Justonic Follow-Up

> All I know at this point is that they convinced the Kurzweil people to
> modify the OS to allow a currently sounding note to be retuned in real-time.

I'm not sure if this will necessarily help much, but again, that gets back to
how you deal with comma (dieses, skhismas, and whatever 36:35 is called; I
can't recall the name) errors arising from common tones. I know of three main
possibilities:
1. Suspend them unchanged into the next chord, risking the possibility that
they'll be wolf tones. I believe that's what Denny Genovese usually does.
2. Shift their pitch when the competing note sounds. That's Dave Hill's, and
apparently Justonic's approach.
3. Let the tonic wander. That's the approach I find most interesting,
although I can imagine value in all of the three of them used judiciously.

It would be neat if they'd allow all three as an algorithmic-composition-like
harmonization parameter.


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On Thu, 5 Dec 1996, Daniel Wolf wrote:
>
> By the way: In Just Intonation, how do you avoid a wolf in a progression
> like the following: I V I vi ii V I? I think you have to choose between a
> wolf and a comma slip, and I generally prefer the former.

What I did in my _Downing I_ tuning is to tune the Ds above middle C to G
(G/D = 2/3) while the Ds below middle C are tuned a 6/5 minor third below
F. So, when I play the progression above, I make sure that the ii is
voiced to only use the Ds below middle C, while the V chord uses Ds above.

Of course, that means that in the progression ii V the two Ds are not
really a common tone, but are a comma apart. I find that, at least for
me, harmonic tuning is much more important than melodic tuning, so this
does not bother me. I find that ANYONE notices harmonic tuning, while the
inconsistency of the two pitches used melodically is only noticeable to
those (including me) who are listening more carefully.

This is, obviously, a compromise, but one that I am willing to live with,
and I prefer this solution above "averaging" the two pitches.

Your mileage may vary.

Joe Downing in Syracuse


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