Post: Reply to Paul Rapoport on srutis a

Paul R,

I would like to see your acquaintance's work on srutis. I have recently
scoured the entire Harvard music library for every speculation and shred of
evidence on their tuning, for my paper on 22-tone temperament. I was pleased
to find some of my original speculations, such as the tempered tuning of the
sruti representing kakali-ni in sa-grama and antara-ga in ma-grama, to be
repeated by several authors and evidenced in the construction of ancient
instruments. I would be pleased to offer comments on your acquaintance's
paper. I did not respond originally because I figured someone would be more
of an expert in this area than I.

Paul Erlich
145 College Ave #2
Somerville, MA 02144

Now for the other issue:

>If only the 81:80 is a syntonic comma, then only the 3:2 is a (perfect)
>fifth. We don't restrict the latter that way; there's no reason I can see
>to restrict the former either. But of course it's necessary to specify
>whether you mean just (as in 81:80) or not. The context usually
>determines; in any ET, it's obvious.

NO, IT'S NOT OBVIOUS AT ALL! In any ET, we would agree that the perfect
fifth is the closest approximation to the 3:2. We would also agree that the
syntonic comma is NOT necessarily the closest approximation to the 81:80 --
for example, in 22-tET the closest step size to an 81:80 is 0 steps, and yet
we would both call 1 step the syntonic comma. Why? Because the syntonic
comma is defined as interval obtained by tuning several successive CONSONANT
intervals. The two important definitions are as follows:

(1) Tune up three perfect fourths, down an octave, and down a minor third.
You are now a syntonic comma lower than where you began. In 22-tET, this is
1 step.

(2) Tune up four perfect fifths, down two octaves, and down a major third.
You are now a syntonic comma higher than where you began. In 22-tET, this is
1 step.

So the syntonic comma is 1 step in 22-tET, even though 0 steps would be
closer in size to the JI syntonic comma. This situation would never occur
for a basic consonace like the perfect fifth. Thus the "pseudo" terminology
is warranted.

Now there are tunings where (1) and (2) give different answers! For example,
in 21-tET, definition (1) gives a syntonic comma of 0 steps, while
definition (2) gives an syntonic comma of -1 (that's minus 1) steps. Another
example is 20-tET, where definition (1) gives a syntonic comma of 1 step,
while definition (2) gives a syntonic comma of 2 steps. So I would argue
that if an ET is not consistent within the 5-limit, the syntonic comma is
undefined in that tuning.

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>Before inventing something that is already here, you may want to look at
>the Sanderson Accu-tuner or the Reyburn Cyber Tuner. These are tuning
>specific machines, though the RCT uses a powerbook. Unlimited temperament
>access, over 200 can be carried in the machine itself. Allows all manner of
>partial selection, unlimited scaling curves, accuracy to .1 cent,
>etc...........

I found the Reyburn Cyber Tuner on the web, but I could not find the
Sanderson Accu-tuner. Does anybody know where to get information on this?

>There are a number of products on the market today that provide
>microtonal tuning support. I have looked at the Accutone model 250,
>with preprogrammed scales, and a three light strobe for $400; Korg
>model MT-1200 wihch can be programmed to temperments of your choice
>for $300; Peterson 5000, with 112 customer definable temperment files;
>Precision Strobe Tuner PST2, with the rotating LED's that I found
>useful before and programmable temperments, for $325. All of these
>assume that you are tuning 12 tones to the octave, but let you alter
>any of those 12 to any note. With a little fancy temperment switching,
>you can tune any number of tones to the octave with little trouble.

Am familiar with the Korg and Peterson, but have never seen teh Accutone or
Precision Strobe Tuner models. Could anybody point me in the right direction?

As far as a wish list goes, the smaller, simpler, and lighter, the better.
Perhaps ideal would be a device without any scale template at all, just
entry for cents and some rotating LED's. It is always nice to have
reference tones to compare the visual feedback to something you can hear.
In fact, it would be really cool just to have a hand-held, battery powered
device that only gave reference pitches (that is, had no listening
capability) at a given frequency in hertz.

The Violab Pitchman is such a tuner, and it can be purchased from Zuckermann
harpsichords at http://www.zuckermann.com/earlykeyboardnotes/pitchman.html/,
but it is stuck to one of several preset temperaments. I have this tuner
and it is really cool. I have corresponded with the guy who makes this
tuner about the idea of hertz entry, and he told me to buy a peice of lab
equipment from http://www.telulex.com/. I looked into this, but eventually
decided that the Peterson 520 was better suited to my needs. I have this
tuner and it is okay. But, when it comes down to it, strobes have got to
suck. And, big heavy boxes do not make me happy.

Carl


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