88CET #13: Pragmatic Concerns 1

I'm going to move on to an all-new topic on this posting. John Pusey once
asked about this sort of question.

88CET's nonoctave orientation poses a few logistical problems that we
wouldn't normally think of from our experience with octave-based tunings.


Tuning Instruments to Each Other

One curious complication comes in tuning nonoctave instruments to one
another. The complication is that you have to find an exact common pitch
instead of an entire pitch-class to which to tune them. To illustrate this
complication, think about the usual orchestral tuning procedure, wherein the
principal oboe plays an 440Hz A, and the other instruments successively join in
tuning to that pitch or octave equivalents to it. Since there are no octaves in
a nonoctave tuning, a 'cello would have to tune to exactly an 440Hz A, which
does not correspond to an open-string, as would be preferable.

But this complication is not as big a deal as it might sound if the nonoctave
tuning has a very accurate approximation to some other easily recognizable
interval. Such a procedure for 88CET would be somewhat more complex, but
certainly not impractical. Instruments could tune in pitch-range groups by
unison, 7:6 subminor third, 3:2 perfect fifth, 7:4 subminor seventh, 5:2 major
tenth, or 8:1 triple-octave below something like an 440Hz A. (In the
triple-octave case, they would have to "aim low" by 8 cents.)

Ideally some sort of electronic tuner would be used for such a thing, but
since no tuner that I know of will easily read out 88CET pitches, such a
procedure becomes more practical than it might immediately seem. Allowing each
individual player in a large ensemble to see a tuner's display is certainly not
without its complications either!

A similar concern comes up in tuning the "wavesamples" within a single
sampling synthesizer sound. (Ensoniq uses the word "wavesample" for a digitally
recorded sound assigned to a short segment of consecutive keys on the keyboard.)
I have usually found tuning wavesamples to each other by matching 7:4s, 3:2s,
and such, more practical than using a tuner.


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