Really, the hard thing about "extended JI" (i.e. trying to add in 7, 11, 13th harmonics etc.) is that they either multiply the number of notes in the scale or they diminish the total number of consonant triads...unless you drop some lower harmonics all together. Each harmonic adds another dimension to the tonal framework, complicating common-tone progressions and general tonal relationships, also allowing in more commatic inflections. This is why I prefer to work with temperaments--in JI, you can't get from the 5th harmonic to the 7th by any sort of common-tone or chain progression, but in some temperaments, you can. That has a way of "integrating" different primes into a more unified tonal framework.

Of course, the most important thing first of all is to just explore different chords, and figure out which ones you like and want to base a tonality upon. There are lots of possibilities of basic JI chords, which can then be tempered in various ways to fit different tonal structures. Look at meantone, porcupine, and blackwood--all these have essentially a 4:5:6 and 1/4:5:6 basis (maybe), but these triads are tempered and twisted in different ways and thus create different chains. The common-tone progressions in each one follow different paths. Using a familiar triadic basis but inserting it into a different tonal structure is one good way of making non-stupid microtonal music. Alternatively, you can try a totally different basis--maybe an 8:11:13, a 16:18:21, a 6:7:9, a 5:6:7...it doesn't have to be concordant, and it doesn't have to be rooted, and it doesn't have to be Just, it just has to "say something" to you. Then start looking at different temperaments, or try out some different lattice-like JI structures generated by making common-tone chains emanating from your tonic triad. You can start with tetrads if you like, but if you don't treat tetrads as two triads that share two common tones, that will complicate things.

Using this sort of approach, I feel like I've been able to produce music in many different temperaments which, even if it sounds "out of tune", still feels logical and natural.

Also, there is no reason not to apply standard principles of chromatic harmony--for instance, arriving at the tonic by means of a leading-tone, even if the leading-tone is out of scale. That will *always* work, no matter what the scale, no matter what type of triad.

This is not the only way to work, of course; JI guys like Dante and Kyle have found their own way and their own techniques. But this is how I break it down.

-Igs

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> It's so frustrating. I've been a member of this list for like 3 years
> now and I still don't understand what's going on at all. I've learned
> a ton of math, a bunch about temperaments, tons about harmonic entropy
> and psychoacoustics, how to map things into a paradigm regularly, and
> so on and so forth -- but I have still yet to figure out how to just
> write expressive, emotional music with anything other than 12-tet that
> doesn't sound "weird."
>
> If we have all of these "rules" to stop things from sounding "weird"
> in 12-tet -- why can't we come up with them for microtonal music as
> well? Is it just such a new movement that the big picture hasn't been
> figured out yet, or is it that it has, and I just have missed it?
>
> OK, the cliffnotes:
> - I V IV I is a beautiful progression
> - I ii bVII I is also
> - There are tons of amazing sounding 5-limit progressions
> - My experiments to extend this and come up with intuitive, emotional,
> aesthetically pleasing 7 and 11-limit progressions have basically
> failed
> - Does anyone see the big picture of all of this yet, and of how chord
> progressions work in general?
>
> Sincerely,
> -A frustrated Mike Battaglia
>
> PS: not sure if this is legit for the actual tuning list, so I'm posting it here
>

I never understood why one would worry about consonant triads and then go to an ET where one has no consonant chords. or if you accept the tolenence, why can one not tlolerate the same things in a JI scale?
If one uses a JI system one picks the notes one wants as many or as little as one wants and as one works with the scale, one can change one or two notes according to how and where one uses it. Anyway all those chords that might not look like consonances might sound way better than the numbers tells us.
The only way to know is th play it.
With an ET as soon as one want something different the whole system collapses cause there is no where to add and subtract from.
Just about every one i know who uses a small number of scales modifies it after playing it for some period. In this way the scale evolves as one experience changes and one becomes aware of things that paper will never tells us. what has been the result of 15 years of number crunching on the tuning list?

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "cityoftheasleep" <igliashon@...> wrote:
>
> Damn, I can't believe I missed this. Sorry to revive an old thread, but I've got a few ideas on this. It has become my main area of interest!
>
> There are a few basic ways that we can work effectively with chord progressions in microtonal scales, and they are all derived from ways that we work with 12-tET. I'll list them:
>
> 1. Start with a melody and harmonize it.
>
> 2. Use a scale based on a chain of some interval, analogous to the circle of fifths, and apply tonic/dominant/subdominant/mediant/etc.-esque relationships to this structure. For example, in the Porcupine scale (generated by, say, a chain of 160-cent intervals), the dominant is the chord 160 cents up from the tonic, and the subdominant is 160 cents down. Leads to some odd cadences, but works surprisingly well!
>
> 3. Use common tones. Rare is the scale that you can't move from one consonant triad to another by raising or lowering a single note. Depending on the scale, you will have different common-tone linkages between the notes in the scale.
>
> Really, the hard thing about "extended JI" (i.e. trying to add in 7, 11, 13th harmonics etc.) is that they either multiply the number of notes in the scale or they diminish the total number of consonant triads...unless you drop some lower harmonics all together. Each harmonic adds another dimension to the tonal framework, complicating common-tone progressions and general tonal relationships, also allowing in more commatic inflections. This is why I prefer to work with temperaments--in JI, you can't get from the 5th harmonic to the 7th by any sort of common-tone or chain progression, but in some temperaments, you can. That has a way of "integrating" different primes into a more unified tonal framework.
>
> Of course, the most important thing first of all is to just explore different chords, and figure out which ones you like and want to base a tonality upon. There are lots of possibilities of basic JI chords, which can then be tempered in various ways to fit different tonal structures. Look at meantone, porcupine, and blackwood--all these have essentially a 4:5:6 and 1/4:5:6 basis (maybe), but these triads are tempered and twisted in different ways and thus create different chains. The common-tone progressions in each one follow different paths. Using a familiar triadic basis but inserting it into a different tonal structure is one good way of making non-stupid microtonal music. Alternatively, you can try a totally different basis--maybe an 8:11:13, a 16:18:21, a 6:7:9, a 5:6:7...it doesn't have to be concordant, and it doesn't have to be rooted, and it doesn't have to be Just, it just has to "say something" to you. Then start looking at different temperaments, or try out some different lattice-like JI structures generated by making common-tone chains emanating from your tonic triad. You can start with tetrads if you like, but if you don't treat tetrads as two triads that share two common tones, that will complicate things.
>
> Using this sort of approach, I feel like I've been able to produce music in many different temperaments which, even if it sounds "out of tune", still feels logical and natural.
>
> Also, there is no reason not to apply standard principles of chromatic harmony--for instance, arriving at the tonic by means of a leading-tone, even if the leading-tone is out of scale. That will *always* work, no matter what the scale, no matter what type of triad.
>
> This is not the only way to work, of course; JI guys like Dante and Kyle have found their own way and their own techniques. But this is how I break it down.
>
> -Igs
>
> --- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@> wrote:
> >
> > It's so frustrating. I've been a member of this list for like 3 years
> > now and I still don't understand what's going on at all. I've learned
> > a ton of math, a bunch about temperaments, tons about harmonic entropy
> > and psychoacoustics, how to map things into a paradigm regularly, and
> > so on and so forth -- but I have still yet to figure out how to just
> > write expressive, emotional music with anything other than 12-tet that
> > doesn't sound "weird."
> >
> > If we have all of these "rules" to stop things from sounding "weird"
> > in 12-tet -- why can't we come up with them for microtonal music as
> > well? Is it just such a new movement that the big picture hasn't been
> > figured out yet, or is it that it has, and I just have missed it?
> >
> > OK, the cliffnotes:
> > - I V IV I is a beautiful progression
> > - I ii bVII I is also
> > - There are tons of amazing sounding 5-limit progressions
> > - My experiments to extend this and come up with intuitive, emotional,
> > aesthetically pleasing 7 and 11-limit progressions have basically
> > failed
> > - Does anyone see the big picture of all of this yet, and of how chord
> > progressions work in general?
> >
> > Sincerely,
> > -A frustrated Mike Battaglia
> >
> > PS: not sure if this is legit for the actual tuning list, so I'm posting it here
> >
>

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "Brofessor" <kraiggrady@...> wrote:
>
> I never understood why one would worry about consonant triads and then go to an ET
> where one has no consonant chords. or if you accept the tolerance, why can one not
> tolerate the same things in a JI scale?

I don't really "worry" about anything, but I do indeed have a much higher threshold for "consonance" than most people seem to. So given that I do accept tolerance, I have a lot of reasons for not working in JI anymore (I did give it a shot a few years ago).

Reason 1: Every EDO has a character, a unique sonic fingerprint that I can pretty reliably identify. JI systems, on the other hand, seem to lack this (at least to my ears). I can tell 7-limit from 5, and 11-limit from 7, but 13 and 11 don't sound much different to me. Above that and I am not sure I could tell it wasn't tempered. And I certainly couldn't tell a dekany from a harmonic series from a duodene to save my life. In the realm of EDOs, each one has its characteristic interval set, and its characteristic way of manifesting the intervals it has. I think the lack of JI purity gives interesting "color".

Reason 2: I find limitation to be artistically inspiring. I am not a terribly decisive person, and most of my attempts at devising JI pitch constructions have met with failure because of this indecision. Simply put, I find the infinite possibility to be paralyzing. I've always found great inspiration in working with EDOs thought to be "harsh" or "dissonant" or even "useless", because I almost always find that the common opinion of them is totally wrong and that beauty lurks within the heart of the ugliest beast. I feel that it's benefited me as a musician to constantly challenge myself with the limited resources of EDOs like 10, 16, and 18.

Reason 3: I find working with JI to be clumsy, confusing, and difficult. From one 12-note JI gamut, one might have thousands of unique pentatonic possibilities (as I believe you recently mentioned on one of the other lists), and to me, this means just more scales to sift through to find the one I'm looking for. Also, the whole "change the tonic, change all the ratios" thing always bugged me, I felt like changing keys required some kind of crazy matrix-multiplication operation. The only decent music in JI I ever made was after I gave up on thinking about the ratios and just let my fingers find what they could in the system. But then going back and trying to analyze what I played was just...awful, I absolutely HATED it. With equal scales, I only have to think in terms of scale steps and interval classes. In JI, the definition of a "step" is so utterly relative that it's useless, a step could be a 9/8 or 15/14 or 131/128 or a 21/19 or whatever, depending on the scale you construct and where you are in it. And you ALWAYS get more ratios than you bargain for, like how in a 5-limit JI major scale, you don't just get a 1/1, 9/8, 5/4, 4/3, 3/2, 5/3, 15/8, 2/1. No, you also get a 40/27, a 10/9, a 45/32, etc. etc. So adding or subtracting a single interval is never so simple, it always smuggles in a bunch of other intervals and you have to account for them too. Unless you draw out the full matrix of modal rotations, you won't know what intervals are *really* in your scale. That always bothered me. And unless you're willing to put up with having two notes spaced very closely together, it is many times impossible to have "every note you want exactly where you want it".

4. I don't think it's worth my time to try to devise a JI system that really fits me. It would take a lot of trial and error, a lot of actually playing music and tweaking the scale, really "walking around inside it and rearranging the furniture", and I don't think I could ever be sure I'd be satisfied with it. Having the responsibility placed on me to "create" the scale would make me feel like it really had to be perfect before I could commit it to an acoustic (non-software) instrument. It would mean more time crunching numbers, multiplying ratios, and diddling around, and less time making serious music. I have a hard enough time concentrating on making music as it is, if I had to bear the burden of crafting my scales from scratch as well, I'd NEVER get around to it.

Ultimately, of course, all these reasons emanate from my own personality. I can perfectly well understand why other people prefer JI. There are people in this world who really want to create their own proprietary universe, a whole musical mythos and cosmology hoisted up on their own bootstraps. You, Erv, and Harry Partch come to mind. I admire this, I deeply respect it, and I am often thrilled and inspired by the music that results. But this approach simply does not suit me. I'm more a scavenger and a collector than I am an artisan or craftsman.

-Igs

On Sat, Nov 27, 2010 at 7:02 PM, cityoftheasleep
<igliashon@...> wrote:
>
> --- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "Brofessor" <kraiggrady@...> wrote:
> >
> > I never understood why one would worry about consonant triads and then go to an ET
> > where one has no consonant chords. or if you accept the tolerance, why can one not
> > tolerate the same things in a JI scale?
>
> I don't really "worry" about anything, but I do indeed have a much higher threshold for "consonance" than most people seem to. So given that I do accept tolerance, I have a lot of reasons for not working in JI anymore (I did give it a shot a few years ago).

Yeah, this. I'm amazed at how much awesomeness there is out there once
you just learn to accept error.

> Reason 1: Every EDO has a character, a unique sonic fingerprint that I can pretty reliably identify. JI systems, on the other hand, seem to lack this (at least to my ears). I can tell 7-limit from 5, and 11-limit from 7, but 13 and 11 don't sound much different to me. Above that and I am not sure I could tell it wasn't tempered. And I certainly couldn't tell a dekany from a harmonic series from a duodene to save my life. In the realm of EDOs, each one has its characteristic interval set, and its characteristic way of manifesting the intervals it has. I think the lack of JI purity gives interesting "color".

They're also these little marvels of engineering that handle a zillion
things with only, say, 16 notes.

-Mike

"The only decent music in JI I ever made was after I gave up on thinking
about the ratios and just let my fingers find what they could in the
system."

thats what i do.

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

there are no errors.
Each interval is a thing in itself.
It seems as if you defined it you would then turn around and say you have to do an error on that one.
if you like something off of JI i might guess you want them to beat,
In which case one determines what speed one like the beating to be at.
Then you base a scale on sometime , not on a not something.

/^_,',',',_ //^/Kraig Grady_^_,',',',_
Mesotonal Music from:
_'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere:
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>

_'''''''_^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria <http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>

',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',

a momentary antenna as i turn to water
this evaporates - an island once again

On 28/11/10 11:11 AM, Mike Battaglia wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 27, 2010 at 7:02 PM, cityoftheasleep
> <igliashon@...> wrote:
>> --- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "Brofessor"<kraiggrady@...> wrote:
>>> I never understood why one would worry about consonant triads and then go to an ET
>>> where one has no consonant chords. or if you accept the tolerance, why can one not
>>> tolerate the same things in a JI scale?
>> I don't really "worry" about anything, but I do indeed have a much higher threshold for "consonance" than most people seem to. So given that I do accept tolerance, I have a lot of reasons for not working in JI anymore (I did give it a shot a few years ago).
> Yeah, this. I'm amazed at how much awesomeness there is out there once
> you just learn to accept error.
>
>> Reason 1: Every EDO has a character, a unique sonic fingerprint that I can pretty reliably identify. JI systems, on the other hand, seem to lack this (at least to my ears). I can tell 7-limit from 5, and 11-limit from 7, but 13 and 11 don't sound much different to me. Above that and I am not sure I could tell it wasn't tempered. And I certainly couldn't tell a dekany from a harmonic series from a duodene to save my life. In the realm of EDOs, each one has its characteristic interval set, and its characteristic way of manifesting the intervals it has. I think the lack of JI purity gives interesting "color".
> They're also these little marvels of engineering that handle a zillion
> things with only, say, 16 notes.
>
> -Mike
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Meta Tuning meta-info:
>
> To unsubscribe, send an email to:
> metatuning-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
> Web page is http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/metatuning/
>
> To post to the list, send to
> metatuning@yahoogroups.com
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>

On Sat, Nov 27, 2010 at 7:22 PM, Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@...> wrote:
>
> there are no errors.
> Each interval is a thing in itself.
> It seems as if you defined it you would then turn around and say
> you have to do an error on that one.
> if you like something off of JI i might guess you want them to beat,
> In which case one determines what speed one like the beating
> to be at.
> Then you base a scale on sometime , not on a not something.

I mean more in the sense that I used to always run away from these
inaccurate tunings, like mavila for example, and now I really like
them. My goal, for a while, was to get super-accurate 7-limit
intervals with some relatively low-numbered ET, and now in contrast
I'm really happy using 17-tet and playing that supermajor third all
the time.

-Mike

I don't believe you hear this way.
are you going to tell me harry partch , lou harrison. ben johnson and lamonte young all sound the same and don't have a particular flavor?
or that my music sounds like any of these? ( except when it is deliberate)

every combination of any pitches has a flavor

The other option is to base a scale directly on an MOS of any single generator one wants.
So you would have two different size smaller intervals instead of two, and you could go further if you wanted to.

there are good reasons to do ET though and understand it fits the way one is used to thinking about a scale.

/^_,',',',_ //^/Kraig Grady_^_,',',',_
Mesotonal Music from:
_'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere:
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>

_'''''''_^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria <http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>

',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',

a momentary antenna as i turn to water
this evaporates - an island once again

On 28/11/10 11:02 AM, cityoftheasleep wrote:
>
> Reason 1: Every EDO has a character, a unique sonic fingerprint that I can pretty reliably identify. JI systems, on the other hand, seem to lack this (at least to my ears). I can tell 7-limit from 5, and 11-limit from 7, but 13 and 11 don't sound much different to me. Above that and I am not sure I could tell it wasn't tempered. And I certainly couldn't tell a dekany from a harmonic series from a duodene to save my life. In the realm of EDOs, each one has its characteristic interval set, and its characteristic way of manifesting the intervals it has. I think the lack of JI purity gives interesting "color".
>
>

here is a document on 13 , easily applicable to 13 ET though
since you like it:)

http://anaphoria.com/13.pdf

Reason 3 i think is you most valid argument.
it can be

The only decent music in JI I ever made was after I gave up on thinking about the ratios and just let my fingers find what they could in the system.

this is the course of action in any tuning

/^_,',',',_ //^/Kraig Grady_^_,',',',_
Mesotonal Music from:
_'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere:
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>

_'''''''_^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria
<http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>

',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',

a momentary antenna as i turn to water
this evaporates - an island once again

On 28/11/10 11:02 AM, cityoftheasleep wrote:
> --- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "Brofessor"<kraiggrady@...> wrote:
>> I never understood why one would worry about consonant triads and then go to an ET
>> where one has no consonant chords. or if you accept the tolerance, why can one not
>> tolerate the same things in a JI scale?
> I don't really "worry" about anything, but I do indeed have a much higher threshold for "consonance" than most people seem to. So given that I do accept tolerance, I have a lot of reasons for not working in JI anymore (I did give it a shot a few years ago).
>
> Reason 1: Every EDO has a character, a unique sonic fingerprint that I can pretty reliably identify. JI systems, on the other hand, seem to lack this (at least to my ears). I can tell 7-limit from 5, and 11-limit from 7, but 13 and 11 don't sound much different to me. Above that and I am not sure I could tell it wasn't tempered. And I certainly couldn't tell a dekany from a harmonic series from a duodene to save my life. In the realm of EDOs, each one has its characteristic interval set, and its characteristic way of manifesting the intervals it has. I think the lack of JI purity gives interesting "color".
>
> Reason 2: I find limitation to be artistically inspiring. I am not a terribly decisive person, and most of my attempts at devising JI pitch constructions have met with failure because of this indecision. Simply put, I find the infinite possibility to be paralyzing. I've always found great inspiration in working with EDOs thought to be "harsh" or "dissonant" or even "useless", because I almost always find that the common opinion of them is totally wrong and that beauty lurks within the heart of the ugliest beast. I feel that it's benefited me as a musician to constantly challenge myself with the limited resources of EDOs like 10, 16, and 18.
>
> Reason 3: I find working with JI to be clumsy, confusing, and difficult. From one 12-note JI gamut, one might have thousands of unique pentatonic possibilities (as I believe you recently mentioned on one of the other lists), and to me, this means just more scales to sift through to find the one I'm looking for. Also, the whole "change the tonic, change all the ratios" thing always bugged me, I felt like changing keys required some kind of crazy matrix-multiplication operation. The only decent music in JI I ever made was after I gave up on thinking about the ratios and just let my fingers find what they could in the system. But then going back and trying to analyze what I played was just...awful, I absolutely HATED it. With equal scales, I only have to think in terms of scale steps and interval classes. In JI, the definition of a "step" is so utterly relative that it's useless, a step could be a 9/8 or 15/14 or 131/128 or a 21/19 or whatever, depending on the scale you construct and where you are in it. And you ALWAYS get more ratios than you bargain for, like how in a 5-limit JI major scale, you don't just get a 1/1, 9/8, 5/4, 4/3, 3/2, 5/3, 15/8, 2/1. No, you also get a 40/27, a 10/9, a 45/32, etc. etc. So adding or subtracting a single interval is never so simple, it always smuggles in a bunch of other intervals and you have to account for them too. Unless you draw out the full matrix of modal rotations, you won't know what intervals are *really* in your scale. That always bothered me. And unless you're willing to put up with having two notes spaced very closely together, it is many times impossible to have "every note you want exactly where you want it".
>
> 4. I don't think it's worth my time to try to devise a JI system that really fits me. It would take a lot of trial and error, a lot of actually playing music and tweaking the scale, really "walking around inside it and rearranging the furniture", and I don't think I could ever be sure I'd be satisfied with it. Having the responsibility placed on me to "create" the scale would make me feel like it really had to be perfect before I could commit it to an acoustic (non-software) instrument. It would mean more time crunching numbers, multiplying ratios, and diddling around, and less time making serious music. I have a hard enough time concentrating on making music as it is, if I had to bear the burden of crafting my scales from scratch as well, I'd NEVER get around to it.
>
> Ultimately, of course, all these reasons emanate from my own personality. I can perfectly well understand why other people prefer JI. There are people in this world who really want to create their own proprietary universe, a whole musical mythos and cosmology hoisted up on their own bootstraps. You, Erv, and Harry Partch come to mind. I admire this, I deeply respect it, and I am often thrilled and inspired by the music that results. But this approach simply does not suit me. I'm more a scavenger and a collector than I am an artisan or craftsman.
>
> -Igs
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Meta Tuning meta-info:
>
> To unsubscribe, send an email to:
> metatuning-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
> Web page is http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/metatuning/
>
> To post to the list, send to
> metatuning@yahoogroups.com
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>

yes i just posted that too.

