Commas, voice leading and pitch memory

> It looks
> like in each case one tone makes a comma [is pseudo-comma the more
> accurate term here?] shift,

I'll address Steve's other thoughts shortly, but I just wanted to
address this terminological question quickly.

Although this tuning ... "discrepancy" I suppose it could be called ...
arrives from the same sort of mechanism as a (syntonic) comma error in JI,
Ivor Darreg, and probably others, referred to this it as a "pseudocomma"
for two reasons:
1. The size of the discrepancy is much larger, especially in the case of
22TET (somewhat less so in the case of same effect in 34TET), than a
21.5c
real syntonic comma. In 53TET, however, this is not the case at all.
2. A real comma scenario can give rise to an (theoretically) indefinitely
large sequence of pitch changes. That is easiest to see in the
wandering
tonic case: If in the JI scenario you let the tonic drop by a syntonic
comma and repeat that progression over and over each time dropping by
81:80, you'll never quite creep down to precisely any pitch within the
original "source scale" (as Steve aptly called it). In the case of
22TET
or 34TET on the other hand, you'll never create any pitches that are
not
already in within your original set of 22 or 34 pitch classes.
I personally agree that these important-enough reasons to merit using the
term "pseudocomma" instead of comma. Others may disagree or maybe not.

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Hi Gary,

In Tuning Digest 961, topic 1, you wrote:
> I hear say that ".AU" files, which I THINK is a file format that Sun
>invented, are (losslessly) compressed. Anybody know if helper apps for .AU
>files are common, or does pretty much everybody use .WAV in web pages?

I was looking for an application to convert .WAV files to .AU myself. It
seems like .AU works better with web browsers, but I don't know how to
create .AU files from my Windows-based system.

> Also, I heard from a not-so-authoritative authority that .WAV files
>encode ONLY the raw audio data, and do NOT encode sample size, sample rate,
>nor number of channels. Anybody know if that's true?

The "Sound Recorder" accessory supplied with Windows (SOUNDREC.EXE) provides
no way to specify properties such as sample rate, nor does it let you view
what the properties are for a given file. ".WAV" files DO contain info such
as sample rate, though.

I just ran some tests to verify this, using an accessory supplied with my
sound card (Audio Recorder by ESS Technology). It allowed me to specify
sampling rates from 5.5 kHz to 44 kHz. Windows' accessory appears to record
everything as 16 bit samples at 22 kHz Mono, but is capable of playing the
other formats.


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SOX will also do audio file format conversions, and it is a little cheaper
at $0; mind you does not edit as well.
ohn ff

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