notations

>Chris Palmer asked about non-12 notations. In addition to Paul
>Rapoport's article in Xenharmonikon 16, there are articles by
>Ervin Wilson and others in XH2 and XH3. All three of these issues
>are available from Frog Peak Music, P.O. Box 1052, Lebanon, NH
>03766 USA, p/f : (603) 448-8837. email: frogpeak@sover.net
>URL http://www.sover.net/~frogpeak/.
>
>As far as performance on midi instruments is concerned, some
>composers simply map the tuning onto a standard keyboard and
>play whatever is under the fingers.
>
>Alternatively, one may use Julian Carrillo's numerical system
>for any tuning. However, Carrillo's books are somewhat difficult
>to find.

Of course, there's also Ezra Sims' notation--he describes it in his article
"Reflections on This and That (Perhaps a Polemic)" in Perspectives of New
Music (I forget in which issue)--and Ben Johnston's notation, best
described by John Fonville in "Perspectives" issue 29, No. 2 (1991). These
both describe the pitches very closely, although Johnston's are only really
useful for JI, and do not include the convenience of enharmonic spellings.
Sims is good for quartertone, 31-tone, 72-tone and the like.

I did an informal survey recently about what kinds of notations are used by
the people on this list, and only got a couple of responses, which leads me
to believe that most people use staff notation with (a) quarter-tone
accidentals, (b) standard accidentals used for 17TET or similar scales, or
(c) less than 12 tones per octave.

Or perhaps people don't like responding to silly queries.
********************
I have a couple of semantic questions:
1. (Ken): Who uses the word "allotonality", and who came up with it?
2. Who is Sheperd of "Sheperd Tones" (pitches which seem to perpetually
rise or fall as in Tenney's "For Ann(rising)")


_________________
Adam B. Silverman
153 Cold Spring Street; A3
New Haven, CT 06511
(203) 782-1765

abs22@pantheon.yale.edu



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