Carlos Alpha and Beta

Somebody asked if Alpha and Beta are really defined as exactly 78- and
64-cent step sizes. In short, yes, I believe that they are exactly that
number of cents.

I recall that Carlos originally described Alpha as 4 steps per 6:5, and
Beta to be 8 steps per 4:3 in the liner notes to Beauty in the Beast and
elsewhere. But later in a letter to the editor of Keyboard (or possibly
Electronic Musician; I can't recall which) she stipulated that that was
really more of a characterization than a definition, and that the
definitions are 78CET and 64CET. (She didn't use the "CET" terminology
though.)

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Gary Morrison wrote:
>
> Similarly with Matt Nathan's suggestion of "YET" for a tuning whose
> chromatic step size is an even number of Yamaha units (1024ths of an
> octave), I suppose one could also add "MET" for a tuning whose step size is
> an even number of millioctaves.
>
> But that's probably a real dead end.

Now I'm prompted to come up with meanings for BET, GET, JET, LET, NET,
PET, SET, VET, and WET too.

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