RE: Gibson Digest 1272

>Gregg Gibson:
>}> >}Of
>}> >}course the centre of 22-tone equal in India is nowadays supposed to be
>}> >}the South.
>
>Paul Ehrlich:
>}> >
>}> >Where did you get this idea?
>
>}I am uncertain what you mean. This is a matter of elementary knowledge.
>}Look in any elementary text on the subject.
>
>No text I have seen, elementary or otherwise, has made this claim. Neil
>Haverstick is quite right (if I may interpret "chord changes" as "key
>changes") that equal temperament arises only in response to the need to
>modulate (change key) extensively. Two cultures make extensive use of
>modulation: the West and Thailand. The solutions they have arrived at are
>12-equal and 7-equal, respectively. Meantone temperament was the preferred
>system in the West before modulations became too extensive; Thailand may have
>been influenced by Chinese Pythagorean theories before modulation became a
>major feature of that music. The most widely accepted interpretations of the
>Indian 22-sruti system place no note more than a comma away from a 12-equal
>pitch. No wonder that Indian musicians, both North and South, have accepted
>12-equal far more readily than some 22-equal harmoniums, etc. that some
>ill-informed Westerners have provided them.
>
>}Your definition of the syntonic comma is one definition, but it is
>}irrelevant to a discussion of precisely how the consonant cycles are to
>}be reconciled in an equal temperament.
>
>Hmm. Your reconcilability criterion is that four fifths add up to a major
>third (octaves ignored). In other words, the difference between a major third
>and four fifths is zero. Using my definition of a syntonic comma, this
>translates to: the syntonic comma is zero. Far from irrelevant -- it is
>equivalent to the whole "discussion."
>
>}Your assertion that you have never denied 22-tone equal to be unfit for
>}diatonicism comes strangely from someone who has proclaimed this system
>}the salvation of music, but perhaps you mean to preserve 12-tone equal
>}for diatonicism. I have heard this sort of thing before - it always
>}reduces to "something special for ME" and 12-tone equal for everybody
>}else.
>
>If I didn't want it to be for everyone I would have patented a keyboard
>layout for the decatonic scale. The salvation of music -- hardly. I merely
>feel that, if the next generation of musicians is given a wide variety of
>tuning systems to play with, and only one of them succeeds in producing a
>wealth of music that is not diatonic or pentatonic but is tonal, or at least
>carries on in some sense the popular tradition in Western music of an
>interplay between melody and harmony, there is a chance that that tuning will
>be 22-equal.
>
>}The modern Arab theorists have done their utmost to impose the 24-tone
>}equal for instrumental music. But Arab singers cheerfully (if that is
>}the right word) go their own way, and certainly do not regularly,
>}deliberately use intervals as close as 50 cents
>
>No, but they use intervals close to 150 and 250 cents, the reason for
>24-equal. 31-equal, containing 155- and 348-cent intervals, will clearly be
>much more succesful for reproducing Arabic music than 19-equal, which has
>absolutely nothing in the way of neutral seconds or thirds.
>
>}I think I have mentioned that this interval of about 150 cents occurs in
>}the 31-tone equal, where it corresponds to a 4/5 tone. Note however that
>}this interval is perfectly unadapted to harmony, which the modern Arabs
>}and Indians often seek to imitate.
>
>In your opinion, then, whatever is unique about Arabic music is less
>important to Arabic musicians than Western features that they seek to
>imitate?
>
>}My own personal opinion is that Arab
>}(and Indian) vocal melodies are far, far more likely to be exactly
>}recognizable in the 19-tone equal than in the 17- 22- or 24-tone
>}divisions, in despite of the troublesome matter of the 150-cent
>}interval.
>
>Not only 24, but also 17, would be better for Arabic music than 19. Just take
>the step sizes of the various seven-tone scales in Arabic music in 24-equal,
>subtract 1 form the size of each step, and you have serviceable 17-equal
>approximations, including 141- and 353-cent intervals. I am not sure if the
>dissonant thirds of 17-equal would matter to the sound of the music or if
>consonant thirds are a concern only proper to certain other musical cultures.


SMTPOriginator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
From: Steven Rezsutek
Subject: The Intonational Preferences of Irish Setters
PostedDate: 22-12-97 23:58:46
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