/^_,',',',_ //^/Kraig Grady_^_,',',',_
Mesotonal Music from:
_'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere:
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>

_'''''''_^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria <http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>

',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',

a momentary antenna as i turn to water
this evaporates - an island once again

On 28/11/10 11:14 AM, Dante Rosati wrote:
> "The only decent music in JI I ever made was after I gave up on thinking
> about the ratios and just let my fingers find what they could in the
> system."
>
> thats what i do.
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Meta Tuning meta-info:
>
> To unsubscribe, send an email to:
> metatuning-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
> Web page is http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/metatuning/
>
> To post to the list, send to
> metatuning@yahoogroups.com
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>

i like Meta mavila allot which is the numerical version, so even when we agree we disagree:)
And 17 always sounded better than 19 to me.
Both supply allot of energy from the get go which might be why a low interval JI might not be appealing.

/^_,',',',_ //^/Kraig Grady_^_,',',',_
Mesotonal Music from:
_'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere:
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>

_'''''''_^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria <http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>

',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',

a momentary antenna as i turn to water
this evaporates - an island once again

On 28/11/10 11:23 AM, Mike Battaglia wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 27, 2010 at 7:22 PM, Kraig Grady<kraiggrady@...> wrote:
>> there are no errors.
>> Each interval is a thing in itself.
>> It seems as if you defined it you would then turn around and say
>> you have to do an error on that one.
>> if you like something off of JI i might guess you want them to beat,
>> In which case one determines what speed one like the beating
>> to be at.
>> Then you base a scale on sometime , not on a not something.
> I mean more in the sense that I used to always run away from these
> inaccurate tunings, like mavila for example, and now I really like
> them. My goal, for a while, was to get super-accurate 7-limit
> intervals with some relatively low-numbered ET, and now in contrast
> I'm really happy using 17-tet and playing that supermajor third all
> the time.
>
> -Mike
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Meta Tuning meta-info:
>
> To unsubscribe, send an email to:
> metatuning-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
> Web page is http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/metatuning/
>
> To post to the list, send to
> metatuning@yahoogroups.com
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>

On Sat, Nov 27, 2010 at 7:52 PM, Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@...> wrote:
>
> i like Meta mavila allot which is the numerical version, so even
> when we agree we disagree:)
> And 17 always sounded better than 19 to me.
> Both supply allot of energy from the get go which might be why
> a low interval JI might not be appealing.

I don't hate JI. I just like equal temperaments for their
transpositional ability, which is very important to me given my
musical background.

And at this point I think there's a huge musical benefit to detuning
JI on purpose, like with mavila. The flat fifths have a certain sound
that I enjoy. And 13-tet has sharp fifths with a sound I also enjoy.

If you really want to know what I think, I think it's all going to
boil back down to harmonic entropy in the end, so I don't think that
10:12:15 is really heard as the 10:12:15'th chunk of the harmonic
series. I think it's heard as 4:xxxxx:6, where xxxxx is some crap that
isn't 5, but it could maybe be a screwed up 5, but not really, but
maybe it's 6:7:9, maybe it's related, maybe not, etc.

i.e. I think a minor chord is drawing its sound from NOT sounding like
a particular chunk of the harmonic series, rather than its sounding
precisely like 10:12:15. This is why 6:7:9 and 16:19:24 and 10:12:15
sound as similar as they do, I think. So In that sense, the
super-sharp fifths of 13-tet can be used similarly as musical assets
that create a musical feeling because they AREN'T perfect 2:3's.

That's right now an unpopular view with both the HE crowd and the
crowd that hates HE, but it's what I think regardless. So that's why I
think JI is limiting, and why I think you can find utility in even the
most out of tune ET's (because their out of tune-ness provides its own
utility).

Down the road I'll come up with a way to model this and we'll do some
listening tests and see how people react.

-Mike

I can understand the transpositional capability. i don't mind that when i transpose a few of the intervals change a little, it is like a slight timbral change to me ear. so often with a JI system i will be thinking more on the lines of a scale more than ratios. It took me quite a few years of letting that go.

I am sold on proportional triads the chords generates the members of the scales by difference tones.
i see it in both african and indonesian tunings.

i am sure HE will lead some where , but i might be dead by then and also i have absolutely no interest in playing basic slightly retuned triads in I-IV-V progressions.
i can already play 6-7-9 and i can hear what it does.
What do you foresee that this theory will result in achieving that isn't self evident?

i am again ask you to consider what is it in it detuned JI intervals that you like.
If i define them as a higher JI interval i am afraid you will just say you want to detune them.
I am not going to buy this at all.

/^_,',',',_ //^/Kraig Grady_^_,',',',_
Mesotonal Music from:
_'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere:
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>

_'''''''_^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria <http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>

',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',

a momentary antenna as i turn to water
this evaporates - an island once again

On 28/11/10 12:13 PM, Mike Battaglia wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 27, 2010 at 7:52 PM, Kraig Grady<kraiggrady@...> wrote:
>> i like Meta mavila allot which is the numerical version, so even
>> when we agree we disagree:)
>> And 17 always sounded better than 19 to me.
>> Both supply allot of energy from the get go which might be why
>> a low interval JI might not be appealing.
> I don't hate JI. I just like equal temperaments for their
> transpositional ability, which is very important to me given my
> musical background.
>
> And at this point I think there's a huge musical benefit to detuning
> JI on purpose, like with mavila. The flat fifths have a certain sound
> that I enjoy. And 13-tet has sharp fifths with a sound I also enjoy.
>
> If you really want to know what I think, I think it's all going to
> boil back down to harmonic entropy in the end, so I don't think that
> 10:12:15 is really heard as the 10:12:15'th chunk of the harmonic
> series. I think it's heard as 4:xxxxx:6, where xxxxx is some crap that
> isn't 5, but it could maybe be a screwed up 5, but not really, but
> maybe it's 6:7:9, maybe it's related, maybe not, etc.
>
> i.e. I think a minor chord is drawing its sound from NOT sounding like
> a particular chunk of the harmonic series, rather than its sounding
> precisely like 10:12:15. This is why 6:7:9 and 16:19:24 and 10:12:15
> sound as similar as they do, I think. So In that sense, the
> super-sharp fifths of 13-tet can be used similarly as musical assets
> that create a musical feeling because they AREN'T perfect 2:3's.
>
> That's right now an unpopular view with both the HE crowd and the
> crowd that hates HE, but it's what I think regardless. So that's why I
> think JI is limiting, and why I think you can find utility in even the
> most out of tune ET's (because their out of tune-ness provides its own
> utility).
>
> Down the road I'll come up with a way to model this and we'll do some
> listening tests and see how people react.
>
> -Mike
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Meta Tuning meta-info:
>
> To unsubscribe, send an email to:
> metatuning-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
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>
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> metatuning@yahoogroups.com
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>

On Sat, Nov 27, 2010 at 9:00 PM, Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@...> wrote:
>
> I can understand the transpositional capability. i don't mind
> that when i transpose a few of the intervals change a little, it
> is like a slight timbral change to me ear. so often with a JI
> system i will be thinking more on the lines of a scale more than
> ratios. It took me quite a few years of letting that go.

It just limits my freedom in improvising, and I'm not used to it yet.

> I am sold on proportional triads the chords generates the
> members of the scales by difference tones.
> i see it in both african and indonesian tunings.

But if you play 5:7:9:11, you hear 1, not 2.

> i am sure HE will lead some where , but i might be dead by then
> and also i have absolutely no interest in playing basic slightly
> retuned triads in I-IV-V progressions.
> i can already play 6-7-9 and i can hear what it does.
> What do you foresee that this theory will result in achieving
> that isn't self evident?

I'm not sure why you think I'm going to play slightly retuned I-IV-V
triads. All of this is just for fun. The main point is that really
screwed up intervals, like the fifth in 13-tet, have utility, because
they're slightly unpleasant to listen to. But if you combine them with
a bunch of correctly-tuned other overtones, you get this weird mix of
consonance and dissonance that I hear as producing "minor"-flavored
feelings, if you just open up to them.

> i am again ask you to consider what is it in it detuned JI
> intervals that you like.
> If i define them as a higher JI interval i am afraid you will
> just say you want to detune them.
> I am not going to buy this at all.

You can define it as a higher JI interval if you'd like, but I don't
see any reason to fit everything into JI. That's what I don't buy.
Let's say I start with 3/2 and sharpen it until it's slightly more
"active" or excited or maybe nervous sounding if I go too far. Is that
because it's hit another JI interval, or because this is just what
happens until you sharpen a 3/2 until it stops being recognizable?

-Mike

/^_,',',',_ //^/Kraig Grady_^_,',',',_
Mesotonal Music from:
_'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere:
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>

_'''''''_^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria <http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>

',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',

a momentary antenna as i turn to water
this evaporates - an island once again

On 28/11/10 1:13 PM, Mike Battaglia wrote:
>
>> I am sold on proportional triads the chords generates the
>> members of the scales by difference tones.
>> i see it in both african and indonesian tunings.
> But if you play 5:7:9:11, you hear 1, not 2.
do I? I am not sure
what do i hear when i play
43-50-57

I hear it as a chord in tune with the 7 i have in my tuning
> You can define it as a higher JI interval if you'd like, but I don't
> see any reason to fit everything into JI. That's what I don't buy.
> Let's say I start with 3/2 and sharpen it until it's slightly more
> "active" or excited or maybe nervous sounding if I go too far. Is that
> because it's hit another JI interval, or because this is just what
> happens until you sharpen a 3/2 until it stops being recognizable?
You dion't have to define it in JI at all.
My point is that if you like it there is a definable quality you can talk about as opposed to talking about what it is not.
For instance you could say i like intervals that beat between 6 and 11 times per second or under 16 ties.
this is where i am trying to lead you.

On Sat, Nov 27, 2010 at 9:33 PM, Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@...> wrote:
>
> > But if you play 5:7:9:11, you hear 1, not 2.
> do I? I am not sure
> what do i hear when i play
> 43-50-57

I dunno man, sounds to me like a screwed up 6:7:8. I hear a 1 pop out
as if it were a 6

> > You can define it as a higher JI interval if you'd like, but I don't
> > see any reason to fit everything into JI. That's what I don't buy.
> > Let's say I start with 3/2 and sharpen it until it's slightly more
> > "active" or excited or maybe nervous sounding if I go too far. Is that
> > because it's hit another JI interval, or because this is just what
> > happens until you sharpen a 3/2 until it stops being recognizable?
> You dion't have to define it in JI at all.
> My point is that if you like it there is a definable quality
> you can talk about as opposed to talking about what it is not.
> For instance you could say i like intervals that beat between
> 6 and 11 times per second or under 16 ties.
> this is where i am trying to lead you.

Right, and that definable quality is that if you make 3/2 sharp
enough, it stops sounding like 3/2 and starts sounding like 8/5, and
maybe some other stuff in between. And as you make it sharper and
sharper, it starts to become ambiguous and unpleasant. But, if you
don't get to that point, it passes through a whole range of emotions
on its way between an emotionally neutral resonant interval, and a
really dissonant super-ambiguous one.

And the specific definable quality is ambiguity, which is basically
what entropy is, and I note that ambiguity and dissonance are
correlated. I also think that extreme dissonance causes sympathetic
nervous system arousal. Some basic proof of this is when you hear
people who haven't gotten used to Stravinsky listen to the Rite of
Spring for the first time - often they absolutely hate it. And if you
put them in a car and play the Rite of Spring, they might be compelled
to actually turn it off.

Organism being compelled to remove stressful stimulus = sympathetic
nervous system activation.

Of course you can adapt to handle it and come to love Stravinsky as well.

-Mike

On Sat, Nov 27, 2010 at 9:46 PM, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 27, 2010 at 9:33 PM, Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@...> wrote:
>>
>> > But if you play 5:7:9:11, you hear 1, not 2.
>> do I? I am not sure
>> what do i hear when i play
>> 43-50-57
>
> I dunno man, sounds to me like a screwed up 6:7:8. I hear a 1 pop out
> as if it were a 6

Also the beating is synchronous in some cool kind of way. I'm too busy
to work this out at the moment but I think there's two components to
any periodic sound

1) The placing of the VF
2) The periodicity buzz you hear

I think that while most people equate the two, they are NOT the same.
The second one is effectively an partial-dependent amplitude envelope
that recurs in a periodic pattern - it's like a polyrhythm and your
brain autocorrelates it and hears that it's a repeating pattern. Then,
underneath that, there's the virtual fundamental harmonic processing
thing.

#1 arises because that's how the brain works, and #2 arises because of
critical band effects that occur between beating partials. I also
think that this is the cause for a lot of debate on the tuning list:
when you say you can hear 43-50-57 "lock in," for example, you're
probably hearing the periodicity produced by the AM polyrhythm on top
of the fundamental. On the other hand, if you play this with a timbre
in which the harmonics roll off more gradually, or with sines, I think
the "locking in" will be removed.

But underneath that layer, there's also the fact that it sounds a lot
like 6:7:9, and when I played it in scala I heard the 1 pop out as if
it were 6:7:9 - but with a different and periodic AM envelope on top.

I also hope this conversation doesn't turn into me getting more
comparisons to Hitler trying to limit artistic freedom with his Nazi
fascist art propaganda. Extroverted speculation as to how sound and/or
music work seem to lead to fights like that around here.

-Mike

I DO love Stravinsky, but it is just Platonic.

I'm not sure I see the sense in this thread. Isn't the idea to use
your ears and go where your inner ear wants to go?
The difference I see is that irregular tunings are indeed harder to
improvise with. Sometimes what I "hear" isn't available.
I think that just indicates a lack of "hearing" the complete tuning -
be it an irregular temperament or a JI scheme.

Other then that the process is more or less the same, isn't it? One
can map to your 12 experience or one can go beyond that - it's all a
matter of choice and where you desire to go.

Chris

> Of course you can adapt to handle it and come to love Stravinsky as well.
>
> -Mike

On Sat, Nov 27, 2010 at 10:08 PM, Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...> wrote:
>
> I DO love Stravinsky, but it is just Platonic.

I'm actually going to marry the Firebird someday.

> I'm not sure I see the sense in this thread. Isn't the idea to use
> your ears and go where your inner ear wants to go?

Are you saying you don't see the sense in my reasoning, or the sense
in us having a conversation about this, ...?

> The difference I see is that irregular tunings are indeed harder to
> improvise with. Sometimes what I "hear" isn't available.
> I think that just indicates a lack of "hearing" the complete tuning -
> be it an irregular temperament or a JI scheme.
>
> Other then that the process is more or less the same, isn't it? One
> can map to your 12 experience or one can go beyond that - it's all a
> matter of choice and where you desire to go.

Here's where I'm coming from: until recently, I have had no outlet for
my microtonal musical ideas. Outside of this list, I'm an
improvisational musician and have lots of 12-tet instruments to
express all kinds of ideas. As far as this list is concerned, I have
no 22-tet keyboard to start screwing around with porcupine, or
anything like that.

I have Scala, which is all I've ever had to use to screw around with
alternate tunings.
I have eastwest and a DAW which I can only figure out how to tune to
multiples of 12, and I used this to explore 72, but it was cumbersome
and interfered with my natural improvisational-based workflow.
I just got a 31-tet guitar, but I'm more of a keyboard player than a
guitarist, and the action is so high that it's often really difficult
to play, since I haven't finished setting it up.
I could always just set up a 12-out-of-xx tuning, but I find it
ridiculously limiting and difficult to work within.

So I've been caught in a world of theory without much outlet for my
ideas. This will all hopefully change now that there's a microtonal
controller for $400.

The point is that while you've been enjoying all of this
improvisational freedom and the ability to use your ears and such, I
haven't had much option to do that until recently. So my theories are
informed by the tools I've had available, and they keep changing as I
discover new stuff.

-Mike

The very best tool I have is an M-Audio 88es and Pianoteq.

If you don't go about 19 or 22 notes a regular keyboard is usable even
if not ideal. Pianoteq takes scala files so its a cinch to use.
A cheaper route is to get a copy of Garritan Personal Orchestra (or
Jazz and Big Band or and ARIA based set) because this too takes scala
files.

I can understand this if you don't have the tools - doing multiple of
12 on a DAW / multi VSTi load up is a difficult road.

But there are some free microtonal synths out there and using a micro
capable VSTi eliminates part of the clumsiness.

Chris

I think if nothing else Kyle Gann works proves the dissonance is not tied to ambiguous.
It is true of 12ET and most of the music we have heard.
put he shows how precise and dissonant it can be.

When you play the Rite of Spring now , no one cares it sounds like mainstream film music at this point.
if people are compelled to remove stressful stimuli then you would prefer JI to near JI. Sounds like you have disproved yourself.

what are you going to rate rate every single chord in the universe an d construct pieces on curves through the rating?

Do you think it will invoke any meaning for people?

