notating tuning references

Gary Morrison wrote:
> That is far easier than performing from a 7th or 13th harmonic sort of
>description, because with that you'd have think - in realtime, on the fly
>- "OK,
>what's the root of this chord (that in itself is especially tough since any
>realistic performance each performer will have PARTS, and not the whole
>conductor's score)? How does this note relate to that root? How much
>flat is a
>13th harmonic from the closest 12TET pitch?"

An idea which I have toyed with (but not yet implemented, mostly out of
laziness) is to notate, at least when writing single-voice-per-staff music,
tuning references for complex (extended JI or less-than obvious) intervals.
For instance, when a violinist would read a Bb7, they would see the seven
and automatically tune it as a 7/4 or 7/6 to some sounding pitch. However,
if I have modulated to the key of Gb7, I would notate a Gb7 enclosed in
parenthesis on the staff. This would quickly and clearly tell the
violinist to tune a 5/4 from Gb7, which they would hear in another
instrument, and narrows the gap between score and part. If I wanted to get
really fancy and spend a whole lot of money on color photocopies, I would
go as far as to write the cue-notes in red ink.

My ideas about key signatures (bracketed above the staff) would apply in
much the same way, but would be difficult for people with absolute pitch to
have to constantly transpose. I find that most people with absolute pitch
won't be playing microtonal music, anyway.

The difficulty in this style of notation, of course, enters when notating
chords, although it seems reasonable that in most consonantly-biased JI
music, all pitches of the chord would be tuned to the same fundamental.

This doesn't argue against Johnny's style, since it is strictly JI-phyllic.

Yours,
Adam

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

abs22@pantheon.yale.edu



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