Dictionary Devils

>>I like equal-step tunings as much as the next guy. I even like 12. I am
>>always amazed at how good it sounds, and at how powerful it is...
>
>Okay, so to you, 12-TET tunings are powerful (and this is cause for
>amazement, presumably because of the high integer ratios it employs)

I call it powerful because it gets a lot done with only 12 pitches. There
is a difference between consonance and utility. 12et's intervals aren't
very consonant, but they do provide a huge musical framework for being only
12 (providing 144 of Partch's "senses").

>>Consonance is a factor of the size the number in an intervals ratio.
>
>In a sense, yes, because the interval itself is a factor of the sizes of
>the numbers in the ratio.

What?

>But in another sense, no: the Random House Dictionary and the New Harvard
>Dictionary of Music agree that consonance is a factor of cultural
conventions >and the "mind of the beholder" (or the musical equivalent of that).

Here's your problem! You are using the Random House Dictionary and New
Harvard Dictionary of Music as references. Consonance is not a factor of
the mind, it is an acoustic phenomenon having to do with the superposition
of waveforms. Make the perception of this phenomenon as subjective as you like.

>>An interval 16 cents flat of the sublime 6/5 has frequency ratio
>>19723/16585. This, of course, is our quite dissonant 12et minor third.
>
>So, 6/5 is sublime, and 19723/16585 is quite dissonant, yet powerful.

I did not call any interval in 12 equal powerful. I called the tuning
powerful. If you listen to the 300 cent third, you can hear it beat. This
is dissonance.

>>An interval 18 cents flat of the 6/5 bears ratio 19/16. It is a very
>>consonant minor third found in the duple 16-32 of the harmonic series...
>
>And 19/16 is very consonant.

It seems this comment was designed to make fun of me, based on your
Random-House-school-of-Cognitive-Psychology definition of consonance. If
consonance is so subjective, why don't you offer a description of the 19/16?
What's that? You've never heard it?

>Colleagues of the tuning list, the evidence suggests that musical beauty
>is in the ear of the hearer.

All forms of beauty are subjective. That this is so, I think, is beautiful.

>I see many claims that low integer ratios produce more "natural" and
"perfect" >harmonies, but little proof that people actually respond this way.

The fact that you've heard many claims seems to suggest that people respond
that way. For more evidence, check out Arthur Benade's "Special
Relationships" study, written up in his book "The Fundamentals of Musical
Acoustics" and in Doty's excellent "Just Intonation Primer".

Or you could do your own study. I've done demos with over 15 people and
have yet to find someone who doesn't prefer his subjective experience of
Just Intervals.

Or you might ask why a capella choirs sing in Just Intonation. You can't
get any more direct a measure of how humans like their sound than how they
tend to use their voices in a group.

>This makes the tuning list sometimes read like some medieval treatise on
the >nature of God. Why be amazed then, that the Devil incarnate, 12TET,
wields >such power?

I don't know who we've got on this thing, but I thought it was more than
numerologists. There's nothing inherently good about the low integers.
Tuning to them only makes sense because they occur in the timbres of most
acoustic instruments. If you have an instrument (like the Hammond Organ)
that produces tempered harmonics, then it would be a mistake to tune it in
Just Intonation (it's also impossible to re-tune tonewheel organs).

As for my use of "amazed", you've probably got me. I'm actually amazed at
how such beautiful patterns can come out of almost any tuning, Just or not.
That's why I got into Xenharmonics. Not because I was on a numerological
crusade, but because tuning can be one of the most powerful resources for
musicians.

Carl


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From: James Kukula
Subject: MIDI file formats
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Here is the MIDI filespec:
http://www.cs.ruu.nl/pub/MIDI/DOC/midifile

You can do several things:

- Write a program to write a midifile directly.
Then I would advice to look at the source code of existing programs for
examples. Here's one: http://www.cs.ruu.nl/pub/MIDI/PROGRAMS/mf2tsrc.zip
The next possibility will be easier.

- Write a program to write a text representation of a midifile that also
inserts pitchbend commands.
Then you can convert it to a midifile with T2MF (I don't know if
that's the same program that Kami mentioned; also in the Scala zip file).
The next possibility will also be easier.

- Write a program to write a text representation of a midifile without
inserting pitchbend commands.
Then convert it to a midifile with TXT2MF and subsequently convert the
midifile to a retuned midifile with Scala inserting the pitchbend
commands. Everything that Scala does, can also be done
noninteractively. You can run it from a .bat file and put the Scala
commands in the startup.cmd file. This also has the advantage that you
can use the same midifile for different tunings.

- Write a program to write a Scala sequence file. This may still be
slightly easier but it gives you less control over the result since
not all midi messages are supported. This is similar to Kami's
xen2txt utility.

- Write a program to write Csound files. Csound also works
noninteractively and gives you much more control over the sound,
better tuning precision and has none of the midi limitations.
It produces soundfiles, not midifiles. This however takes a lot of
computing time so you will have to be patient to hear the results.

Manuel Op de Coul coul@ezh.nl


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From: "Paul H. Erlich"
Subject: RE: Canright Revisited: Every Interval is Just
PostedDate: 22-10-97 22:33:09
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