I have seen people scream having to hear lounge music

/^_,',',',_ //^/Kraig Grady_^_,',',',_
Mesotonal Music from:
_'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere:
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>

_'''''''_^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria <http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>

',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',

a momentary antenna as i turn to water
this evaporates - an island once again

On 28/11/10 1:46 PM, Mike Battaglia wrote:
>
> And the specific definable quality is ambiguity, which is basically
> what entropy is, and I note that ambiguity and dissonance are
> correlated. I also think that extreme dissonance causes sympathetic
> nervous system arousal. Some basic proof of this is when you hear
> people who haven't gotten used to Stravinsky listen to the Rite of
> Spring for the first time - often they absolutely hate it. And if you
> put them in a car and play the Rite of Spring, they might be compelled
> to actually turn it off.
>
> Organism being compelled to remove stressful stimulus = sympathetic
> nervous system activation.
>
> Of course you can adapt to handle it and come to love Stravinsky as well.
>
> -Mike
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Meta Tuning meta-info:
>
> To unsubscribe, send an email to:
> metatuning-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
> Web page is http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/metatuning/
>
> To post to the list, send to
> metatuning@yahoogroups.com
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>

It really sound little different to a 6-7-8 in tension regardless of what timbre hear i play it in.

/^_,',',',_ //^/Kraig Grady_^_,',',',_
Mesotonal Music from:
_'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere:
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>

_'''''''_^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria <http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>

',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',

a momentary antenna as i turn to water
this evaporates - an island once again

On 28/11/10 2:01 PM, Mike Battaglia wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 27, 2010 at 9:46 PM, Mike Battaglia<battaglia01@...> wrote:
>> On Sat, Nov 27, 2010 at 9:33 PM, Kraig Grady<kraiggrady@...> wrote:
>>>> But if you play 5:7:9:11, you hear 1, not 2.
>>> do I? I am not sure
>>> what do i hear when i play
>>> 43-50-57
>> I dunno man, sounds to me like a screwed up 6:7:8. I hear a 1 pop out
>> as if it were a 6
> Also the beating is synchronous in some cool kind of way. I'm too busy
> to work this out at the moment but I think there's two components to
> any periodic sound
>
> 1) The placing of the VF
> 2) The periodicity buzz you hear
>
> I think that while most people equate the two, they are NOT the same.
> The second one is effectively an partial-dependent amplitude envelope
> that recurs in a periodic pattern - it's like a polyrhythm and your
> brain autocorrelates it and hears that it's a repeating pattern. Then,
> underneath that, there's the virtual fundamental harmonic processing
> thing.
>
> #1 arises because that's how the brain works, and #2 arises because of
> critical band effects that occur between beating partials. I also
> think that this is the cause for a lot of debate on the tuning list:
> when you say you can hear 43-50-57 "lock in," for example, you're
> probably hearing the periodicity produced by the AM polyrhythm on top
> of the fundamental. On the other hand, if you play this with a timbre
> in which the harmonics roll off more gradually, or with sines, I think
> the "locking in" will be removed.
>
> But underneath that layer, there's also the fact that it sounds a lot
> like 6:7:9, and when I played it in scala I heard the 1 pop out as if
> it were 6:7:9 - but with a different and periodic AM envelope on top.
>
> I also hope this conversation doesn't turn into me getting more
> comparisons to Hitler trying to limit artistic freedom with his Nazi
> fascist art propaganda. Extroverted speculation as to how sound and/or
> music work seem to lead to fights like that around here.
>
> -Mike
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Meta Tuning meta-info:
>
> To unsubscribe, send an email to:
> metatuning-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
> Web page is http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/metatuning/
>
> To post to the list, send to
> metatuning@yahoogroups.com
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>

sounds like you just need to add some notes. It is hard to do much wit ha small number of tone in Just.
Partch needed 41= to basically have a scale where he could play everything he heard as he would use approx. at the time.

But if one works with a tuning for a while you get used to things being where they are just like one gets used to an ET.
both take time.

I can understand someone wanting an ET as Mike.
He wants enriched chords any and everywhere on the scale in a highly chromatic idiom. i can see why 22 would work for him, it fits the guitar well too.
I would be curious if Rod Sword had him play in Rod's tuning without knowing anything about it.
That fits the hand and the guitar well too.

/^_,',',',_ //^/Kraig Grady_^_,',',',_
Mesotonal Music from:
_'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere:
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>

_'''''''_^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria <http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>

',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',

a momentary antenna as i turn to water
this evaporates - an island once again

On 28/11/10 2:08 PM, Chris Vaisvil wrote:
> I DO love Stravinsky, but it is just Platonic.
>
> I'm not sure I see the sense in this thread. Isn't the idea to use
> your ears and go where your inner ear wants to go?
> The difference I see is that irregular tunings are indeed harder to
> improvise with. Sometimes what I "hear" isn't available.
> I think that just indicates a lack of "hearing" the complete tuning -
> be it an irregular temperament or a JI scheme.
>
> Other then that the process is more or less the same, isn't it? One
> can map to your 12 experience or one can go beyond that - it's all a
> matter of choice and where you desire to go.
>
> Chris
>
>> Of course you can adapt to handle it and come to love Stravinsky as well.
>>
>> -Mike
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Meta Tuning meta-info:
>
> To unsubscribe, send an email to:
> metatuning-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
> Web page is http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/metatuning/
>
> To post to the list, send to
> metatuning@yahoogroups.com
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>

On Sun, Nov 28, 2010 at 1:17 AM, Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@...> wrote:
>
> I think if nothing else Kyle Gann works proves the dissonance is
> not tied to ambiguous.
> It is true of 12ET and most of the music we have heard.
> put he shows how precise and dissonant it can be.

How so?

> When you play the Rite of Spring now , no one cares it sounds
> like mainstream film music at this point.
> if people are compelled to remove stressful stimuli then you
> would prefer JI to near JI. Sounds like you have disproved yourself.

I'm saying that in small doses it doesn't end up being "stressful" at
all, but goes through a whole range of emotions on its way there.
That's my thesis. Read the thing I wrote about sympathetic nervous
system activation.

This is, I think, such a simple observation that I don't understand
why there's so much resistance to it. Really dissonant sounds can make
people take action to remove them, unless they have adapted to them.

The notion that dissonance causes sympathetic nervous system
activation seems pretty obvious to me, but at the least it's a decent
conjecture. And sympathetic nervous system activation is half of
emotion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_factor_theory_of_emotion

And I'm not sure that mainstream film music is quite as far out there
as the Rite of Spring :)

> what are you going to rate rate every single chord in the
> universe an d construct pieces on curves through the rating?

What do you mean?

> Do you think it will invoke any meaning for people?
>
> I have seen people scream having to hear lounge music

I've seen people scream because they're sitting in a boring room with
zero stimuli at all, but the fact that they also take action to remove
dissonant noises from their environment is noteworthy regardless.

-Mike

On Sun, Nov 28, 2010 at 1:19 AM, Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@...> wrote:
>
> It really sound little different to a 6-7-8 in tension
> regardless of what timbre hear i play it in.

What do you mean?

-Mike

Kraig>"The only decent music in JI I ever made was after I gave up on thinking
about the ratios and just let my fingers find what they could in the system.
this is the course of action in any tuning"

Ditto here. If anything, I've found

A) Trying to optimize a scale in anything more than dyadic JI (AKA trying to
bring about perfect JI triads, tetrads, etc. with each tone within a few cents
of pure) leads to scales with a huge number of notes per functional JI chord or
simply very few chords. This seems to agree with Igs's argument toward allowing
error in TET tunings. Also, having more notes needed, I've found, seems to tie
up your mind with finding the right notes from a huge set...rather than
concentrating on the emotion of a song you are composing or how it sounds.

B) Even supposing you put a rather lenient set of JI limitations to make a scale
(IE only try to optimize individual dyads and allow 8 cents (as opposed to under
3 cents) of error...there is still one issue. And that, I've found, is that the
ultimate determination of how "stable" a scale is...is how it feels when you
compose with it, by ear.
So I could take many scales with equal "dyadic accuracy" and find some have
far more usable chords in them than others when I compose with them...often
without any mathematical explanation available. Though I have found, trying to
get dyads in a scale within about 8 cents of a set of dyads you generally like
greatly increases the chance a scale will also contain chords you find usable
and keep you from having to sort through an infinite myraid of notes to make
scales you want to "play by ear" with from.

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

there is no universal definition of emotion. I don't subscribe to any behaviorist notions

the musical system which has developed the elaborate and varied system of capturing emotions is India. and that is basically 5 limit JI.
They spent hundreds if not thousand of years on it.
not saying it is the only way but i don't think out of tune intervals are inherently more emotional in content than straight intervals.

/^_,',',',_ //^/Kraig Grady_^_,',',',_
Mesotonal Music from:
_'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere:
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>

_'''''''_^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria <http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>

',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',

a momentary antenna as i turn to water
this evaporates - an island once again

On 28/11/10 5:42 PM, Mike Battaglia wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 28, 2010 at 1:17 AM, Kraig Grady<kraiggrady@...> wrote:
>> I think if nothing else Kyle Gann works proves the dissonance is
>> not tied to ambiguous.
>> It is true of 12ET and most of the music we have heard.
>> put he shows how precise and dissonant it can be.
> How so?
>
>> When you play the Rite of Spring now , no one cares it sounds
>> like mainstream film music at this point.
>> if people are compelled to remove stressful stimuli then you
>> would prefer JI to near JI. Sounds like you have disproved yourself.
> I'm saying that in small doses it doesn't end up being "stressful" at
> all, but goes through a whole range of emotions on its way there.
> That's my thesis. Read the thing I wrote about sympathetic nervous
> system activation.
>
> This is, I think, such a simple observation that I don't understand
> why there's so much resistance to it. Really dissonant sounds can make
> people take action to remove them, unless they have adapted to them.
>
> The notion that dissonance causes sympathetic nervous system
> activation seems pretty obvious to me, but at the least it's a decent
> conjecture. And sympathetic nervous system activation is half of
> emotion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_factor_theory_of_emotion
>
> And I'm not sure that mainstream film music is quite as far out there
> as the Rite of Spring :)
>
>> what are you going to rate rate every single chord in the
>> universe an d construct pieces on curves through the rating?
> What do you mean?
>
>> Do you think it will invoke any meaning for people?
>>
>> I have seen people scream having to hear lounge music
> I've seen people scream because they're sitting in a boring room with
> zero stimuli at all, but the fact that they also take action to remove
> dissonant noises from their environment is noteworthy regardless.
>
> -Mike
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Meta Tuning meta-info:
>
> To unsubscribe, send an email to:
> metatuning-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
> Web page is http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/metatuning/
>
> To post to the list, send to
> metatuning@yahoogroups.com
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>

i play them side by side a mere microtone apart and they sound in the same ball park

/^_,',',',_ //^/Kraig Grady_^_,',',',_
Mesotonal Music from:
_'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere:
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>

_'''''''_^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria <http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>

',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',

a momentary antenna as i turn to water
this evaporates - an island once again

On 28/11/10 5:43 PM, Mike Battaglia wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 28, 2010 at 1:19 AM, Kraig Grady<kraiggrady@...> wrote:
>> It really sound little different to a 6-7-8 in tension
>> regardless of what timbre hear i play it in.
> What do you mean?
>
> -Mike
>
>
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>
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On Sun, Nov 28, 2010 at 2:02 AM, Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@...> wrote:
>
> They spent hundreds if not thousand of years on it.
> not saying it is the only way but i don't think out of tune
> intervals are inherently more emotional in content than straight
> intervals.

I think that out of tune intervals are inherently more dissonant than
straight intervals, and that this can be used to cause emotion. But
I'm intending to apply everything I'm saying only to static,
unchanging, harmonic structures. Once you bring chord progressions
into it, you start fleshing out something like a background "scale" or
"mode," which itself can be analyzed as a harmonic structure which is
somewhat in tune or out of tune

-Mike

Kraig>"I have seen people scream having to hear lounge music"

One particularly amusing theory I've heard about consonance is the idea that
well-receivable music, in general, is music that communicates a maximal amount
of information with minimal processing per bit of information.

So if you have something very complex and "only" decently easy to listen to,
it may well beat out something not very complex and extremely easy to listen to
(think lounge music or minimalistic pop music...at times).

This seems to have at least fair if not overwhelming evidence backing it up:
classics from the Bach to the Beatles tend to have tons of flavors of colors of
tone, sometimes even recklessly so, scattered around abstractly but with just
enough theme to tie them all together and hear "many separate thoughts of
information/mood" under "one clear harmony".

Also this seems to happen with the actual use of modes in 12TET: the exact
same notes can "switch colors" between major, relative minor...based on
context...making musician hear the same dyadic ratios as different ones within
different chords/modes/etc. And that's just 12TET...Lord knows so many more
"switching" techniques are possible in microtonal tunings.

To me, tuning and composition seem to have approach a limit of experience,
which is the point where you are just barely able to tie things together, but
end up tying a million things together when you listen. There is nothing quite
as breathtaking as being on the edge of your mind's ability to process...almost
falling over but not quite..

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

http://anaphoria.com/twotriads.mp3

/^_,',',',_ //^/Kraig Grady_^_,',',',_
Mesotonal Music from:
_'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere:
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>

_'''''''_^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria <http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>

',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',

a momentary antenna as i turn to water
this evaporates - an island once again

On 28/11/10 6:05 PM, Mike Battaglia wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 28, 2010 at 2:02 AM, Kraig Grady<kraiggrady@...> wrote:
>> They spent hundreds if not thousand of years on it.
>> not saying it is the only way but i don't think out of tune
>> intervals are inherently more emotional in content than straight
>> intervals.
> I think that out of tune intervals are inherently more dissonant than
> straight intervals, and that this can be used to cause emotion. But
> I'm intending to apply everything I'm saying only to static,
> unchanging, harmonic structures. Once you bring chord progressions
> into it, you start fleshing out something like a background "scale" or
> "mode," which itself can be analyzed as a harmonic structure which is
> somewhat in tune or out of tune
>
> -Mike
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Meta Tuning meta-info:
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Likewise pound said that an art work needs a constant and a variable.
BTW is this the same as your series you posted . i couldn't find
http://anaphoria.com/Pages from ZigZags.pdf <http://anaphoria.com/Pages%20from%20ZigZags.pdf>

/^_,',',',_ //^/Kraig Grady_^_,',',',_
Mesotonal Music from:
_'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere:
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>

_'''''''_^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria <http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>

',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',

a momentary antenna as i turn to water
this evaporates - an island once again

On 28/11/10 6:16 PM, Michael wrote:
> Kraig>"I have seen people scream having to hear lounge music"
>
> One particularly amusing theory I've heard about consonance is the idea that
> well-receivable music, in general, is music that communicates a maximal amount
> of information with minimal processing per bit of information.
>
> So if you have something very complex and "only" decently easy to listen to,
> it may well beat out something not very complex and extremely easy to listen to
> (think lounge music or minimalistic pop music...at times).
>
> This seems to have at least fair if not overwhelming evidence backing it up:
> classics from the Bach to the Beatles tend to have tons of flavors of colors of
> tone, sometimes even recklessly so, scattered around abstractly but with just
> enough theme to tie them all together and hear "many separate thoughts of
> information/mood" under "one clear harmony".
>
> Also this seems to happen with the actual use of modes in 12TET: the exact
> same notes can "switch colors" between major, relative minor...based on
> context...making musician hear the same dyadic ratios as different ones within
> different chords/modes/etc. And that's just 12TET...Lord knows so many more
> "switching" techniques are possible in microtonal tunings.
>
> To me, tuning and composition seem to have approach a limit of experience,
> which is the point where you are just barely able to tie things together, but
> end up tying a million things together when you listen. There is nothing quite
> as breathtaking as being on the edge of your mind's ability to process...almost
> falling over but not quite..
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Meta Tuning meta-info:
>
> To unsubscribe, send an email to:
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On Sun, Nov 28, 2010 at 2:30 AM, Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@...> wrote:
>
> http://anaphoria.com/twotriads.mp3

This sounds like B-D-E -> Bb-Db-Eb in 12-tet. I'm not sure if this is
really 6:7:8 or something, but it doesn't sound it.

-Mike

http://anaphoria.com/twotriads.mp3
this should work now.

/^_,',',',_ //^/Kraig Grady_^_,',',',_
Mesotonal Music from:
_'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere:
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>

_'''''''_^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria <http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>

',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',

a momentary antenna as i turn to water
this evaporates - an island once again

On 28/11/10 6:37 PM, Mike Battaglia wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 28, 2010 at 2:30 AM, Kraig Grady<kraiggrady@...> wrote:
>> http://anaphoria.com/twotriads.mp3
> This sounds like B-D-E -> Bb-Db-Eb in 12-tet. I'm not sure if this is
> really 6:7:8 or something, but it doesn't sound it.
>
> -Mike
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Meta Tuning meta-info:
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On Sun, Nov 28, 2010 at 2:51 AM, Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@...> wrote:
>
> http://anaphoria.com/twotriads.mp3
> this should work now.

Now it sounds like 6:7:8 moving up and down by a quarter tone or so. I
don't get it

-Mike

top one is 43-50-57

/^_,',',',_ //^/Kraig Grady_^_,',',',_
Mesotonal Music from:
_'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere:
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>

_'''''''_^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria <http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>

',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',

a momentary antenna as i turn to water
this evaporates - an island once again

On 28/11/10 6:52 PM, Mike Battaglia wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 28, 2010 at 2:51 AM, Kraig Grady<kraiggrady@...> wrote:
>> http://anaphoria.com/twotriads.mp3
>> this should work now.
> Now it sounds like 6:7:8 moving up and down by a quarter tone or so. I
> don't get it
>
> -Mike
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Meta Tuning meta-info:
>
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full progression is 57-50-43
going to a 56-49-42

/^_,',',',_ //^/Kraig Grady_^_,',',',_
Mesotonal Music from:
_'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere:
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>

_'''''''_^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria <http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>

',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',

a momentary antenna as i turn to water
this evaporates - an island once again

On 28/11/10 6:52 PM, Mike Battaglia wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 28, 2010 at 2:51 AM, Kraig Grady<kraiggrady@...> wrote:
>> http://anaphoria.com/twotriads.mp3
>> this should work now.
> Now it sounds like 6:7:8 moving up and down by a quarter tone or so. I
> don't get it
>
> -Mike
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Meta Tuning meta-info:
>
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>

Kraig>" Likewise pound said that an art work needs a constant and a
variable.
BTW is this the same as your series you posted .
<http://anaphoria.com/Pages%20from%20ZigZags.pdf>
"

The series you posted seems to occur from dividing PHI by 2, dividing the
result by 2, and so on (taking additive midpoints).

The PHI section series I used (originally several years ago) simply takes
logarithmic sections of PHI IE (1/PHI)^x + 1

.........to make a scale of........
(1/PHI)^1 + 1 = 1.618
(1/PHI)^2 + 1 = 1.382
(1/PHI)^3 + 1 = 1.236
(1/PHI)^4 + 1 = 1.146

(1/PHI)^5 + 1 = 1.09
..........and then adds a few of the inverse notes IE.........
PHI / ((1/PHI)^5 + 1) = 1.4844
PHI / ((1/PHI)^3 + 1) = 1.30906

Oddly enough...my series (unlike the one in the PDF, apparently) has nothing
to do with trying to mimic JI sections of the harmonic series.

