srutis and such

I always enjoy the various viewpoints on Indian tunings...it seems to
me, though, that I have rarely seen the words of one of the Indian master
musicians themselves on this subject...why, I'm not sure. I did just read
the words of Ali Akbar Khan in his book (forgot the title); he said that
(paraphrased) he might have 23 1/2 srutis if he felt like it. Of course,
the point seems to be that there are many positions for a note depending
on the effect desired...not a big surprise, and again I must note the
similarities between this approach and my own experience with blues; same
deal, and this is a subject that a student must learn to feel on his
own...string bending is tough.
On a related subject, and this is surely not a "scientific" study, I
have noticed in my dealings this last year with folks who play music from
other cultures, with non western tunings, that they seem to know very
little about the subject of tuning, period...it seems to be more
intuitive than anything else. Examples...I met with a koto player today,
and took a lesson. She is quite talented, but was totally in the dark
about the harmonic series, and how Japanese tunings differed from
western...she does know they are different, but not the technical
details. I met 2 sitar students recently, and neither one had a clue
about tunings...in fact, one insisted that ragas could all be played in
12 equal...hmmm. Finally, I saw a very good Filipino gamelan orchestra,
and played some of the instruments, and got to talk to the leader as
well. He, too, was rather vague on the tuning subject, and was not able
to offer more than the opinion that the instruments were tuned in the
range of the human voice, and that he thought there were 7 tones in the
scale...again, no hard technical info, more the intuitive side.
I will continue to meet and hang with folks from all over the world,
and learn what I can about their culture and music...it seems, perhaps,
that the performers of a music are less concerned with the decimal points
than the final result...I would like to hear comments from others on the
forum about their similar experiences.
As to Reinhard's summer music camp adventures, what a hoot to imagine
polymicrotonal ditties around the campfire...I think reaching "ordinary"
folks in this manner is exactly where it's at, and is what will help non
12 tunings to become a part of our culture, rather than to be thought of
as some weird, esoteric stuff for the egghead crowd...Hstick



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From: Manuel.Op.de.Coul@ezh.nl
Subject: RE: tuning of the 2nd sruti
PostedDate: 12-09-97 07:36:49
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I wrote:
> B. Breloer by the way calculates different srutis than Fox Strangways.
> In "Die Grundelemente der altindischen Musik nach dem
> Bharatiya-natya-sastra", Bonn, 1922, he gives srutis of 24, 66 and
> 90 cents (instead of 22, 70 and 90).

These sruti values seem to lead to the Pythagorean scale with 11 pure
fifths up and 10 down, in other words the schismatic equivalent.

Manuel Op de Coul coul@ezh.nl



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From: Paul-Hahn@library.wustl.edu
Subject: Re: Organ CDs
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