TUNING digest 1343

Hello:

After a pause, I am better able to keep up with the tuning list.

Although I'm not familiar with Prof. Hatch's recent work, I suspect that
the solo vocal music he is working with are solos, in the sense of ''sung=

by _single_ singers WITH gamelan'', either the entire ensemble or the
smaller subsets used during Andhegan or Palaran sections.

Since the idiophones and gongs (which are actually membranophones) are
tempered in various ways (simultaneously, and often haphazardly) in order=

to play in all the _pathet_ (~tonality + mode), the intonation of singers=

and the rebab become extremely critical in parsing the underlying tuning.=
=


Javanese singers - like singers universally - vary greatly in ability and=

attention towards intonation. In Java, some teachers pay close attention =
to
intonation while other pay virtually no intention. I heard Ki Suhardi mak=
e
corrections of septimal comma size, striking his gender to play a pitch a=
nd
then singing slightly above or below the tone. In my rebab lessons with
him, Pak Hardi really had me focus on tuning. For example, I had to tune
the upper string to gender tone 6 but the lower string had to be a beatle=
ss
fifth below, which was close to the pelog gender's pitch 2, but sharp of=

the gender's slendro 2 and this tuning was used by the rebab for both
slendro and pelog. In melodic passages, the problem of tuning consecutive=

slendro intervals (which vary from around a 9/8 to a 7/6) required
considerable attention. Except for playing the open strings together at
certain points, the lessons were conducted monophonically, without use of=

other instruments.

I think that the tuning of monophonic singing or playing should not be
dismissed as a theme for research. Many singers or players, even without
perfect pitch memory, can keep a reference pitch in memory over extended
periods with great accuracy. Room resonances often assist in this, and a
situation like the Javanese _palaran_, offers plenty of opportunity for
reinforcing reference pitches from which a singer or rebab player can
correct her intonation.

The studies of Boomsliter and Creel suggested some ways in which a solo
might proceed interval-by-interval in a just context, and my old favorite=
,
the _Handbook of Irish Music_ by Richard Henebry has some data, albeit
poorly organized, deeply suggestive of underlying just patterns. (The bes=
t
Sean-Nos (Irish solo singing) singers have rock solid pitch memory and ma=
ke
pitch discriminations between pitches where one would expect to find
syntonic comma shifts). I know that there are significant objections to
conclusive statements about vocal and unfixed-pitch instrumental intonati=
on
- largely argued from the position that vocal tones are too transient - b=
ut
I think that anyone studying performance practice close enough aquires
skill in identifying a subjective pitch center from which constructive
observations can be made.

Daniel Wolf
Frankfurt
=


=