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

to get back to this i think one could construct a system along these lines. Once you have a perceptible pattern of anything and you deviate from it ,it becomes expressive.
I guess there is no reason to trouble oneself for it to explain all in all conditions.
Like MOS it works in making scales but not all scales. just as there is no unified field theory that will explain all musical chords.that also means that one need not go outside the syntax.
I mean we can witness all types of effective music on the globe and the only thing it all has in common is melody and rhythm, but sometimes no even these.

/^_,',',',_ //^/Kraig Grady_^_,',',',_
Mesotonal Music from:
_'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere:
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>

_'''''''_^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria <http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>

',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',

a momentary antenna as i turn to water
this evaporates - an island once again

On 28/11/10 5:42 PM, Mike Battaglia wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 28, 2010 at 1:17 AM, Kraig Grady<kraiggrady@...> wrote:
>> I think if nothing else Kyle Gann works proves the dissonance is
>> not tied to ambiguous.
>> It is true of 12ET and most of the music we have heard.
>> put he shows how precise and dissonant it can be.
> How so?
>
>> When you play the Rite of Spring now , no one cares it sounds
>> like mainstream film music at this point.
>> if people are compelled to remove stressful stimuli then you
>> would prefer JI to near JI. Sounds like you have disproved yourself.
> I'm saying that in small doses it doesn't end up being "stressful" at
> all, but goes through a whole range of emotions on its way there.
> That's my thesis. Read the thing I wrote about sympathetic nervous
> system activation.
>
> This is, I think, such a simple observation that I don't understand
> why there's so much resistance to it. Really dissonant sounds can make
> people take action to remove them, unless they have adapted to them.
>
> The notion that dissonance causes sympathetic nervous system
> activation seems pretty obvious to me, but at the least it's a decent
> conjecture. And sympathetic nervous system activation is half of
> emotion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_factor_theory_of_emotion
>
> And I'm not sure that mainstream film music is quite as far out there
> as the Rite of Spring :)
>
>> what are you going to rate rate every single chord in the
>> universe an d construct pieces on curves through the rating?
> What do you mean?
>
>> Do you think it will invoke any meaning for people?
>>
>> I have seen people scream having to hear lounge music
> I've seen people scream because they're sitting in a boring room with
> zero stimuli at all, but the fact that they also take action to remove
> dissonant noises from their environment is noteworthy regardless.
>
> -Mike
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Meta Tuning meta-info:
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On Sun, Nov 28, 2010 at 3:16 AM, Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@...> wrote:
>
> to get back to this i think one could construct a system along
> these lines. Once you have a perceptible pattern of anything and
> you deviate from it ,it becomes expressive.
> I guess there is no reason to trouble oneself for it to
> explain all in all conditions.
> Like MOS it works in making scales but not all scales. just as
> there is no unified field theory that will explain all musical
> chords.that also means that one need not go outside the syntax.
> I mean we can witness all types of effective music on the
> globe and the only thing it all has in common is melody and
> rhythm, but sometimes no even these.

I think that this is a promising approach to take and will explain a
lot of things, although maybe not everything.

Psychoacoustic and cognitive factors are clearly both important when
it comes to the perception of music. However, I don't think that a
correct understanding of how they interact has been struck yet.

In this case, my view is that although the "feeling" that each chord
produces is generally attributed mostly to cognition (e.g. - it's a
personal experience that's different for everyone!!!), I think that
hardwired psychoacoustics plays a pretty strong role.

Specifically, I think that psychoacoustic mechanisms transform the
incoming sound and then dump all of the information to the cortex, and
that's where higher-level brain functions and cognitive factors come
into play. This is when one interprets what, exactly, one is feeling,
and another place where additional feelings could be created.

- Do you not like the crazy chaotic high entropy discordant noise of
something like metal? Does it just sound like a signal made up
overwhelmingly of noise?
- Or maybe, do you enjoy the higher entropy of it, can extract
information from that signal, and enjoy being intelligent enough to
"ride the wave" so to speak?
- Does a particular chord progression remind you of something personal
to you, maybe an old girlfriend, or some memory in your childhood?
Might you like it for this reason?
- Or maybe that group back in high school all liked chord progressions
like this, and you hated that group, and hence you hate these chords
too?

Etc. Adaptations are always occurring in how we process incoming
information. So I think the spiritual aspect of art comes from freeing
oneself from ingrained cognitive maladaptations that force one to
process ones environment (music, sound, other people, politics,
whatever) in a self-inconsistent way. I also think that psychology, on
its deepest level, overlaps with spirituality quite a bit.

But I think also that before any of that happens, you need information
to be processing in the first place, and that's where the
psychoacoustic layer is active.

But what I really want is to find a way to hook up EWQL to 22-equal so
that I can write this composition that has been in my head for about a
year now.

-Mike

Very interesting. This is a place in the series  I need to explore.

Chris

On Sun, Nov 28, 2010 at 3:02 AM, Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> full progression is 57-50-43
> going to a 56-49-42
>

The best solution (in my mind, not tried yet) is to run parallel JI
systems and switch between them. Putting in bend information for
individual notes is far too slow for me at this time.

On Sun, Nov 28, 2010 at 1:30 AM, Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> sounds like you just need to add some notes. It is hard to do
> much wit ha small number of tone in Just.
> Partch needed 41= to basically have a scale where he could
> play everything he heard as he would use approx. at the time.
>
> But if one works with a tuning for a while you get used to
> things being where they are just like one gets used to an ET.
> both take time.
>

MikeB>"- Do you not like the crazy chaotic high entropy discordant noise of
something like metal? Does it just sound like a signal made up
overwhelmingly of noise?
- Or maybe, do you enjoy the higher entropy of it, can extract
information from that signal, and enjoy being intelligent enough to
"ride the wave" so to speak?"

"Ride the wave"...exactly!...I think people have differing abilities to
extract information from noise and/or to filter out noise and "leave"
information for easy extraction. In the same way some people instinctively
enjoy conversations with many people at once in loud clubs as "more exciting"
and others find it "just plain confusing".

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

I am not sure what you mean here

/^_,',',',_ //^/Kraig Grady_^_,',',',_
Mesotonal Music from:
_'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere:
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>

_'''''''_^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria <http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>

',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',

a momentary antenna as i turn to water
this evaporates - an island once again

On 29/11/10 12:45 AM, Chris Vaisvil wrote:
> The best solution (in my mind, not tried yet) is to run parallel JI
> systems and switch between them. Putting in bend information for
> individual notes is far too slow for me at this time.
>
>
>
> On Sun, Nov 28, 2010 at 1:30 AM, Kraig Grady<kraiggrady@...> wrote:
>>
>>
>> sounds like you just need to add some notes. It is hard to do
>> much wit ha small number of tone in Just.
>> Partch needed 41= to basically have a scale where he could
>> play everything he heard as he would use approx. at the time.
>>
>> But if one works with a tuning for a while you get used to
>> things being where they are just like one gets used to an ET.
>> both take time.
>>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Meta Tuning meta-info:
>
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>
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>

what is gained by having to filter out noise?

/^_,',',',_ //^/Kraig Grady_^_,',',',_
Mesotonal Music from:
_'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere:
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>

_'''''''_^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria <http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>

',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',

a momentary antenna as i turn to water
this evaporates - an island once again

On 29/11/10 2:53 AM, Michael wrote:
> MikeB>"- Do you not like the crazy chaotic high entropy discordant noise of
> something like metal? Does it just sound like a signal made up
> overwhelmingly of noise?
> - Or maybe, do you enjoy the higher entropy of it, can extract
> information from that signal, and enjoy being intelligent enough to
> "ride the wave" so to speak?"
>
> "Ride the wave"...exactly!...I think people have differing abilities to
> extract information from noise and/or to filter out noise and "leave"
> information for easy extraction. In the same way some people instinctively
> enjoy conversations with many people at once in loud clubs as "more exciting"
> and others find it "just plain confusing".
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Meta Tuning meta-info:
>
> To unsubscribe, send an email to:
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>
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On Sun, Nov 28, 2010 at 2:41 PM, Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@...> wrote:
>
> what is gained by having to filter out noise?

The signal.

-Mike

why bother with the noise then . i never enjoyed screaming in noisy places to converse , the conversation remains shallow

/^_,',',',_ //^/Kraig Grady_^_,',',',_
Mesotonal Music from:
_'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere:
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>

_'''''''_^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria <http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>

',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',

a momentary antenna as i turn to water
this evaporates - an island once again

On 29/11/10 6:58 AM, Mike Battaglia wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 28, 2010 at 2:41 PM, Kraig Grady<kraiggrady@...> wrote:
>> what is gained by having to filter out noise?
> The signal.
>
> -Mike
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Meta Tuning meta-info:
>
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--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...> wrote:
>
> I'm not sure I see the sense in this thread. Isn't the idea to use
> your ears and go where your inner ear wants to go?
> The difference I see is that irregular tunings are indeed harder to
> improvise with. Sometimes what I "hear" isn't available.
> I think that just indicates a lack of "hearing" the complete tuning -
> be it an irregular temperament or a JI scheme.

There isn't any sense in comparing equal tunings to unequal ones in anything but the most subjective sense. That's why I titled the thread "why I don't like working with JI", not "why I don't like JI" or "why JI is hard to work with". What I consider to be bugs, others consider to be features.

However, I have to say that my inner ear is not my chief compass in navigating alternative tunings. If I relied only on my inner ear, I'd never leave 12, because ultimately it's so ingrained in me that it's all my inner ear can predict/desire. This is why I did so poorly initially--I began with tunings that allowed me to play too close to 12. Before I composed "Map of an Internal Landscape" and forced myself to compose in every EDO in my "comfortable" range, in a host of non-12-like scales, the best microtonal stuff I did was (ironically) in JI, because it was so utterly alien. Nothing I played in 22 sounded half as fresh as what I played on the Catler 12-tone-Ultra-Plus. I just hated the latter guitar because I could never understand what I was doing with it. It was only when I delved into tunings like 18, 16, and 20 that I found a nice sweet-spot between novelty and familiarity, tunings that I could navigate comfortably but never get too close to 12. Of course, if I'd had a teacher in JI like Kraig or Erv or Kyle Gann, I might have had more success with it. We all have our own ways of navigating on our own, though. My own way is as peculiar as anyone's.

-Igs

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> On Sun, Nov 28, 2010 at 2:02 AM, Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@...> wrote:
> >
> > They spent hundreds if not thousand of years on it.
> > not saying it is the only way but i don't think out of tune
> > intervals are inherently more emotional in content than straight
> > intervals.
>
> I think that out of tune intervals are inherently more dissonant than
> straight intervals, and that this can be used to cause emotion. But
> I'm intending to apply everything I'm saying only to static,
> unchanging, harmonic structures. Once you bring chord progressions
> into it, you start fleshing out something like a background "scale" or
> "mode," which itself can be analyzed as a harmonic structure which is
> somewhat in tune or out of tune

I disagree that out-of-tune intervals are inherently more dissonant. Beat frequencies are incredibly relaxing in a very pleasant way. It's all in how you use it. If you compare ambient music where chords are sustained over long periods of time with harmonic timbres, I really think you'll find the beatless chords more offensive than ones where the beat frequency is between 0.5 to 5 Hz or so. Contrary to popular belief, I think that louder and faster music is more sensitive to tuning. I've heard it said that "popular music is fast because it's out of tune" and I think that's dead wrong. 13-EDO sounds very nice to me if it's played slowly and delicately, even on a piano, but if you play something quick and loud, it sounds terrible.

-Igs

Kraig>"why bother with the noise then . i never enjoyed screaming in noisy
places to converse , the conversation remains shallow"

I figure the idea is that either you have
A) An easy to decipher set of few signals
B) An noisy signal, but one that potentially yield more signals than A given the
right "ear" to decode it

But, in general Kraig, I'd agree that most people probably fall into
category A. Perhaps with a huge deal of ear training some people could be
taught to "experience" B (especially "crazy" microtonalists like us :-D), but I
certainly would not expect that of most people.

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

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:

> I just got a 31-tet guitar, but I'm more of a keyboard player than a
> guitarist, and the action is so high that it's often really difficult
> to play, since I haven't finished setting it up.
> I could always just set up a 12-out-of-xx tuning, but I find it
> ridiculously limiting and difficult to work within.

Man, if I could give one piece of advice to every guitarist getting his/her first microtonal axe, it would be: "don't start with 31". Especially if you don't consider yourself a highly-skilled and ultra-precise guitarist with strong hands and nimble fingers. It's so enticing on paper, I know...but it's nothing but frustrating to play. "3 Stooges Syndrome" develops as you try to cram a million different "new" intervals into your playing and they all get in each other's way. What no one talks about is how hard chords are on a 31-tET guitar...a full 11-limit otonal hexad is all but impossible to finger in standard tuning. I really think that going above 24 is a definite no-no until you really feel comfortable using unusual new harmonies. Never mind the fact that all the 7 or 11-limit temperaments that squeeze into 31-tET are pretty high in badness (you need many notes of them to get a usable number of the targeted chords).

-Igs

On Sun, Nov 28, 2010 at 5:19 PM, cityoftheasleep
<igliashon@...> wrote:
>
> Man, if I could give one piece of advice to every guitarist getting his/her first microtonal axe, it would be: "don't start with 31". Especially if you don't consider yourself a highly-skilled and ultra-precise guitarist with strong hands and nimble fingers. It's so enticing on paper, I know...but it's nothing but frustrating to play. "3 Stooges Syndrome" develops as you try to cram a million different "new" intervals into your playing and they all get in each other's way. What no one talks about is how hard chords are on a 31-tET guitar...a full 11-limit otonal hexad is all but impossible to finger in standard tuning. I really think that going above 24 is a definite no-no until you really feel comfortable using unusual new harmonies. Never mind the fact that all the 7 or 11-limit temperaments that squeeze into 31-tET are pretty high in badness (you need many notes of them to get a usable number of the targeted chords).

Haha, I know. I remember you telling me this, but I was set on 31
anyway. The next one I get is going to probably be 22.

I also really want 17 to use it as a 3.7.11.13 subgroup temperament,
and 16 for mavila, and 15 for porcupine, and 14 for a contorted dicot,
and... yeah.

What EDO guitars do you have, btw? I think I remember you saying you
were a fan of 19.

-Mike

Hi Igs,

I think I was there a couple years ago, at the time I was heavy into
Lucy tuning for a while which is quite close to 12 equal. I guess what
I did was "immersion" into tunings. My tuning surveys with fractal
tune smithy and my GR-20 has been *very* helpful to acclimate myself
to new tunings. I do not know what resources you have available - if
you have only physical microtonal guitars and no general midi
controllers your experience is very different from mine.

On guitar I find chords pairs I like and practice moving between them
and then transposing (if possible, and sometimes with an "adjustment"
in fingering) - on guitar I very much work visually with "patterns" in
both a chord shape and with "mapping" out a scale.

I imagine none of that is new to you though since you've been knocking
at the microtonal door for a while. (At least a year right?)

Chris

> However, I have to say that my inner ear is not my chief compass in navigating alternative tunings. If I relied only on my inner ear, I'd never leave 12, because ultimately it's so ingrained in me that it's all my inner ear can predict/desire.

I agree with you about beating.
Gamelan is an excellent example and might also be as entropy as one can get.

With the scaleatron one can set up in a particular key exact intonation where it doesn't beat for a at least our lifetime.
The effect is quite strange> it makes one not want to move at all and what appears as brief minutes tunes out to be hours.
This happen quite a few times at Erv's house.
He would sometimes leave a chord on for days with weights.
As you walk through the room you can physically feel the shape of the wavelength as it grows louder and smaller.

i remember much of Buzz Kimbal(l)'s in 13 being slow as as you say somewhat relaxing.
i wonder if it is true of all comparable ETs. I haven't heard any really fast JI .
that would be the other end of the spectrum:)

really all this stuff has only been explored by a few people and it really will take time and allot of peoples observation before we get a good grasp of all of it. We just haven't tried pushing all this material in enough different ways.

/^_,',',',_ //^/Kraig Grady_^_,',',',_
Mesotonal Music from:
_'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere:
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>

_'''''''_^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria <http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>

',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',

a momentary antenna as i turn to water
this evaporates - an island once again

On 29/11/10 8:44 AM, cityoftheasleep wrote:
> --- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia<battaglia01@...> wrote:
>> On Sun, Nov 28, 2010 at 2:02 AM, Kraig Grady<kraiggrady@...> wrote:
>>> They spent hundreds if not thousand of years on it.
>>> not saying it is the only way but i don't think out of tune
>>> intervals are inherently more emotional in content than straight
>>> intervals.
>> I think that out of tune intervals are inherently more dissonant than
>> straight intervals, and that this can be used to cause emotion. But
>> I'm intending to apply everything I'm saying only to static,
>> unchanging, harmonic structures. Once you bring chord progressions
>> into it, you start fleshing out something like a background "scale" or
>> "mode," which itself can be analyzed as a harmonic structure which is
>> somewhat in tune or out of tune
> I disagree that out-of-tune intervals are inherently more dissonant. Beat frequencies are incredibly relaxing in a very pleasant way. It's all in how you use it. If you compare ambient music where chords are sustained over long periods of time with harmonic timbres, I really think you'll find the beatless chords more offensive than ones where the beat frequency is between 0.5 to 5 Hz or so. Contrary to popular belief, I think that louder and faster music is more sensitive to tuning. I've heard it said that "popular music is fast because it's out of tune" and I think that's dead wrong. 13-EDO sounds very nice to me if it's played slowly and delicately, even on a piano, but if you play something quick and loud, it sounds terrible.
>
> -Igs
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Meta Tuning meta-info:
>
> To unsubscribe, send an email to:
> metatuning-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
> Web page is http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/metatuning/
>
> To post to the list, send to
> metatuning@yahoogroups.com
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:

> Haha, I know. I remember you telling me this, but I was set on 31
> anyway. The next one I get is going to probably be 22.
>
> I also really want 17 to use it as a 3.7.11.13 subgroup temperament,
> and 16 for mavila, and 15 for porcupine, and 14 for a contorted dicot,
> and... yeah.

Dude, you are following almost my exact same trajectory. Do not pass go, do not collect $200, go straight to 19-EDO. It is the smallest EDO to approximate ALL of the first 32 harmonics within 30 cents or less. It is also one of the richest in musical-sounding MOS scales. It's extremely rewarding to play with, and I desperately wish I had explored it sooner. I passed through 31, 22, 17, 15, 20, 16, and 18 (and by extension 11, 5, 10, 8, and 9) on my way there (all via refretted guitars). 31 and 22 were a waste of money, 17 has taken a long time to warm up to me, 15 I consider a close second to 19 in terms of being fun and rewarding to work with, 16 has a special place in my heart but it WILL take you to scary and bewildering places, and 18 is probably the nicest-sounding of the lot but somewhat limited in its mood. When I play in 18 I can't avoid sounding wistful and celestial.

What deterred me from getting into 19 was probably the fact that most of the music written in it does not treat it the way I do and sounds wrong to my ears. Even Neil Haverstick seems to have only recently begun exploiting its full potential (listen to "Mysterious Female" if you haven't already). I snatched a 19-EDO acoustic from Patrick Horgan for $300 and it's janky as hell and needs a new bridge to fix up its horrible intonation on half the strings, but even on this sad creature of a guitar, I can see what 19 is really capable of.

