All Natural Scales! No artificial ingredients!

Graham Breed writes:

>My point is that ET scales _are_ natural. Of course,
>the word "natural" could mean a lot of things. In this case, in
>relation to mathematics, acoustics, human instinct or patterns
>found in the natural world. I think it's the last one you mean,
>which is fair enough.

Right. Actually, acoustical principles would be included in the set of
patterns found in the natural world, and are the basis of operation for all
of the instruments we use to make our music audible, as well as the for the
spaces in which we hear the audio, and for our very ears. In short,
acoustical principles regulate everything we do with respect to making music
audible. Doesn't that mean that they should theoretically be the foundation
of tuning? Indeed, no one has said otherwise on this list, and, as you said,
an oft-cited reason for pursuing ETs is that they offer useful ways to
approximate JI. That is a very good reason.

We find that ET scales, while they may make a certain kind of mathematical
sense, do not correspond (exactly) to principles of acoustics. That doesn't
make them "bad." But depending on other factors (I'm in the process of
trying to find out what all of those are), it _may_ mean that they are not
theoretically the most productive route for pursuing the development of music
in the long run. That certainly doesn't mean that they shouldn't be used
when their compromises are helpful to musicians and instrument designers.
And, of course, someone must study several of them to find out which are
most helpful, and in which ways. Uh oh, I'm rebutting myself.

You mentioned human instinct. Now here's where I may be way off the beam.
I'm working on the assumption that humans are part of nature, and that,
therefore, our "instincts" or whatever you want to call them, should be in
line with acoustical principle. In other words, it seems that we should
respond most strongly to music whose theory is most firmly based on the way
that sound (and all other) waves behave. So everything in the list you made
above should theoretically give the same result. I hope. Call me an
idealist. O.K. - you can see the whites of my eyes - fire at will! :->

>If you want to exploit JI with hair splitting accuracy, I
>expect you'd have to work with slow, harmonic music with perfectly
>harmonic timbres and no vibrato. Otherwise, go with whatever's
>simplest.

I don't, really. I grew up on blues, bluegrass, black gospel, and rock, as
well as "classical," to use the term in the typically overbroad way. I'm
firmly addicted to expressive pitch variations of all sorts and recognize
their musical usefulness, even their virtual necessity.

Speaking of which, the way that black church choirs tend to tune their major
triads just kills me - I wish I knew what they were doing! I know it's not a
simple matter of three distinct pitches. Can anybody out there give an
analysis?

What I think I want is for the foundation of Western music to be truly JI
again, and for the "spices" to be variations from that, not from an ET
approximation of it. Small differences in pitch seem to make a big
difference in the power of a chord. You can retain the power while adding
expressiveness by sliding into a JI chord, or by sliding around over the top
of a JI chord. That's what really good string sections tend toward with
12-tET compositions anyway. If we compose with JI as the goal, how much more
potent the results could be! And how much more variety would be available
with limits imposed (specific pitch options chosen) on a piece-by-piece
basis! And how much longer we'd all have to study in school to learn it all!
Oh, well; something's got to give.

What I think (and this whole paragraph is to be regarded as an opinion in
progress, not a statement of dogma) is that 12-tET led us practically to a
dead end in less than 200 years. It did so because it is an ET. But it was
arguably the best choice under the circumstances. Looking back, I kinda wish
they had abandoned keyboards and frets rather than JI. Should we now head
for another dead end, or even a set of dead ends? Now is the time to pick up
where they left off and continue with the development of Western music on the
track they had to abandon for lack of technological prowess (or courage?).

David J. Finnamore
Just tune it!

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