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LucyTuning clarifications

🔗clucy@cix.compulink.co.uk (Charles Lucy)

2/2/1997 3:33:11 PM
Thank you Gary, for your balanced critique of LucyTuning.

I appreciated the irony of your reply in relation to JI
advocates.

There are a few points which I would like to clarify.

>Harrison

John "Longitude" Harrison lived earlier than you guessed.
(1693-1776).
The biography of his life was recently in the US & UK
best-sellers list. "Longitude" by Dava Sobel

It's a good (non-musical) read, about 18th century
British scientific politics and navigation.

In my search for a unified tuning theory, I was led
to Harrison's writings, and by building instruments
and modelling his solution, I realized that he had
already solved the problem which I was working on,
yet more than two hundred earlier.

>LucyTuning built open a circle (sic) of fifths.

If this were to be the case LucyTuning would be an
equal temperament, as the steps would eventually return
to the starting point.

I would have described it as a spiral (sic) of fifths
[producing sharps]; and fourths [producing flats].

Yes, 44 LucyTuning steps in each direction is close
to 88TET, although LucyTuning will continue to
generate more new intervals infinitely.

My differences with the Just Intonation dinosaurs
are really a question of perspective and intention.

As I see/hear it "harmonics" beat. The JI advocates
seem to be aiming for zero beating.
To hear and appreciate this beating, it is crucial that
instruments should be tuned as precisely as possible.

Unfortunately tuned samplers and synthesisers, which are
currently available, fail to provide the accuracy
necessary to hear these subtle, yet significant, beat
frequencies.
At our current level of technology, I prefer
to use acoustic instruments, although the MIDI tuning
dump is a good move in the right direction.
The significance of beating is becoming more widely
appreciated by music lovers and tuning enthusiasts,
so attitudes are moving in the right direction from
our microtonal point of view.

Wilson's "metameantone" and "phi" tunings are interesting,
although my intent was to avoid the significance of any
particular integers in a mapping of intervals and harmonics.

(BTW Phi is particularly related to the integer 5 -
consider the equation commonly used to derive it).

"Pitch, Pi," ..... $330.
I am pleased to supply a hardcopy of my book about
LucyTuning plus on-line support to those who are willing
to pay me for my time and work.
After all, $330 is a small part of the complete budget to
explore and use microtuning, and "Pitch, Pi,...."
can save many valuable hours of research, and is a
handy reference book.

[Some people, I hear, have actually ENJOYED reading it.]

For rules on legally making LucyTuned instruments
see one of our Internet sites, or
EMail: lucy@hour.com

or phone me

US (808) 965-0170 here in Hawaii.


For those researchers who have more time than $$$, I
suggest that you visit one of our websites or EMail/ftp from
lucytune@zz.com, for most of the book is now freely
available on the Internet in various locations.

BTW. We now have another new website, which is being currently
being assembled from Tokyo.

Please visit our sites -

www.WonderlandInOrbit.com/project/lullaby

and/or http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/lullaby

Thanks again Gary.

Charles Lucy lucy@hour.com







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