And the best part of 19 (from a guitar standpoint), as I mentioned in a recent thread on nonoctave.com, is that with a little tweak of intonation to make either the 3/2 or the 3/1 Just, you get Carlos Beta or an alternative Bohlen-Pierce temperament (respectively).

But really, Mike, if you're a keyboardist more than a guitarist, an AXiS is a much better investment. Then you can try all these temperaments out and see which one really lights your fire before committing them to metal and wood.

-Igs

It is interesting along these lines how African instruments always include noise. they have no desire for clean pitch, and sometimes it bothers me too as being to antiseptic and puritanical.
Maybe that is why i like Bartok, there is always dirt on the floor. he is pretty gutsy too.

/^_,',',',_ //^/Kraig Grady_^_,',',',_
Mesotonal Music from:
_'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere:
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>

_'''''''_^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria <http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>

',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',

a momentary antenna as i turn to water
this evaporates - an island once again

On 29/11/10 8:54 AM, Michael wrote:
> Kraig>"why bother with the noise then . i never enjoyed screaming in noisy
> places to converse , the conversation remains shallow"
>
> I figure the idea is that either you have
> A) An easy to decipher set of few signals
> B) An noisy signal, but one that potentially yield more signals than A given the
> right "ear" to decode it
>
> But, in general Kraig, I'd agree that most people probably fall into
> category A. Perhaps with a huge deal of ear training some people could be
> taught to "experience" B (especially "crazy" microtonalists like us :-D), but I
> certainly would not expect that of most people.
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Meta Tuning meta-info:
>
> To unsubscribe, send an email to:
> metatuning-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
> Web page is http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/metatuning/
>
> To post to the list, send to
> metatuning@yahoogroups.com
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>

I think it is always good to throw one self into foreign
territory or the opposite one.16 does that reversal of large and
small with the diatonic scale and 20 works too well as a pelog too.

/^_,',',',_ //^/Kraig Grady_^_,',',',_
Mesotonal Music from:
_'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere:
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>

_'''''''_^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria
<http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>

',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',

a momentary antenna as i turn to water
this evaporates - an island once again

On 29/11/10 8:32 AM, cityoftheasleep wrote:
> --- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, Chris Vaisvil<chrisvaisvil@...> wrote:
>> I'm not sure I see the sense in this thread. Isn't the idea to use
>> your ears and go where your inner ear wants to go?
>> The difference I see is that irregular tunings are indeed harder to
>> improvise with. Sometimes what I "hear" isn't available.
>> I think that just indicates a lack of "hearing" the complete tuning -
>> be it an irregular temperament or a JI scheme.
> There isn't any sense in comparing equal tunings to unequal ones in anything but the most subjective sense. That's why I titled the thread "why I don't like working with JI", not "why I don't like JI" or "why JI is hard to work with". What I consider to be bugs, others consider to be features.
>
> However, I have to say that my inner ear is not my chief compass in navigating alternative tunings. If I relied only on my inner ear, I'd never leave 12, because ultimately it's so ingrained in me that it's all my inner ear can predict/desire. This is why I did so poorly initially--I began with tunings that allowed me to play too close to 12. Before I composed "Map of an Internal Landscape" and forced myself to compose in every EDO in my "comfortable" range, in a host of non-12-like scales, the best microtonal stuff I did was (ironically) in JI, because it was so utterly alien. Nothing I played in 22 sounded half as fresh as what I played on the Catler 12-tone-Ultra-Plus. I just hated the latter guitar because I could never understand what I was doing with it. It was only when I delved into tunings like 18, 16, and 20 that I found a nice sweet-spot between novelty and familiarity, tunings that I could navigate comfortably but never get too close to 12. Of course, if I'd had a teacher in JI like Kraig or Erv or Kyle Gann, I might have had more success with it. We all have our own ways of navigating on our own, though. My own way is as peculiar as anyone's.
>
> -Igs
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Meta Tuning meta-info:
>
> To unsubscribe, send an email to:
> metatuning-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
> Web page is http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/metatuning/
>
> To post to the list, send to
> metatuning@yahoogroups.com
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...> wrote:
> I think I was there a couple years ago, at the time I was heavy into
> Lucy tuning for a while which is quite close to 12 equal. I guess what
> I did was "immersion" into tunings. My tuning surveys with fractal
> tune smithy and my GR-20 has been *very* helpful to acclimate myself
> to new tunings. I do not know what resources you have available - if
> you have only physical microtonal guitars and no general midi
> controllers your experience is very different from mine.

I wish I had been able to take that route. Instead, after wasting my money getting two guitars converted to EDOs I discovered I did not like, I got ahold of an FM7 and composed something in every EDO in what I considered the "practical" range (9 to 28, in fact). Of course, I composed by pointing and clicking into a piano roll in Cubase, not by playing, so my experience of the tunings was less organic. I loved what I composed in 20-EDO, for instance, but I find it hard to play on guitar since the note relationships are less apparent.

> On guitar I find chords pairs I like and practice moving between them
> and then transposing (if possible, and sometimes with an "adjustment"
> in fingering) - on guitar I very much work visually with "patterns" in
> both a chord shape and with "mapping" out a scale.

Yeah, that's really the only way to fly. I got in the habit of drawing scale diagrams while waiting for various luthiers to finish my guitars, and they helped a lot (most of the time).

> I imagine none of that is new to you though since you've been knocking
> at the microtonal door for a while. (At least a year right?)

LOL, I've been on and off the lists since 2004 or 2005 at least! I just took a long hiatus at one point, and that must have been when you and Mike joined. Haven't you heard any of my older music from when I was first getting into it? www.cityoftheasleep.com if you haven't, check out "Early Microtonal Works" and "Map of an Internal Landscape", all written between 2005 and 2007.

-Igs

On Sun, Nov 28, 2010 at 4:44 PM, cityoftheasleep
<igliashon@...> wrote:
>
> I disagree that out-of-tune intervals are inherently more dissonant. Beat frequencies are incredibly relaxing in a very pleasant way. It's all in how you use it. If you compare ambient music where chords are sustained over long periods of time with harmonic timbres, I really think you'll find the beatless chords more offensive than ones where the beat frequency is between 0.5 to 5 Hz or so. Contrary to popular belief, I think that louder and faster music is more sensitive to tuning. I've heard it said that "popular music is fast because it's out of tune" and I think that's dead wrong. 13-EDO sounds very nice to me if it's played slowly and delicately, even on a piano, but if you play something quick and loud, it sounds terrible.

I'm not talking about beating - I'm talking entirely about
periodicity. Like I said before, all of the beating, periodicity buzz,
etc thing is caused by something totally different. I agree with you
about beating, and furthermore I also think that when people claim to
be able to identify some really out there JI interval, they're really
identifying the periodic, polyrhythmic AM envelope that the
periodicity buzz causes, not that they're hearing the appropriate VF
generated per se. And I think that when the opposite group says that
19/16 falls into the field of attraction of 6/5 or whatever, they're
talking more about the VF that's produced.

What I'm saying is effectively what I'm saying is what you said a long
time ago - that if you sharpen or flatten 3/2 enough, you will end up
at an interval that is equivalent in entropy to, say, a just 6/5. I
don't believe that the current HE curve is accurate enough to actually
predict how many cents this equivalently-detuned fifth is, but I think
the concept is true in principle and your ears will guide you to
finding the proper intervals. And so I think you can use the 13-et
fifth as a "minor" fifth in a sense.

On a slightly related note, I also think that if we're talking about
something like 10:12:15, we're probably also assuming that the root is
being doubled a few octaves down, which would make
1.25:2.5:5:10:12:15, or 5:10:20:40:48:60. Methinks perhaps that might
fall into the field of attraction of the simpler 2:4:8:16:19:24, by
the same logic that people are using everywhere else for dyads. But
maybe that would also fall into the even more simple 1:2:4:8:16, with
the minor being viewed as some other voice that isn't a part of the
harmonic structure.

The fact that there are so many options is basically what entropy is,
and I think it correlates with perceptual dissonance pretty well.

-Mike

On Sun, Nov 28, 2010 at 5:53 PM, cityoftheasleep
<igliashon@...> wrote:
>
> LOL, I've been on and off the lists since 2004 or 2005 at least! I just took a long hiatus at one point, and that must have been when you and Mike joined. Haven't you heard any of my older music from when I was first getting into it? www.cityoftheasleep.com if you haven't, check out "Early Microtonal Works" and "Map of an Internal Landscape", all written between 2005 and 2007.

I came on around like 07 or 08, I think Chris and Mike came the
following year... don't remember. I think the first thing that
happened was I started posting off-topic stuff about transcendental
numbers.

- Then I got into an initially well-intentioned discussion about
minorness, which evolved into a flamewar and I left the list for a
while.
- Then I came back later and got into an initially well-intentioned
discussion about minorness, which evolved into a flamewar and I laid
low for a while.
- Then I took a lot of time to learn about regular mapping and HE and
came back and got into a well-intentioned discussion about the
perception of music, specifically minorness, which evolved into a
flamewar and I laid low for a while and kept learning.
- Then I made this post on metatuning that you're replying to, which
was basically my frustration at not being able to figure out how music
works. I didn't mention this at the time, but the underlying problem
was generalizing minorness to the 7-limit. I remember correctly, this
started well, but evolved into a flamewar and then Marcel was booted
off the list.
- I then went to Haiti for a while, and made a post about minorness
which started well but ended up turning into the most epic flamewar
yet, with people continuously joining and leaving the lists, and now
Oz and Margo and Kraig are gone.

The most recent development seems to be this thread, which might end
differently only because it's on metatuning.

-Mike

Igs>"15 I consider a close second to 19 in terms of being fun and rewarding to
work with"
I also found 15 very "immediately useful" compared to other TET tunings.

>"I passed through 31, 22, 17, 15, 20, 16, and 18 (and by extension 11, 5, 10, 8,
>and 9) on my way there (all via refretted guitars). 31 and 22 were a waste of
>money"
So what did you find wrong with 31? I find 31TET great for common practice
and quite good for more experimental 7-limit and 11-limit (pretty good for
Arabic-type intervals like 11/9 or 11/6).

From what I've wrote in 19TET I've found it hard to not either sound like
12TET diatonic or like 12TET diatonic with an extra "slightly off" note thrown
in.

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

Whoops, missed this reply.

On Sun, Nov 28, 2010 at 5:45 PM, cityoftheasleep
<igliashon@...> wrote:
>
> Dude, you are following almost my exact same trajectory. Do not pass go, do not collect $200, go straight to 19-EDO. It is the smallest EDO to approximate ALL of the first 32 harmonics within 30 cents or less. It is also one of the richest in musical-sounding MOS scales. It's extremely rewarding to play with, and I desperately wish I had explored it sooner. I passed through 31, 22, 17, 15, 20, 16, and 18 (and by extension 11, 5, 10, 8, and 9) on my way there (all via refretted guitars). 31 and 22 were a waste of money, 17 has taken a long time to warm up to me, 15 I consider a close second to 19 in terms of being fun and rewarding to work with, 16 has a special place in my heart but it WILL take you to scary and bewildering places, and 18 is probably the nicest-sounding of the lot but somewhat limited in its mood. When I play in 18 I can't avoid sounding wistful and celestial.

Jesus man, you have all of these guitars? Can't you just improvise in
each one on youtube? I want to see a 20 improv. I don't know anything
about 20-equal at all.

I think that 19-tet, despite that it's often in this Baroque-ish
context, is going to have an awesome application for neo-soul and
modal music in general. For example

- In normal music, the sub-frame is each chord, and it fleshes out the
overall background frame of meantone[7]
- In a lot of neo-soul inspired stuff, the sub-frames become each
mode, and they flesh out the overall background frame of meantone[12]

So in 19, you can take it one step further with diesic resolutions
that don't exist in 12-tet.

> What deterred me from getting into 19 was probably the fact that most of the music written in it does not treat it the way I do and sounds wrong to my ears. Even Neil Haverstick seems to have only recently begun exploiting its full potential (listen to "Mysterious Female" if you haven't already). I snatched a 19-EDO acoustic from Patrick Horgan for $300 and it's janky as hell and needs a new bridge to fix up its horrible intonation on half the strings, but even on this sad creature of a guitar, I can see what 19 is really capable of.

Yeah, Mysterious Female is great. Really, now that I'm out of the
"everything is about approximating JI" paradigm, things are easier.

> And the best part of 19 (from a guitar standpoint), as I mentioned in a recent thread on nonoctave.com, is that with a little tweak of intonation to make either the 3/2 or the 3/1 Just, you get Carlos Beta or an alternative Bohlen-Pierce temperament (respectively).

What do you mean an alternative BP temperament? You mean that BP is in
19? The tritave is 30 steps in 19, and 30 isn't divisible by 13...

> But really, Mike, if you're a keyboardist more than a guitarist, an AXiS is a much better investment. Then you can try all these temperaments out and see which one really lights your fire before committing them to metal and wood.

I'm working on it. Sometime next month I'll probably get one. I'm also
looking into the more expensive options to save up for (maybe one of
the Starr labs ones? I dunno.)

-Mike

[as for myself i found after a few years with 31, the whole tones too small.
such things one does not notice at first, or the accumulated effect]
it is quite good though on guitar could slow one down though
i have added info on it in the Wilson Archives which has grown considerably this week and will do so for a while longer

/^_,',',',_ //^/Kraig Grady_^_,',',',_
Mesotonal Music from:
_'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere:
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>

_'''''''_^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria <http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>

',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',

a momentary antenna as i turn to water
this evaporates - an island once again

On 29/11/10 11:18 AM, Michael wrote:
> Igs>"15 I consider a close second to 19 in terms of being fun and rewarding to
> work with"
> I also found 15 very "immediately useful" compared to other TET tunings.
>
>> "I passed through 31, 22, 17, 15, 20, 16, and 18 (and by extension 11, 5, 10, 8,
>> and 9) on my way there (all via refretted guitars). 31 and 22 were a waste of
>> money"
> So what did you find wrong with 31? I find 31TET great for common practice
> and quite good for more experimental 7-limit and 11-limit (pretty good for
> Arabic-type intervals like 11/9 or 11/6).
>
>
> From what I've wrote in 19TET I've found it hard to not either sound like
> 12TET diatonic or like 12TET diatonic with an extra "slightly off" note thrown
> in.
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Meta Tuning meta-info:
>
> To unsubscribe, send an email to:
> metatuning-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
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>
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>
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>
>
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>

> If you compare ambient music where chords are sustained over long periods
> of time with harmonic timbres, I really think you'll find the beatless
> chords more offensive than ones where the beat frequency is between 0.5 to 5
> Hz or so.

This is completely timbre dependent.
If one uses a sound with a beautifull timbre of itself (for instance a real
instument, like a horn or violin in a good acoustic space etc) then a pure
JI chord sounds by far the best.
It is known that by ear players of for instance trombone or violin do indeed
play pure JI chords in for instance a long closing chord.

But when one takes for instance a low quality midi sound or some harsh
electronic sound, then pure JI will leave this harsh unpleasant timbre
intact.
If one then detunes the chord from JI with a beat frequency of 0.5 to 5hz as
you say, the overtones of the harsh sound begin to phase and the unpleasant
timbre is somewhat masked.
It is similar to making an electronic sound with 2 detuned unisons for a
"fatter / warmer" effect.

This detuning is not a function of tuning in a pure sense, but is a function
of timbre.

Again, use the right timbre and nothing will be more pleasant, relaxing and
natural than pure JI.

-Marcel

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

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
> Jesus man, you have all of these guitars? Can't you just improvise > in each one on youtube? I want to see a 20 improv. I don't know
> anything about 20-equal at all.

I'll get around to it. I just re-configured my living space so that the larger of the two bedrooms is the studio (instead of the smaller bedroom as it used to be), so I feel more comfortable and more inspired to actually work on music. Don't expect to see 15 or 18, though, because they were the product of a DIY refret using fishing line that never sounded quite right, and that guitar is soon to get a Catler 19-EDO neck.

20-EDO is a very odd tuning, though. It sounds waaaay nicer than anyone would have guessed from looking at it on paper. Both the fifth and the major 3rd are quite sharp, yet they sound quite nice to me. Did you ever read the paper I wrote on 5n-EDOs? It explains the things I like about 20 in a good bit of depth.

> I think that 19-tet, despite that it's often in this Baroque-ish
> context, is going to have an awesome application for neo-soul and
> modal music in general. For example
>
> - In normal music, the sub-frame is each chord, and it fleshes out the
> overall background frame of meantone[7]
> - In a lot of neo-soul inspired stuff, the sub-frames become each
> mode, and they flesh out the overall background frame of meantone[12]
>
> So in 19, you can take it one step further with diesic resolutions
> that don't exist in 12-tet.

That sounds really interesting. Can you give some examples of how that would work?

> What do you mean an alternative BP temperament? You mean that BP is > in 19? The tritave is 30 steps in 19, and 30 isn't divisible by
> 13...

Well, 19 isn't divisible by 12, either. BP is specifically about 3:5:7 and 5:7:9 harmonies, a compass of 3:1, and (what is often overlooked) a 9-note diatonic scale that arises from a slightly-sharp 9:7 generator with a 3:1 period. Just as 19-ED2 contains an unequal 12-note meantone chromatic scale, 30-ED3 contains an unequal 13-note BP chromatic scale, with a 9-note 4L+5s BP diatonic scale within it. 19-ED2/30-ED3 also has nearly-pure 5:3, 9:7, and 9:5 intervals, and a slightly flat 7:5, so it's got the harmonies down. Hence, 30-ED3 is related to 13-ED3, so if you treat a 19-ED2 instrument as a 30-ED3 instrument with a tempered 3:1, you have BP!

-Igs

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, Marcel de Velde <m.develde@...> wrote:
> This detuning is not a function of tuning in a pure sense, but is a
> function of timbre.
>
> Again, use the right timbre and nothing will be more pleasant,
> relaxing and natural than pure JI.

Look into "binaural beats", or sit yourself down in front of a large, high-quality gong and play it softly. It is well-known that certain beat-frequencies are capable of inducing meditative states. One of my most powerful listening experiences was hearing a yogi friend of mine play a large Paiste gong...I heard these shimmering, beating, oscillating sheets of sound come out of it and was *instantly* transported into a peaceful and thoughtless state. Given that this occurred in the middle of a large well-attended fundraiser that I was catering (without pay, and I'm NOT a professional caterer!), when I was in a state of high stress and anxiety, is further testament to the power of that sound. I'd never heard anything like it before, and I am absolutely certain there is not a beatless chord in the world capable of producing such an immediate and arresting sense of serenity as that utterly-inharmonic gong.

And at any rate, because of the variability of physical mediums like wood, metal, air, the human mouth, etc. it's impossible to achieve a perfectly static harmonic timbre by anything other than electronic means (and even that may be dubious). So even assuming perfect intonation on the part of the player/instrument, the slight wobble in the partials produced by the instrument will prevent a truly beatless sound from ever manifesting in the acoustic realm. Phasing from reverberation in the room, subtle shifts of the position of performer and listener, even temperature changes can affect the sound of instrument, further compounding timbral fluctuation. This very well could be the reason WHY most people find nice acoustic timbres more pleasant than harsh electronic ones. Not a machine in the world can replicate the infinite slight uncertainties of a real acoustic instrument.

Whatever validity JI has in terms of musical perception and the construction of tonality, it simply cannot describe the physicality of what occurs in acoustic sound.

