More Tape Swap Stuff

Chris Smith asked whether or not those who actually did not contribute a piece
of music to the Tape Swap could get a tape if they sent me a blank and return
postage. I was really afraid of this question but I figure I'll do it this
way.

For all of those who absolutely have nothing to contribute but absolutely want
the tape, do this - e-mail me privately 1st and ask me if I'm not completely
innundated by requests and if I'm not then - sure! I'd be happy to make up
tapes for those not producing music. In fact, in a way, those not tied to
their own theories or music often times are the most open listeners and we all
could benefit from their ears, I think. So sure, go ahead and request and I
will try to accomodate those people as well as I can. But I must ask that
those requests come after all the contributing tapes are in, which should be
in about one month. This will allow me to see how many tapes I actually have
to deal with.

I've gotten some very positive feedback on this and that makes me happy. I
think this will be reasonably successful. In any case, once again....

Please send your cassette tape, blank tape and Self-addressed Stamped Envelope
to:

Denis Atadan
13 Washington Street
Newark, DE 19711

e-mail:

denis.atadan@mvs.udel.edu



SMTPOriginator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
From: stick@dnvr.uswest.net
Subject: theories
PostedDate: 28-07-97 08:52:46
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As I often find myself doing, I'd like to second Neil's most recent
request: I too think it would be great, if somebody can spare a half hour
or so, to briefly list the essential underlying concepts, and summarize at
least some of the discussion that has gone down about them. Even though
I'm at least fairly familiar with many of these underlying concepts, to be
honest with you, I've gotten rather lost in the myriads of messages as to
what, if any, conclusions have come of them.

On a related note: I found Neil's suggestion that the purpose of math
"seems to be explaining the Universe in terms of various numerical
balances" curious.

I personally think that a better way to view musical math is as a
modeling tool: Once you choose a concept by which you quantify some aspect
of musical perception, math gives you a "bag of tricks" to apply that
concept in ways that aren't otherwise apparent. For example, once we
accept that our ears perceive pitch changes as multipliers of frequency,
the mathematical principles of logarithms and exponentials tells us what
that multiplier is for a 12TET half-step.



SMTPOriginator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
From: DMB5561719@aol.com
Subject: Re: theories
PostedDate: 29-07-97 14:43:14
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In a message dated 97-07-29 03:46:30 EDT, "Aline Surman" writes:

> You know, I've realized something because of a recent post I saw on
> this forum. Somebody said that what's wrong with theorizing about
> tunings; it's harming no one, so why can't they just do it and have folks
> (like me) quit complaining...good question. So, I've now seen that one of
> my problems with reading those posts is simply that I do NOT understand a
> lot of the basic terms and how they're applied to music. I hear about,
> and have done some reading about, tonality diamonds, stellated hexany's
> and all, but I need to know what they are before I can feel like a
> participant in those sorts of discussions. Yes, I am a player first, but
> theory is vital to help folks keep inquiring and pushing forward. Some of
> you folks are way out there with this stuff, and that's a compliment...I
> would like to know more what's being discussed at times. Perhaps some of
> you guys can talk about some of the basic concepts of advanced theory and
> help bridge the gap that sometimes exists between the theorists and the
> street folks like me. Of course, the math is a different story because
> it's a whole language of concepts and symbols; I just do not have the
> time to get real heavy into it, and I know many others who feel the same
> way...still, I believe the basic idea of math, which seems to be
> explaining the Universe in terms of various numerical balances of sorts,
> is not so hard to see. I have the greatest respect for the amazing minds
> I've encountered on this forum...I cannot always keep up on the theory
> end, but I'd like to know more of what you're talking about...Hstick

Try the Just Intonation Primer by David Doty (Where's that May 1/1, DD?)
and Genesis of a Music by Harry Partch.

I maybe wrong but I think Harry's the guy behind the tonality diamond.


* . * . . D a v i d B e a r d s l e y .. dmb5561719@aol.com *
* .. * ... .* .... *...... .
* I M M P & B i i n k! m u s i c * . . *
. .. * .. .. * . .
J u x t a p o s i t i o n Ezine * * . .. .*..
. .*.. . .. . . .*. . . . . ..
http://www.virtulink.com/immp/lookhere.htm * . . .
. .. .*.. . .. . ..*. . .. . *.



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From: gagaku@cats.ucsc.edu
Subject: Re:Ernest McClain
PostedDate: 30-07-97 00:59:03
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> As I often find myself doing, I'd like to second Neil's most recent
> request: I too think it would be great, if somebody can spare a half
hour
> or so, to briefly list the essential underlying concepts, and summarize
at
> least some of the discussion that has gone down about them.

It would appear that this list needs a good FAQ on some of the topics
brought up. It should contain definitions of basic terminology and general
descriptions of the most common types of structures and scale generation
techniques. From reading this list the past few months and browsing the
archives, it appears that many of the same topics get rehashed over and
over and over and over. Some of the "tuning gurus" that inhabit the list
are surprisingly patient in explaining things repeatedly, but it seems that
they could save themselves some time by compiling these things into one
good document to stick onto someone's web page. Obviously entire books
could be written on combination-product sets, etc. (and someone should do
so!) but at least some basic groundwork should be done for referring
commonly asked questions. For example:

Why use equal temperament rather than JI (or vice versa)?
What is prime limit? "" "" odd-limit?
What's a comma?
How is meantone tuned? "" "" well-temperament?
What does MOS mean?
Where do I find information on tuning my synth/MIDI/guitar/piano/bagpipes
to scale X?
What's a harmonic series and what does it have to do with tuning?
What's a hexany/dekany/hebdomekontany, etc.?

I suppose if a really good definitive FAQ were compiled, 95% of the
discussion would disappear and the list would die. Or maybe some of the
redundancy could be eliminated and the resulting discussions would be more
interesting with everyone (who takes the effort to read and understand the
FAQ) on an equal footing.



SMTPOriginator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
From: Denis.Atadan@mvs.udel.edu
Subject: Tape Swap Takes a Holiday
PostedDate: 30-07-97 20:55:40
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