Temperament-O-Matic

Hello all,

I must admit I’m getting a little religion-fatigued from trying to read all the Belief-O-Matic messages. But I was intrigued that just last week composer Larry Polansky came to Bard and showed me a piece of software he had devised that finds the perfect temperament for any musical situation. Its format was pretty similar to Belief-O-Matic. First you specify how many pitches you want per octave, then what intervals you want to use (in cents). Then you prioritize (using numbers from 0 to 10) how important each interval is, and then prioritize which keys you want to play in. Say, if you put 386 cents as the most important interval, and 702 as second most important, and mark C, G, D, and A as the most important keys (or something like that, you know what I mean and I’m not going to look it up), you get something very similar to Werckmeister III. If you prioritize all the keys equally, you get an equal temperament. Maybe this is old hat for some of you. But I’ve always found tuning curiously analogous to astrology anyway (12 keys = 12 signs, consonant and dissonant intervals = easy and difficult aspects), and I was intrigued that you could calculate the perfect temperament on the same kind of form that you could also use to calculate the perfect religion. Just as I find it revealing that the same people who reject the culturally dominant tuning also reject the culturally dominant religions, the official explanations of 9-11, etc.

Maybe the next step is to correlate what tuning goes best with what religion. %^D

Cheers,

Kyle

On Wednesday 07 July 2004 08:47 pm, Kyle Gann wrote:

> Maybe the next step is to correlate what tuning goes best with what
> religion. %^D

That has all the makings of a classic tuning list peace-and-love fest
allright ;)

Kyle...and why would you suggest this at a time when there is such a peacful
consensus going down around here?

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

Kyle,

You stupid punk: I'm just getting ready to bail on meta for a few
days, and then you post this!

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, Kyle Gann <kgann@e...> wrote:
I was intrigued that just last week composer Larry Polansky came to
Bard and showed me a piece of software...

So, should I write Larry directly, or post to the JMSL list, or
what??? I've been thinking about this line of transit for a loooong
while!!

In heated anticipation,
Jon

(well, maybe not heated...)

Hi Jon,

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "Jon Szanto" <JSZANTO@A...> wrote:
> Kyle,
>
> You stupid punk: I'm just getting ready to bail on meta for a few
> days, and then you post this!
>
> --- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, Kyle Gann <kgann@e...> wrote:
> I was intrigued that just last week composer Larry Polansky came to
> Bard and showed me a piece of software...
>
> So, should I write Larry directly, or post to the JMSL list, or
> what??? I've been thinking about this line of transit for a loooong
> while!!

I owe Larry an e-mail (been holding off because lightning fried my laptop last week and I can't send him what he's waiting for), and I'll see what I can get from him. Maybe we can come up with a Unified Field Theory, make it multiple choice, and call it Everything-O-Matic!!

Cheers,

Kyle

Kyle,

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, Kyle Gann <kgann@e...> wrote:
> I owe Larry an e-mail (been holding off because lightning fried my
laptop last week and I can't send him what he's waiting for), and I'll
see what I can get from him.

Very cool. I did a quick search and come up with a small routine from
one of his classes that I think was for SuperCollider, which I believe
is a Mac only solution. In any event, it sounds like a great idea - I
should start programming again.

> Maybe we can come up with a Unified Field Theory, make it multiple
choice, and call it Everything-O-Matic!!

Just don't make me read another paper. :)

Cheers,
Jon