-Igs

If you take the recurrent sequence a+c=d {Erv's meta-pelog and the first recurrent sequence after the fibonacci series}this will converge on a generator that almost exactly gives you 20ET so you have some stretched 4th chords that are proportional in the same way as the one i posted yesterday. see page 9 of http://anaphoria.com/meruthree.PDF <http://anaphoria.com/meruthree.PDf>
this comes out as 11 steps in 20. An 0. 13. 2. above should be the recurrent proportional triad which i remember being a strange one. but ties the scale together
there are a few recurrent that come close to ETs which he marked in pencil which i notice don't come out in reproduction.
some day i will write then in.

/^_,',',',_ //^/Kraig Grady_^_,',',',_
Mesotonal Music from:
_'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere:
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>

_'''''''_^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria <http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>

',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',

a momentary antenna as i turn to water
this evaporates - an island once again

On 29/11/10 1:09 PM, cityoftheasleep wrote:
> --- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia<battaglia01@...> wrote:
>> Jesus man, you have all of these guitars? Can't you just improvise> in each one on youtube? I want to see a 20 improv. I don't know
>> anything about 20-equal at all.
> I'll get around to it. I just re-configured my living space so that the larger of the two bedrooms is the studio (instead of the smaller bedroom as it used to be), so I feel more comfortable and more inspired to actually work on music. Don't expect to see 15 or 18, though, because they were the product of a DIY refret using fishing line that never sounded quite right, and that guitar is soon to get a Catler 19-EDO neck.
>
> 20-EDO is a very odd tuning, though. It sounds waaaay nicer than anyone would have guessed from looking at it on paper. Both the fifth and the major 3rd are quite sharp, yet they sound quite nice to me. Did you ever read the paper I wrote on 5n-EDOs? It explains the things I like about 20 in a good bit of depth.
>
>> I think that 19-tet, despite that it's often in this Baroque-ish
>> context, is going to have an awesome application for neo-soul and
>> modal music in general. For example
>>
>> - In normal music, the sub-frame is each chord, and it fleshes out the
>> overall background frame of meantone[7]
>> - In a lot of neo-soul inspired stuff, the sub-frames become each
>> mode, and they flesh out the overall background frame of meantone[12]
>>
>> So in 19, you can take it one step further with diesic resolutions
>> that don't exist in 12-tet.
> That sounds really interesting. Can you give some examples of how that would work?
>
>> What do you mean an alternative BP temperament? You mean that BP is> in 19? The tritave is 30 steps in 19, and 30 isn't divisible by
>> 13...
> Well, 19 isn't divisible by 12, either. BP is specifically about 3:5:7 and 5:7:9 harmonies, a compass of 3:1, and (what is often overlooked) a 9-note diatonic scale that arises from a slightly-sharp 9:7 generator with a 3:1 period. Just as 19-ED2 contains an unequal 12-note meantone chromatic scale, 30-ED3 contains an unequal 13-note BP chromatic scale, with a 9-note 4L+5s BP diatonic scale within it. 19-ED2/30-ED3 also has nearly-pure 5:3, 9:7, and 9:5 intervals, and a slightly flat 7:5, so it's got the harmonies down. Hence, 30-ED3 is related to 13-ED3, so if you treat a 19-ED2 instrument as a 30-ED3 instrument with a tempered 3:1, you have BP!
>
> -Igs
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Meta Tuning meta-info:
>
> To unsubscribe, send an email to:
> metatuning-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
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>
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> metatuning@yahoogroups.com
>
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>
>
>
>
>

La Monte Young has some pretty packed JI chords

/^_,',',',_ //^/Kraig Grady_^_,',',',_
Mesotonal Music from:
_'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere:
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>

_'''''''_^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria
<http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>

',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',

a momentary antenna as i turn to water
this evaporates - an island once again

On 29/11/10 1:26 PM, cityoftheasleep wrote:
> --- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, Marcel de Velde<m.develde@...> wrote:
>> This detuning is not a function of tuning in a pure sense, but is a
>> function of timbre.
>>
>> Again, use the right timbre and nothing will be more pleasant,
>> relaxing and natural than pure JI.
> Look into "binaural beats", or sit yourself down in front of a large, high-quality gong and play it softly. It is well-known that certain beat-frequencies are capable of inducing meditative states. One of my most powerful listening experiences was hearing a yogi friend of mine play a large Paiste gong...I heard these shimmering, beating, oscillating sheets of sound come out of it and was *instantly* transported into a peaceful and thoughtless state. Given that this occurred in the middle of a large well-attended fundraiser that I was catering (without pay, and I'm NOT a professional caterer!), when I was in a state of high stress and anxiety, is further testament to the power of that sound. I'd never heard anything like it before, and I am absolutely certain there is not a beatless chord in the world capable of producing such an immediate and arresting sense of serenity as that utterly-inharmonic gong.
>
> And at any rate, because of the variability of physical mediums like wood, metal, air, the human mouth, etc. it's impossible to achieve a perfectly static harmonic timbre by anything other than electronic means (and even that may be dubious). So even assuming perfect intonation on the part of the player/instrument, the slight wobble in the partials produced by the instrument will prevent a truly beatless sound from ever manifesting in the acoustic realm. Phasing from reverberation in the room, subtle shifts of the position of performer and listener, even temperature changes can affect the sound of instrument, further compounding timbral fluctuation. This very well could be the reason WHY most people find nice acoustic timbres more pleasant than harsh electronic ones. Not a machine in the world can replicate the infinite slight uncertainties of a real acoustic instrument.
>
> Whatever validity JI has in terms of musical perception and the construction of tonality, it simply cannot describe the physicality of what occurs in acoustic sound.
>
> -Igs
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Meta Tuning meta-info:
>
> To unsubscribe, send an email to:
> metatuning-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
> Web page is http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/metatuning/
>
> To post to the list, send to
> metatuning@yahoogroups.com
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>

> And at any rate, because of the variability of physical mediums like wood,
> metal, air, the human mouth, etc. it's impossible to achieve a perfectly
> static harmonic timbre by anything other than electronic means (and even
> that may be dubious).

Yes, and there's the distinction between timbre and tuning.
They are 2 different things.

-Marcel

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

> And at any rate, because of the variability of physical mediums like wood,
>> metal, air, the human mouth, etc. it's impossible to achieve a perfectly
>> static harmonic timbre by anything other than electronic means (and even
>> that may be dubious).
>
>
> Yes, and there's the distinction between timbre and tuning.
> They are 2 different things.
>
> -Marcel

What I also mean. Those beautifull instument sounds you mentioned.
When one plays these instruments in pure JI, their beautifull timbre stays
intact.
When one plays these instruments in for instance 12tet, then the tuning will
interfere with the timbre and the beautifull timbre is destroyed to a
certain degree.

Beating / floating etc in timbre yes good, beating / floating in tuning no
good.

-Marcel

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

Perhaps a GR-20 (~700) and an on the fly retuner like fractal tune
smithy - ie my set up - would be more cost efficient?

>
> Haven't you heard any of my older music from when I was first getting into it? www.cityoftheasleep.com if you haven't, check out "Early Microtonal Works" and "Map of an Internal Landscape", all written between 2005 and 2007.
>
> -Igs

I remember those now that you mention it - and you say you have
microtonal composing troubles??

Chris

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, Marcel de Velde <m.develde@...> wrote:
> Beating / floating etc in timbre yes good, beating / floating in tuning no
> good.

But beating is beating--JI will beat unless the timbre is perfectly harmonic! Any time the partials of two notes interfere with each other, we have beating. So it could be a harmonic timbre is interfered with by an inharmonic scale, or a (slightly or not-so-slightly) inharmonic timbre is interfered with by a harmonic scale. The upshot of this is that true JI is impossible to achieve on an acoustic instrument. Oh, we can get close enough, sure, but if we look closely at what all the frequencies are actually doing with each other, we have to admit that the ratios are at best a probabilistic nucleus at the center of a cloud of infinitely-many minute variations in frequency relationships. The same can be said of temperaments, as well--12-tET does not "really" exist on any acoustic instrument.

-Igs

On Sun, Nov 28, 2010 at 9:09 PM, cityoftheasleep
<igliashon@...> wrote:
>
> --- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
> > Jesus man, you have all of these guitars? Can't you just improvise > in each one on youtube? I want to see a 20 improv. I don't know
> > anything about 20-equal at all.
>
> I'll get around to it. I just re-configured my living space so that the larger of the two bedrooms is the studio (instead of the smaller bedroom as it used to be), so I feel more comfortable and more inspired to actually work on music. Don't expect to see 15 or 18, though, because they were the product of a DIY refret using fishing line that never sounded quite right, and that guitar is soon to get a Catler 19-EDO neck.

Alright, although hopefully someday I'll get to hear you messing
around with 15. 15 is one of my new favorites.

> 20-EDO is a very odd tuning, though. It sounds waaaay nicer than anyone would have guessed from looking at it on paper. Both the fifth and the major 3rd are quite sharp, yet they sound quite nice to me. Did you ever read the paper I wrote on 5n-EDOs? It explains the things I like about 20 in a good bit of depth.

No, can you link me to it? That's the kind of thing I need to be
reading. I've been teaching myself about 7n-EDOs recently, since I
think they're awesome. 5n's are a bit harder for me to process, since
they really force you outside of the diatonic box.

> > So in 19, you can take it one step further with diesic resolutions
> > that don't exist in 12-tet.
>
> That sounds really interesting. Can you give some examples of how that would work?

So let's say I move from C ionian to C lydian augmented: C D E F G A B
C moves to C D E F# G# A B C

Then let's say I move to C aeolian: C D E F# G# A B C moves to C D Eb
F G Ab Bb C

In 12-tet, the G# from the first scale is the same as the Ab from the
second scale. In 19-tet, this isn't going to be the case, and so I
think there's going to be a ton of interesting ways to milk this
feature. You can essentially move around the full plane of thirds
without ending back where you started after 3 hops. You could do a
chord like C G# B E F# -> C Ab Bb Eb G, and you have G#-Ab moving by a
diesis and note the huuuuuuuge color shift between those two chords.
The fact that the diesis and the chromatic semitone become equated
might lead to some interesting possibilities as well.

If this isn't making sense, then maybe this 12-tet example I came up
with a while ago will help demonstrate the concept:
http://www.mikebattagliamusic.com/music/ModalResolutions.mp3

This is basically all stuff that's inspired by folks like Robert
Glasper and James Poyser and what not. You can analyze what they're
doing similarly to what people on here are doing with the Eikosany,
except it's like a tempered Eikosany where 81/80 vanishes and the base
tetrad is something more like C-E-G-B-D instead of 4:5:6:7. They play
hexadic chords that "imply" one of the diatonic modes, and then the
rule is you keep moving to another mode that has at least a common
dyad with the mode you're playing now, most often a fifth. Picking
voicings that manage to actually imply a mode is the tricky but fun
part.

So halfway through the example I posted above, I go into a more
Debussy-inspired section where I start moving into the near-MOS modes
of melodic/harmonic minor/major instead of the diatonic modes - when I
go into the 7/4 B7#11 -> B7sus thing. That's the territory that I want
to explore with 19-tet, where there's lots of variation that gets
tempered out in the example I posted.

You end up getting a sound that's a combination of the Robert Glasper
type thing I posted, but all of the ultra-compressed sounding
Blackwood resolutions like he used in his 19-tet fanfare become an
option as well. Except instead of triadic harmonies, there will be
lots of major9 chords moving to minor 9 chords and so on.

> > What do you mean an alternative BP temperament? You mean that BP is > in 19? The tritave is 30 steps in 19, and 30 isn't divisible by
> > 13...
>
> Well, 19 isn't divisible by 12, either. BP is specifically about 3:5:7 and 5:7:9 harmonies, a compass of 3:1, and (what is often overlooked) a 9-note diatonic scale that arises from a slightly-sharp 9:7 generator with a 3:1 period. Just as 19-ED2 contains an unequal 12-note meantone chromatic scale, 30-ED3 contains an unequal 13-note BP chromatic scale, with a 9-note 4L+5s BP diatonic scale within it. 19-ED2/30-ED3 also has nearly-pure 5:3, 9:7, and 9:5 intervals, and a slightly flat 7:5, so it's got the harmonies down. Hence, 30-ED3 is related to 13-ED3, so if you treat a 19-ED2 instrument as a 30-ED3 instrument with a tempered 3:1, you have BP!

I guess that makes sense, although 3:7 in 19 is pretty far out...
maybe by sharpening the fifth it'll lock in more.

Also, what did you hate about 22? That was going to be my next option.

-Mike

> But beating is beating--JI will beat unless the timbre is perfectly
> harmonic! Any time the partials of two notes interfere with each other, we
> have beating. So it could be a harmonic timbre is interfered with by an
> inharmonic scale, or a (slightly or not-so-slightly) inharmonic timbre is
> interfered with by a harmonic scale. The upshot of this is that true JI is
> impossible to achieve on an acoustic instrument. Oh, we can get close
> enough, sure, but if we look closely at what all the frequencies are
> actually doing with each other, we have to admit that the ratios are at best
> a probabilistic nucleus at the center of a cloud of infinitely-many minute
> variations in frequency relationships. The same can be said of temperaments,
> as well--12-tET does not "really" exist on any acoustic instrument.
>
> -Igs
>

Yes, with "moving" timbres where in tranposed notes the "movement" is not
synchronic, JI will produce beating as well, but nonetheless JI will still
be the optimal tuning for preserving the timbre in polyphony as much as
possible.
In sounds that move / have beatings of their own etc you take the average
pitch hight, and base JI on this.

Another nice example is the Beethoven tuning I did:
http://forum.justintonation.com/index.php/topic,8.0.html

If you compare the 12tet and MJI versions, both will express the same
musical meaning.
Both don't even sound that much different in tuning.
The most striking difference is in the timbre!
They're using exactly 100% the same sound though.
But the 12tet version floats (and sounds in a way more pleasant because of
that because it modifies the timbre due to phasing)
The MJI version leaves the timbre intact (and shows even in harmonies what a
nasty timbre it is)

-Marcel

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

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
> Alright, although hopefully someday I'll get to hear you messing
> around with 15. 15 is one of my new favorites.

15 is actually one of the first I encountered, before I even knew what microtonal music was! My friend Stevie discovered a mysterious "pitch slope" parameter on his Korg Triton when we were in high school, and discovered he liked how it sounded when moved from 1 to .8. .5 was quartertones, so .8 was 15-EDO...neither of us understood that, of course, but he played some really crazy stuff with it and we both loved it.

I will say that in 15, I find the Blackwood decatonic to be more "natural-sounding" than Porcupine. I've tried Porcupine in 15 and 22 both and found them to be totally beastly, probably because they shoe-horn some very normal-sounding 5-limit triads into a totally wonky melodic framework. Generally speaking, though, 15 is quite easy to work with. More so even than 14, I think.

> No, can you link me to it? That's the kind of thing I need to be
> reading. I've been teaching myself about 7n-EDOs recently, since I
> think they're awesome. 5n's are a bit harder for me to process, since
> they really force you outside of the diatonic box.

http://www.cityoftheasleep.com/etc/5nEDOs.pdf

It's a bit out-of-date for me, lots of reference to JI approximations that I no longer consider valid, but lots of other stuff I do still agree with. I'll be interested to know what you think!

> So let's say I move from C ionian to C lydian augmented: C D E F G A B
> C moves to C D E F# G# A B C
>
> Then let's say I move to C aeolian: C D E F# G# A B C moves to C D Eb
> F G Ab Bb C
>
> In 12-tet, the G# from the first scale is the same as the Ab from the
> second scale. In 19-tet, this isn't going to be the case, and so I
> think there's going to be a ton of interesting ways to milk this
> feature. You can essentially move around the full plane of thirds
> without ending back where you started after 3 hops. You could do a
> chord like C G# B E F# -> C Ab Bb Eb G, and you have G#-Ab moving by a
> diesis and note the huuuuuuuge color shift between those two chords.
> The fact that the diesis and the chromatic semitone become equated
> might lead to some interesting possibilities as well.

Aha, fascinating! I wish I better understood how modal resolutions really function...they seem to be a little more complicated than classical cadences (which I'm only barely beginning to get ahold of).

> I guess that makes sense, although 3:7 in 19 is pretty far out...
> maybe by sharpening the fifth it'll lock in more.

Not by much, but it's really no further out than the 4:5 in 12-tET. And at such a large (>octave) span as 3:7, you have virtually no critical-band dissonance to worry about, so larger errors in approximation are more acceptable. I mean, it's not a particularly GOOD BP temperament, but if you look into ED3's, 30-ED3 is the next-smallest after 13 to be reasonably compatible with 3:5:7:9 harmony. To get any better, you've got to go to 43-ED3, which is also basically 27-ED2. In which case, the harmony is pretty much stellar, but the steps are a lot more crowded. That's the funny thing about BP...the smallest ED3 really has much better harmony than most of the larger ones!

> Also, what did you hate about 22? That was going to be my next option.

Well, two of the best scales in 22 (the septimal superpyth diatonic and the Pajara decatonic) are both 12-compatible and sounded very "twelvey" to me. Porcupine did not sound good to me no matter what I did with it, and even the Orwell scale (which I loved in 31) just lacked character. And I swear, despite the fact that 22 is supposed to be a "pretty good 7-limit temperament", I really did NOT hear that 981.81-cent minor 7th as a 7/4. Of course, plenty of other people have had great success with it, but I think it's really a better keyboard tuning than guitar. YMMV, and Ivor Darreg believed that people would be pretty split between 19 and 22 over which they preferred; after playing with both, I'm squarely in the 19 camp, but you might not be. The most fun I had with 22, believe it or not, was playing in 11. XJ Scott has often expressed a preference for 11 over 22, and I totally get it. I actually quite miss 11...if I hadn't sold my 22-tone axe to Bill Sethares, I'd probably have just ripped out the odd frets and made it an 11-tone guitar. In summary, there is really just something about 22 that feels "weak" and "bland" to me. No matter what I did with it, I couldn't get it to sound very xenharmonic. I can't really explain it better than that.

-Igs

A tenth of a cent on tuned bars is not that difficult. I can hit the the same bar on three different instruments and hear no beats
The purpose of JI is not to stop all beating as difference tones which Helmholtz talks about.
the question of tolerance will always come up.
Indian musicians without doubt have the best ears in regard to pitch that i have witness. a two cent difference in that music can mean something, or so it appears.
So tests on western musicians in one way is a joke, We are programmed to put up with tolerances that other places shutter at. In recent years i have noticed that string music especially of an atonal variety, if there is any unison, it falls apart cause the players are not sure just what is it they are supposed to play. I think sometimes i might be the only one in the hall that hears it.

/^_,',',',_ //^/Kraig Grady_^_,',',',_
Mesotonal Music from:
_'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere:
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>

_'''''''_^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria <http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>

',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',

a momentary antenna as i turn to water
this evaporates - an island once again

On 30/11/10 2:51 AM, cityoftheasleep wrote:
> --- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, Marcel de Velde<m.develde@...> wrote:
>> Beating / floating etc in timbre yes good, beating / floating in tuning no
>> good.
> But beating is beating--JI will beat unless the timbre is perfectly harmonic! Any time the partials of two notes interfere with each other, we have beating. So it could be a harmonic timbre is interfered with by an inharmonic scale, or a (slightly or not-so-slightly) inharmonic timbre is interfered with by a harmonic scale. The upshot of this is that true JI is impossible to achieve on an acoustic instrument. Oh, we can get close enough, sure, but if we look closely at what all the frequencies are actually doing with each other, we have to admit that the ratios are at best a probabilistic nucleus at the center of a cloud of infinitely-many minute variations in frequency relationships. The same can be said of temperaments, as well--12-tET does not "really" exist on any acoustic instrument.
>
> -Igs
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Meta Tuning meta-info:
>
> To unsubscribe, send an email to:
> metatuning-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
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>
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>
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>
>
>
>
>

While you can't do an Eikosany in 19ET you can do hexanies based on melodic intervals as Wilson charted out here.
http://anaphoria.com/19tonehexanies.pdf
you can do melodic eikosanies in 22 though

/^_,',',',_ //^/Kraig Grady_^_,',',',_
Mesotonal Music from:
_'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere:
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>

_'''''''_^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria <http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>

',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',

a momentary antenna as i turn to water
this evaporates - an island once again

On 30/11/10 3:48 AM, Mike Battaglia wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 28, 2010 at 9:09 PM, cityoftheasleep
> <igliashon@...> wrote:
>> --- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia<battaglia01@...> wrote:
>>> Jesus man, you have all of these guitars? Can't you just improvise> in each one on youtube? I want to see a 20 improv. I don't know
>>> anything about 20-equal at all.
>> I'll get around to it. I just re-configured my living space so that the larger of the two bedrooms is the studio (instead of the smaller bedroom as it used to be), so I feel more comfortable and more inspired to actually work on music. Don't expect to see 15 or 18, though, because they were the product of a DIY refret using fishing line that never sounded quite right, and that guitar is soon to get a Catler 19-EDO neck.
> Alright, although hopefully someday I'll get to hear you messing
> around with 15. 15 is one of my new favorites.
>
>> 20-EDO is a very odd tuning, though. It sounds waaaay nicer than anyone would have guessed from looking at it on paper. Both the fifth and the major 3rd are quite sharp, yet they sound quite nice to me. Did you ever read the paper I wrote on 5n-EDOs? It explains the things I like about 20 in a good bit of depth.
> No, can you link me to it? That's the kind of thing I need to be
> reading. I've been teaching myself about 7n-EDOs recently, since I
> think they're awesome. 5n's are a bit harder for me to process, since
> they really force you outside of the diatonic box.
>
>>> So in 19, you can take it one step further with diesic resolutions
>>> that don't exist in 12-tet.
>> That sounds really interesting. Can you give some examples of how that would work?
> So let's say I move from C ionian to C lydian augmented: C D E F G A B
> C moves to C D E F# G# A B C
>
> Then let's say I move to C aeolian: C D E F# G# A B C moves to C D Eb
> F G Ab Bb C
>
> In 12-tet, the G# from the first scale is the same as the Ab from the
> second scale. In 19-tet, this isn't going to be the case, and so I
> think there's going to be a ton of interesting ways to milk this
> feature. You can essentially move around the full plane of thirds
> without ending back where you started after 3 hops. You could do a
> chord like C G# B E F# -> C Ab Bb Eb G, and you have G#-Ab moving by a
> diesis and note the huuuuuuuge color shift between those two chords.
> The fact that the diesis and the chromatic semitone become equated
> might lead to some interesting possibilities as well.
>
> If this isn't making sense, then maybe this 12-tet example I came up
> with a while ago will help demonstrate the concept:
> http://www.mikebattagliamusic.com/music/ModalResolutions.mp3
>
> This is basically all stuff that's inspired by folks like Robert
> Glasper and James Poyser and what not. You can analyze what they're
> doing similarly to what people on here are doing with the Eikosany,
> except it's like a tempered Eikosany where 81/80 vanishes and the base
> tetrad is something more like C-E-G-B-D instead of 4:5:6:7. They play
> hexadic chords that "imply" one of the diatonic modes, and then the
> rule is you keep moving to another mode that has at least a common
> dyad with the mode you're playing now, most often a fifth. Picking
> voicings that manage to actually imply a mode is the tricky but fun
> part.
>
> So halfway through the example I posted above, I go into a more
> Debussy-inspired section where I start moving into the near-MOS modes
> of melodic/harmonic minor/major instead of the diatonic modes - when I
> go into the 7/4 B7#11 -> B7sus thing. That's the territory that I want
> to explore with 19-tet, where there's lots of variation that gets
> tempered out in the example I posted.
>
> You end up getting a sound that's a combination of the Robert Glasper
> type thing I posted, but all of the ultra-compressed sounding
> Blackwood resolutions like he used in his 19-tet fanfare become an
> option as well. Except instead of triadic harmonies, there will be
> lots of major9 chords moving to minor 9 chords and so on.
>
>>> What do you mean an alternative BP temperament? You mean that BP is> in 19? The tritave is 30 steps in 19, and 30 isn't divisible by
>>> 13...
>> Well, 19 isn't divisible by 12, either. BP is specifically about 3:5:7 and 5:7:9 harmonies, a compass of 3:1, and (what is often overlooked) a 9-note diatonic scale that arises from a slightly-sharp 9:7 generator with a 3:1 period. Just as 19-ED2 contains an unequal 12-note meantone chromatic scale, 30-ED3 contains an unequal 13-note BP chromatic scale, with a 9-note 4L+5s BP diatonic scale within it. 19-ED2/30-ED3 also has nearly-pure 5:3, 9:7, and 9:5 intervals, and a slightly flat 7:5, so it's got the harmonies down. Hence, 30-ED3 is related to 13-ED3, so if you treat a 19-ED2 instrument as a 30-ED3 instrument with a tempered 3:1, you have BP!
> I guess that makes sense, although 3:7 in 19 is pretty far out...
> maybe by sharpening the fifth it'll lock in more.
>
> Also, what did you hate about 22? That was going to be my next option.
>
> -Mike
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Meta Tuning meta-info:
>
> To unsubscribe, send an email to:
> metatuning-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
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>
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>
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>
>
>
>
>

Kraig>"Indian musicians without doubt have the best ears in regard to
pitch that i have witness. a two cent difference in that music
can mean something, or so it appears.
So tests on western musicians in one way is a joke"

In many ways, it seems to come down to the more notes you gave playing at once,
the more tolerance there is for error on each note without a difference in the
overall tone.
Given that we are used to hearing single notes, even in monophonic music, and
"building" them into chords in our minds (IE if we play an arpeggio or even a
few consecutive 8th note tones)...this might explain why we are so tolerant for
error vs. cultures where listeners hear largely monophonic music and rarely, if
ever, think of notes as parts of chords.

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

All this discussion is so interesting!

i'm loving it!!!

keep going people, i'm reading it all
i'm a composer, but i never played micortonal music inthat sense of acurracy
and technic.
i composed on this way, never played

tha's all

keep the faith (in music)

cheers from Rio de Janeiro (wish us luck on this time)

Leo Alves Vieira
----------
www.myspace.com/leoalvesvieira

________________________________
De: Michael <djtrancendance@...>
Para: metatuning@yahoogroups.com
Enviadas: Domingo, 28 de Novembro de 2010 13:53:25
Assunto: Re: [metatuning] Why I Don't Like Working With JI

MikeB>"- Do you not like the crazy chaotic high entropy discordant noise of
something like metal? Does it just sound like a signal made up
overwhelmingly of noise?
- Or maybe, do you enjoy the higher entropy of it, can extract
information from that signal, and enjoy being intelligent enough to
"ride the wave" so to speak?"

"Ride the wave"...exactly!...I think people have differing abilities to
extract information from noise and/or to filter out noise and "leave"
information for easy extraction. In the same way some people instinctively
enjoy conversations with many people at once in loud clubs as "more exciting"
and others find it "just plain confusing".

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

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

I'm not sure if this makes your point or not Marcel.

I am teaching myself to use Sibelius and I'm writing a short 4 part choral
piece using Garritan Aria Choir in John O� Sullivan�s Blue JI tuning.
(details of the tuning http://chrisvaisvil.com/?p=317 )

I present to you the same piece of music which is pretty chromatic and I
think sounds completely great as a choral piece despite it.
But the piano shows the "rough edges"

choir only
http://micro.soonlabel.com/blue-tuning/Aria_Soon.mp3
GPO piano only
http://micro.soonlabel.com/blue-tuning/Aria_Soon_piano.mp3
choir and piano mixed
http://micro.soonlabel.com/blue-tuning/aria_soon_Mixdown.mp3

In any case, in the choir setting, I feel I can do pretty much anything I
want.
(Though I am getting a bit more conventional as the piece progresses.)

On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 5:37 AM, Marcel de Velde <m.develde@...>wrote:

>
>
> > And at any rate, because of the variability of physical mediums like
> wood,
> >> metal, air, the human mouth, etc. it's impossible to achieve a perfectly
> >> static harmonic timbre by anything other than electronic means (and even
> >> that may be dubious).
> >
> >
> > Yes, and there's the distinction between timbre and tuning.
> > They are 2 different things.
> >
> > -Marcel
>
> What I also mean. Those beautifull instument sounds you mentioned.
> When one plays these instruments in pure JI, their beautifull timbre stays
> intact.
> When one plays these instruments in for instance 12tet, then the tuning
> will
> interfere with the timbre and the beautifull timbre is destroyed to a
> certain degree.
>
> Beating / floating etc in timbre yes good, beating / floating in tuning no
> good.
>
>
> -Marcel
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>

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

On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 3:30 PM, cityoftheasleep
<igliashon@...> wrote:
>
> --- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
> > Alright, although hopefully someday I'll get to hear you messing
> > around with 15. 15 is one of my new favorites.
>
> 15 is actually one of the first I encountered, before I even knew what microtonal music was! My friend Stevie discovered a mysterious "pitch slope" parameter on his Korg Triton when we were in high school, and discovered he liked how it sounded when moved from 1 to .8. .5 was quartertones, so .8 was 15-EDO...neither of us understood that, of course, but he played some really crazy stuff with it and we both loved it.

Haha, I think I screwed around with the same thing actually. There are
a bunch of cheaper Korg keyboards in UM's music computer lab, and we
kept screwing with the pitch slope function. I never managed to make
anything good out of it, I just liked that .8 actually yielded an
octave somewhere down the line.

> I will say that in 15, I find the Blackwood decatonic to be more "natural-sounding" than Porcupine. I've tried Porcupine in 15 and 22 both and found them to be totally beastly, probably because they shoe-horn some very normal-sounding 5-limit triads into a totally wonky melodic framework. Generally speaking, though, 15 is quite easy to work with. More so even than 14, I think.

What do you think about 35? I can't get the hang of that one no matter
what I do. The fact that you can map the fifth two ways always throws
me off.

> > No, can you link me to it? That's the kind of thing I need to be
> > reading. I've been teaching myself about 7n-EDOs recently, since I
> > think they're awesome. 5n's are a bit harder for me to process, since
> > they really force you outside of the diatonic box.
>
> http://www.cityoftheasleep.com/etc/5nEDOs.pdf
>
> It's a bit out-of-date for me, lots of reference to JI approximations that I no longer consider valid, but lots of other stuff I do still agree with. I'll be interested to know what you think!

This is awesome man, what did you write this for? This is exactly the
kind of stuff I need to be reading. Do you have any more papers like
this? And I totally agree that 20-tet's Blackwood scale sounds better
than 15-tet's one. The sharp major thirds make it happen.

> > In 12-tet, the G# from the first scale is the same as the Ab from the
> > second scale. In 19-tet, this isn't going to be the case, and so I
> > think there's going to be a ton of interesting ways to milk this
> > feature. You can essentially move around the full plane of thirds
> > without ending back where you started after 3 hops. You could do a
> > chord like C G# B E F# -> C Ab Bb Eb G, and you have G#-Ab moving by a
> > diesis and note the huuuuuuuge color shift between those two chords.
> > The fact that the diesis and the chromatic semitone become equated
> > might lead to some interesting possibilities as well.
>
> Aha, fascinating! I wish I better understood how modal resolutions really function...they seem to be a little more complicated than classical cadences (which I'm only barely beginning to get ahold of).

I have a lot of ideas on how I think it works, but I don't claim to
know the whole answer. Part of it comes from understanding what your
options are in terms of "chord progressions," which in this sense
becomes more like a "mode progression." And a lot of it is stuff I do
by ear, but I have some structures that I fall back on.

If we're sticking in the diatonic realm, instead of having three
chords (major, minor, diminished), we now have 7 modes, which you can
think of like 7-note harmonic structures. Although you may not ever
play all 7 notes at the same time, the priming effect is always taking
place, so the notes you're playing now plus the notes you played in
the last chord both contribute to the 7-note harmonic structure that's
in your head, which you'd find yourself intuitively using if you ever
wanted to come up with the most natural-sounding melody over the
current chord possible.

It's of course also possible to come up with chord structures that
imply nondiatonic modes, or the diminished or whole tone or augmented
scales too. And if you're in a tuning like 15-tet, you could come up
with chord structures that imply porcupine or blackwood[10] or
something like that too.

So a good way to proceed is to lay the 7 diatonic modes out from
"brightest" to "darkest," or from "most major" to "most minor," or
something like that:

Lydian - C D E F# G A B C - meantone[7] with all generators going up
Ionian - C D E F G A B C - meantone[7] with one fifth going down, the
rest going up
Mixolydian - C D E F G A Bb C - meantone[7] with two fifths going
down, the rest going up
Dorian - C D Eb F G A Bb C - blah blah
Aeolian - C D Eb F G Ab Bb C - blah
Phrygian - C Db Eb F G Ab Bb C - bbblllaahh
Locrian - C Db Eb F Gb Ab Bb C - all fifths going down

You will notice something of a perceptual pattern here: Locrian really
does sound "darker" than Phrygian, which really does sound "darker"
than Aeolian, and Dorian is getting brighter, and Mixolydian is even
brighter still, and Ionian is "happy," and Lydian is so bright that it
also starts to sound sad again.

So what is a "modal" chord progression? There's the basic definition,
which is that a "modal" chord progression is one in which you write a
song using a base mode other than Ionian or Aeolian. But it gets
interesting when you start to borrow chords from other modes. For
example:

||: Cmaj -> Ebmaj -> Bbmaj -> Fmaj :||

So the Cmaj starts you off in one of the major modes, maybe lydian,
ionian, mixolydian, etc. Then the Ebmaj is borrowed from one of the
minor modes, maybe dorian, aeolian, phrygian. If you play the last
three chords, you'll find that dorian is the most natural sounding
over the whole thing (because it's the only thing that incorporates
both Ebmaj, Bbmaj, and Fmaj), and then you'll find that the most
natural scale to play over the Cmaj is to just make the Eb an E, which
is mixolydian.

Every time a mode changes, there is a noticeable color shift that is
much more emotion-packed than staying within one mode. You can borrow
from a "darker" mode to get a certain sound, or from a "brighter" mode
to get a different sound. It's a good idea to start borrowing chords
from one mode down/up of where you are - if you're in Ionian, for
example, borrow a Mixolydian chord (like ||: Cmaj - Gmaj - Bbmaj!!!111
- Fmaj7 :||. please stick to the rivers and the lakes that you're used
to cuzz)

It's tricky at first but you'll get the hang of it. Go from the mode
you're at to a mode two or three steps away for added emotional
impact, but beware - if you don't finesse it and you go too far, it'll
just sound like random noise. The idea though is that by moving "up" a
mode, you are removing a fifth that goes down from the starting point,
and adding a fifth on top. You are removing a "negative" downward
generator and adding a positive one on top. So you're now basically
exploring a larger portion of the meantone "space."

What I'm doing in that example is just diatonic modes but with hexadic
harmonies, and stuff like maj9 and maj9#11 and sus13 voicings and
stuff - lots of stacked alternating maj/min third stuff. Trying to
imply a mode as clearly as possible with each voicing - using my ears
more than following any given formula on how to do that, I guess.
Anyway, that's the simplified version. There are of course other
scales to fit sounds to than the diatonic modes, and that's where it
gets a lot more complicated to think about.

> > Also, what did you hate about 22? That was going to be my next option.
>
> Well, two of the best scales in 22 (the septimal superpyth diatonic and the Pajara decatonic) are both 12-compatible and sounded very "twelvey" to me.

I never was that into the Pajara decatonic. It just sounds like
7-limit 12, basically. I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels that
way.

Porcupine did not sound good to me no matter what I did with it, and
even the Orwell scale (which I loved in 31) just lacked character.

I don't like Porcupine as much in 22 as I do the TOP version, or the
59 version, but are you saying you don't like Porcupine in general? I
love Porcupine.

> And I swear, despite the fact that 22 is supposed to be a "pretty good 7-limit temperament", I really did NOT hear that 981.81-cent minor 7th as a 7/4. Of course, plenty of other people have had great success with it, but I think it's really a better keyboard tuning than guitar.

I think the 7/4 is pretty sharp too. But, I really like that 64/63
vanishes, which is a nice feature to explore in that tuning.

> YMMV, and Ivor Darreg believed that people would be pretty split between 19 and 22 over which they preferred; after playing with both, I'm squarely in the 19 camp, but you might not be. The most fun I had with 22, believe it or not, was playing in 11. XJ Scott has often expressed a preference for 11 over 22, and I totally get it. I actually quite miss 11...if I hadn't sold my 22-tone axe to Bill Sethares, I'd probably have just ripped out the odd frets and made it an 11-tone guitar. In summary, there is really just something about 22 that feels "weak" and "bland" to me. No matter what I did with it, I couldn't get it to sound very xenharmonic. I can't really explain it better than that.

I think I'm in the 14-tet camp so far. But, I'm really starting to
like 20-et, after playing around with it.

-Mike

I'll stop my silent lurking long enough to point out that Igs has made some truly outstanding 22ed2 music. He himself may find it bland or otherwise unsatisfying, and his dissatisfaction with it may have helped propel him further along his fabulous compositional journey, but I just love the stuff. "Atheist Love Song" ... "Life on the Sunken Continent" ... "Breakdown Hives" ... & more ... my iPod keeps track of the songs I replay the most & Igs's 22ed2 tunes rank way, way up there. They may not sound very xen but they sure sound great. If you haven't heard these tunes, you're missing out, so treat yourself.

As far as the suitability of 22ed2 for guitar, it looks just about perfect for a Harpejji-type touch guitar instrument where the open strings would follow 11ed2, a point I believe Chris Vaisvil already made back on the now-defunct ning.com xen group.

-- "Manu"

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "cityoftheasleep" <igliashon@...> wrote:

LOL, I've been on and off the lists since 2004 or 2005 at least! I just took a long hiatus at one point, and that must have been when you and Mike joined. Haven't you heard any of my older music from when I was first getting into it? www.cityoftheasleep.com if you haven't, check out "Early Microtonal Works" and "Map of an Internal Landscape", all written between 2005 and 2007.

--- having also said:

If I relied only on my inner ear, I'd never leave 12,
because ultimately it's so ingrained in me that it's all my inner ear can
predict/desire. This is why I did so poorly initially--I began with tunings
that allowed me to play too close to 12. Before I composed "Map of an Internal
Landscape" and forced myself to compose in every EDO in my "comfortable" range,
in a host of non-12-like scales, the best microtonal stuff I did was
(ironically) in JI, because it was so utterly alien. Nothing I played in 22
sounded half as fresh as what I played on the Catler 12-tone-Ultra-Plus.

--- and in a different posting wrote:

YMMV, and Ivor Darreg believed that people would be pretty
split between 19 and 22 over which they preferred; after playing with both, I'm
squarely in the 19 camp, but you might not be. The most fun I had with 22,
believe it or not, was playing in 11. XJ Scott has often expressed a preference
for 11 over 22, and I totally get it. I actually quite miss 11...if I hadn't
sold my 22-tone axe to Bill Sethares, I'd probably have just ripped out the odd
frets and made it an 11-tone guitar. In summary, there is really just something
about 22 that feels "weak" and "bland" to me. No matter what I did with it, I
couldn't get it to sound very xenharmonic. I can't really explain it better
than that.

-Igs

So far I have the following modes in a tuning I've been working on called
"Dimension 12-tone"

A1,A2 = Diatonic modes (using two 17/16-ish sized semi-tones)
B1,B2 = Arab modes (using intervals such as 11/9 and 22/15 with no "half-step"
smaller than about 12/11)
C1 and C2 = Hybrid modes (mix of Arab and diatonic...using one semi-tone and
otherwise 12/11 or larger step sizes)
D1 and D2 = More Hybrid modes (mix of Arab and diatonic)

(A1,A2,B1,B2,C1,C2,D1,D2) 28/25
(A1,C1) 6/5
(B1,C2) 11/9
(A2,B2,D1,D2) 5/4
(A1,A2,B1,C1,C2,D1) 95/71
(B2,D2) 37/27
(A1,A2,B1.B2,C1,C2,D1,D2) 3/2
(A1,A2,B1,B2,C1,C2,D1,D2) 77/46
(A1,C1) 43/24
(B1,B2,C2,D1) 86/47
(A2,D2) 227/121
(A1,A2,B1,B2,C1,C2,D1) 2/1 (period)

My question is can any of you find any 7-tone diatonic scales (or ones
fitting the same interval pattern as the other scales I've given) in other
places in the scale?

Admittedly I'm far from a master at quickly recognizing interval patterns
starting from odd root tones (IE other than 1/1).... My goal is to find at
least 12 7-tone scales within the tuning, thus making the tuning as competitive
so far as scale selection as 12TET...note that I'm pretty sure no TET tuning
under 100 or so can estimate this tuning well (and thus make it usable on a
TET-style instrument).

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

Someone has gone through the Wilson archives a while ago and downloaded it all and then put them all together in a single document which causes more confusion that already exist.

The moderator on googlegroups microtonality has downloaded this for distribution.
First the documents are already available on the archives where the author has authority to the context they are presented in.
The way they are presented does not differentiate one document from the other so one is not sure where one document starts and another ends.
I view this activity as a form of harassment and its purposes serve little but to undermine the works of the man.
i request that such activities are not be encourged and ask the parties immediately cease and correct this situation.
There is no reason to not refer to where the papers have been put up with such care.
Already i have been forward the derogatory response of his work presented in this manner.

/^_,',',',_ //^/Kraig Grady_^_,',',',_
Mesotonal Music from:
_'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere:
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>

_'''''''_^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria <http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>

',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',

a momentary antenna as i turn to water
this evaporates - an island once again

Kraig>"First the documents are already available on the archives where the
author has authority to the context they are presented in. The way they are
presented does not differentiate one document from the other so one is not sure
where one document starts and another ends. I view this activity as a form of
harassment and its purposes

serve little but to undermine the works of the man."

On one hand, I agree the person who posted the archive is doing a disservice
to Erv Wilson. However, how do we know this person knew Wilson had copies up on
other site or would/would not appreciate his work being posted "even" in
imperfect form?

My two cents...we should let said poster know Wilson has posted his scale
archives on other sites, ask if he has contacted Wilson about their use or, if
not, suggest he contact Wilson about their use. Give said person the chance to
do the right thing first...and only if said person fails, get strict with them.
The poster could honestly have just been trying to honor Wilson's work...even if
he did a not-so-hot job at it.....

BTW, Lord knows I've had people not only badly organize but simply
mis-interpret my scales and post bad versions on them. But I usually make a
point to let them know the correct versions personally and wait for a fair
response...before I think about making any issues with them public.

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

Hi Michael~
Thanks for even responding to the issue.

i suggest doing a search on Erv Wilson as see what comes up.
One has to do some work to even find this page.

That the person who did this hid behind an account that has since been discontinued i find questionable.
and I have worked with Erv on setting this up. as well as many of his other students who i met with when i went back to collect more of his papers.

He only wanted it up under his supervision which is why the disclaimer exist.
Erv wrote that, not me. He does send people papers otherwise all the time too.

you too have every right to have your work and scales not be misrepresented.

I am sure that no one here would enjoy their work copied and put up.
imagine if someone did this with the wikipages , or the fokker institute.

/^_,',',',_ //^/Kraig Grady_^_,',',',_
Mesotonal Music from:
_'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere:
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>

_'''''''_^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria <http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>

',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',

a momentary antenna as i turn to water
this evaporates - an island once again

On 21/01/11 12:49 PM, Michael wrote:
> Kraig>"First the documents are already available on the archives where the
> author has authority to the context they are presented in. The way they are
> presented does not differentiate one document from the other so one is not sure
> where one document starts and another ends. I view this activity as a form of
> harassment and its purposes
>
> serve little but to undermine the works of the man."
>
> On one hand, I agree the person who posted the archive is doing a disservice
> to Erv Wilson. However, how do we know this person knew Wilson had copies up on
> other site or would/would not appreciate his work being posted "even" in
> imperfect form?
>
> My two cents...we should let said poster know Wilson has posted his scale
> archives on other sites, ask if he has contacted Wilson about their use or, if
> not, suggest he contact Wilson about their use. Give said person the chance to
> do the right thing first...and only if said person fails, get strict with them.
> The poster could honestly have just been trying to honor Wilson's work...even if
> he did a not-so-hot job at it.....
>
> BTW, Lord knows I've had people not only badly organize but simply
> mis-interpret my scales and post bad versions on them. But I usually make a
> point to let them know the correct versions personally and wait for a fair
> response...before I think about making any issues with them public.
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Meta Tuning meta-info:
>
> To unsubscribe, send an email to:
> metatuning-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
> Web page is http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/metatuning/
>
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> metatuning@yahoogroups.com
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>

Robert Thomas Martin is the person illegally mirroring the works? I'd file a
DMCA notice. I'm sure Google has a way to do that.

-Mike

On Thu, Jan 20, 2011 at 6:20 PM, Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@...>wrote:

>
>
> Someone has gone through the Wilson archives a while ago and
> downloaded it all and then put them all together in a single
> document which causes more confusion that already exist.
>
> The moderator on googlegroups microtonality has downloaded
> this for distribution.
> First the documents are already available on the archives where
> the author has authority to the context they are presented in.
> The way they are presented does not differentiate one document
> from the other so one is not sure where one document starts and
> another ends.
> I view this activity as a form of harassment and its purposes
> serve little but to undermine the works of the man.
> i request that such activities are not be encourged and ask
> the parties immediately cease and correct this situation.
> There is no reason to not refer to where the papers have been
> put up with such care.
> Already i have been forward the derogatory response of his work
> presented in this manner.
>
> /^_,',',',_ //^/Kraig Grady_^_,',',',_
> Mesotonal Music from:
> _'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere:
> North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>
>
> _'''''''_^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
> Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria
> <http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>
>
> ',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',
>
> a momentary antenna as i turn to water
> this evaporates - an island once again
>
>
>

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

Thanks Mike~
i will contact Robert Martin directly.
that is helpful.
I am sure he meant nothing bad about it being someone who like to freely make documents available.

/^_,',',',_ //^/Kraig Grady_^_,',',',_
Mesotonal Music from:
_'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere:
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>

_'''''''_^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria <http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>

',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',

a momentary antenna as i turn to water
this evaporates - an island once again

On 21/01/11 1:24 PM, Mike Battaglia wrote:
> Robert Thomas Martin is the person illegally mirroring the works? I'd file a
> DMCA notice. I'm sure Google has a way to do that.
>
> -Mike
>
>
> On Thu, Jan 20, 2011 at 6:20 PM, Kraig Grady<kraiggrady@...>wrote:
>
>>
>> Someone has gone through the Wilson archives a while ago and
>> downloaded it all and then put them all together in a single
>> document which causes more confusion that already exist.
>>
>> The moderator on googlegroups microtonality has downloaded
>> this for distribution.
>> First the documents are already available on the archives where
>> the author has authority to the context they are presented in.
>> The way they are presented does not differentiate one document
>> from the other so one is not sure where one document starts and
>> another ends.
>> I view this activity as a form of harassment and its purposes
>> serve little but to undermine the works of the man.
>> i request that such activities are not be encourged and ask
>> the parties immediately cease and correct this situation.
>> There is no reason to not refer to where the papers have been
>> put up with such care.
>> Already i have been forward the derogatory response of his work
>> presented in this manner.
>>
>> /^_,',',',_ //^/Kraig Grady_^_,',',',_
>> Mesotonal Music from:
>> _'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere:
>> North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island<http://anaphoria.com/>
>>
>> _'''''''_^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
>> Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria
>> <http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>
>>
>> ',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',
>>
>> a momentary antenna as i turn to water
>> this evaporates - an island once again
>>
>>
>>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Meta Tuning meta-info:
>
> To unsubscribe, send an email to:
> metatuning-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
> Web page is http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/metatuning/
>
> To post to the list, send to
> metatuning@yahoogroups.com
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>

> The moderator on googlegroups microtonality has downloaded
> this for distribution.

Hi everyone, I just wanted to clarify for those here who haven't realized it yet that googlegroups microtonality is not the same as googlegroups microtonal.

googlegroups microtonal is the one with the issue that is being discussed here.

Googlegroups microtonality is my group, but it is basically a dead group and has been since it was founded years ago. There's only a few members, no files and only a couple posts there. I would definitely never put up anyone's files without permission and totally respect Erv's work. Just wanted to make this clear googlegroups microtonality wasn't involved in this. I probably should just delete googlegroups microtonality so there's no confusion in the future.

Best wishes,

Jeff

I should have cleared that up here myself . thanks for taking care of that loose end.
all the best to you and your music.

/^_,',',',_ //^/Kraig Grady_^_,',',',_
Mesotonal Music from:
_'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere:
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>

_'''''''_^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria <http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>

',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',

a momentary antenna as i turn to water
this evaporates - an island once again

On 21/01/11 3:00 PM, X. J. S. wrote:
>> The moderator on googlegroups microtonality has downloaded
>> this for distribution.
> Hi everyone, I just wanted to clarify for those here who haven't realized it yet that googlegroups microtonality is not the same as googlegroups microtonal.
>
> googlegroups microtonal is the one with the issue that is being discussed here.
>
> Googlegroups microtonality is my group, but it is basically a dead group and has been since it was founded years ago. There's only a few members, no files and only a couple posts there. I would definitely never put up anyone's files without permission and totally respect Erv's work. Just wanted to make this clear googlegroups microtonality wasn't involved in this. I probably should just delete googlegroups microtonality so there's no confusion in the future.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Jeff
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Meta Tuning meta-info:
>
> To unsubscribe, send an email to:
> metatuning-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
> Web page is http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/metatuning/
>
> To post to the list, send to
> metatuning@yahoogroups.com
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>

Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@...> wrote:

> I am sure that no one here would enjoy their work copied
> and put up. imagine if someone did this with the
> wikipages , or the fokker institute.

You shouldn't presume. Some of my files are there and it's
fine with me. It's good to have mirrors -- the more the
merrier. I don't know who from here is using Wikipages.
The Wikispaces site is explicitly given a Share-Alike
license, so if you don't want your work copied and
re-distributed, you shouldn't put it there.

Graham

Hi Graham~
Thanks for you take on this.
I think in principle, the more places something is the safer it is.

In this case the files ran one into another so that where one paper ended another began. There is often not a single beginning and Even erv will shuffle certain things in slightly different order s depending on the focus.

i became aware of it when i was informed it was put up and was getting derogatory remarks.
so it didn't seem this format was not doing his work much good.

Introductions are need for most of the work , which is in progress. Most of His notes were used to accompany verbal descriptions which makes much of it hard to decipher. Mixing it all up , it is even worse

/^_,',',',_ //^/Kraig Grady_^_,',',',_
Mesotonal Music from:
_'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere:
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>

_'''''''_^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria <http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>

',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',

a momentary antenna as i turn to water
this evaporates - an island once again

On 21/01/11 6:08 PM, Graham Breed wrote:
> Kraig Grady<kraiggrady@...> wrote:
>
>> I am sure that no one here would enjoy their work copied
>> and put up. imagine if someone did this with the
>> wikipages , or the fokker institute.
> You shouldn't presume. Some of my files are there and it's
> fine with me. It's good to have mirrors -- the more the
> merrier. I don't know who from here is using Wikipages.
> The Wikispaces site is explicitly given a Share-Alike
> license, so if you don't want your work copied and
> re-distributed, you shouldn't put it there.
>
>
> Graham
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Meta Tuning meta-info:
>
> To unsubscribe, send an email to:
> metatuning-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
> Web page is http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/metatuning/
>
> To post to the list, send to
> metatuning@yahoogroups.com
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>

Sorry, it's Aaron, I've only been checking in on the lists recently.

Why is this conversation on METATUNING of all places?...it's the most interesting topic in a while!

I love JI and EDOs and other types of tunings, but for many reasons I always end up back in the temperament column, and if I had to pick one or the other for the rest of my lifetime, I'd say gimme EDOs, just like you, Igs.

I'm absolutely wild and crazy about some JI music I've heard though, so it comes down to my personality, too.

I would add the following reason, too: I'm not all that into the sound of totally beatless intervals, at least as much as I was. In JI, you get totally beatless intervals, and as a side effect, typically wildly beating intervals between the 2nd-order intervals (some of those not constructed from the '1/1') . Whereas I tend to like _gently_ beating intervals (except the octave typically, but that's ok to beat a bit too). It's consistent with my sense of timbre when I do a synthesizer patch...the patches that have expression and life on say a typical subtractive, two-oscillator synth architecture, have a slight de-tuning and beating between the oscillators. It creates life and motion in the timbre and thus the music. You can sit and listen to a drone that has some gentle slow motion in it forever, but a dull lifeless beatless drone just sits there and burns a hole in your ear.

Granted, on a synth, there are other ways to create motion other than detuning pure (e.g. filter sweeps or FM depth), but I think the phasing from slight de-tuning might be the pretties/richest way, to my ears anyway.

Anyway, good topic.

Best,
AKJ

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "cityoftheasleep" <igliashon@...> wrote:
>
> --- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "Brofessor" <kraiggrady@> wrote:
> >
> > I never understood why one would worry about consonant triads and then go to an ET
> > where one has no consonant chords. or if you accept the tolerance, why can one not
> > tolerate the same things in a JI scale?
>
> I don't really "worry" about anything, but I do indeed have a much higher threshold for "consonance" than most people seem to. So given that I do accept tolerance, I have a lot of reasons for not working in JI anymore (I did give it a shot a few years ago).
>
> Reason 1: Every EDO has a character, a unique sonic fingerprint that I can pretty reliably identify. JI systems, on the other hand, seem to lack this (at least to my ears). I can tell 7-limit from 5, and 11-limit from 7, but 13 and 11 don't sound much different to me. Above that and I am not sure I could tell it wasn't tempered. And I certainly couldn't tell a dekany from a harmonic series from a duodene to save my life. In the realm of EDOs, each one has its characteristic interval set, and its characteristic way of manifesting the intervals it has. I think the lack of JI purity gives interesting "color".
>
> Reason 2: I find limitation to be artistically inspiring. I am not a terribly decisive person, and most of my attempts at devising JI pitch constructions have met with failure because of this indecision. Simply put, I find the infinite possibility to be paralyzing. I've always found great inspiration in working with EDOs thought to be "harsh" or "dissonant" or even "useless", because I almost always find that the common opinion of them is totally wrong and that beauty lurks within the heart of the ugliest beast. I feel that it's benefited me as a musician to constantly challenge myself with the limited resources of EDOs like 10, 16, and 18.
>
> Reason 3: I find working with JI to be clumsy, confusing, and difficult. From one 12-note JI gamut, one might have thousands of unique pentatonic possibilities (as I believe you recently mentioned on one of the other lists), and to me, this means just more scales to sift through to find the one I'm looking for. Also, the whole "change the tonic, change all the ratios" thing always bugged me, I felt like changing keys required some kind of crazy matrix-multiplication operation. The only decent music in JI I ever made was after I gave up on thinking about the ratios and just let my fingers find what they could in the system. But then going back and trying to analyze what I played was just...awful, I absolutely HATED it. With equal scales, I only have to think in terms of scale steps and interval classes. In JI, the definition of a "step" is so utterly relative that it's useless, a step could be a 9/8 or 15/14 or 131/128 or a 21/19 or whatever, depending on the scale you construct and where you are in it. And you ALWAYS get more ratios than you bargain for, like how in a 5-limit JI major scale, you don't just get a 1/1, 9/8, 5/4, 4/3, 3/2, 5/3, 15/8, 2/1. No, you also get a 40/27, a 10/9, a 45/32, etc. etc. So adding or subtracting a single interval is never so simple, it always smuggles in a bunch of other intervals and you have to account for them too. Unless you draw out the full matrix of modal rotations, you won't know what intervals are *really* in your scale. That always bothered me. And unless you're willing to put up with having two notes spaced very closely together, it is many times impossible to have "every note you want exactly where you want it".
>
> 4. I don't think it's worth my time to try to devise a JI system that really fits me. It would take a lot of trial and error, a lot of actually playing music and tweaking the scale, really "walking around inside it and rearranging the furniture", and I don't think I could ever be sure I'd be satisfied with it. Having the responsibility placed on me to "create" the scale would make me feel like it really had to be perfect before I could commit it to an acoustic (non-software) instrument. It would mean more time crunching numbers, multiplying ratios, and diddling around, and less time making serious music. I have a hard enough time concentrating on making music as it is, if I had to bear the burden of crafting my scales from scratch as well, I'd NEVER get around to it.
>
> Ultimately, of course, all these reasons emanate from my own personality. I can perfectly well understand why other people prefer JI. There are people in this world who really want to create their own proprietary universe, a whole musical mythos and cosmology hoisted up on their own bootstraps. You, Erv, and Harry Partch come to mind. I admire this, I deeply respect it, and I am often thrilled and inspired by the music that results. But this approach simply does not suit me. I'm more a scavenger and a collector than I am an artisan or craftsman.
>
> -Igs
>

Igs>"With equal scales, I only have to think in terms of scale steps and
interval classes."

Agreed...but oddly enough this is the reason I veer toward irregularly
tempered scales than EDOs: by using strictly proper scales I only have to think
in terms of scale steps for the most part...and yet I get a lot of the added
flexibility of JI and can do things like, say, optimize for maximum dyadic error
(esp. for dyads with a Tenney Height under 100 or so) of more like 7-cents
instead of more like 11-13 cents the nearest non-giant EDO can give me. I think
of strictly proper irregular temperaments as "tweaked EDOs", so to speak, that
somewhat allow me to have my cake and eat it to far as "JI or EDO?!"...and agree
that strict JI often lacks color and becomes mathematically overwhelming far too
easily much of the time.

Aaron>"and as a side effect, typically wildly beating intervals between the
2nd-order intervals (some of those not constructed from the '1/1') . "

This is another reason I enjoy irregular temperaments...the ability to
easily optimize dyads and ultimately chords not based on the root.
Granted...that works for EDOs as well. I also agree....slight beating adds
motion as 100% pure chords and dyads tend to sound a bit mechanical. ...In the
same way music without varying vibrato/tremelo/and other such "tonal
imperfections" sounds mechanical to me.

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