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TUNING digest 1390

🔗Daniel Wolf <DJWOLF_MATERIAL@...>

4/20/1998 4:56:55 AM
Carter, you wrote:


I am indeed looking at these and related scales
(Cirebonese, Balinese Saih 7 and Ritual seven-tone) in general
and trying to identify historical and regional trends in the
tunings by looking closer at the age and provenence of particular
instruments, as well as questions of tumbuk, repetoire and
tessitura. =



In the central Javanese palace instruments
(cf the Gadja Mada study), this average is
indeed around 665 cents. However, since so many modern
instruments copy the RRI Solo tuning, with essentially
a slendro kempyang ('fifth') of 721 cents, we may being
witnessing one way in which a tuning trend develops. =


To confuse the matter even more, rebab players usually try
to tune 6 to the tumbuk and 2 a beatless fifth below. Most
players then identify this 2 as pelog rather than slendro! =



As I read Javanese theorists, 'interval'
(Gembyang/Kempyang) is a number of keys on a
metallophone, not a acoustic ratio. Martopangrawit
did in fact distinguish between a given interval
between keys on an instrument and an 'acoustic'
interval (i.e pelog kempyang 3-i is identified as
not being an acoustic kempyang). Pak Hardi talks
about kempyang in functional terms and then
identifies which kempyang he prefers to be 'mleng'
or 'pleng' (beatless).
=

< I also question whether 1-2 is always smaller

Since at least the second half of the last century
instruments consistantly have 1-2 smaller than 2-3.

I selected the 8/7 based on remarks of many
players in both Yogya and Solo that on a tubuk 6
gamelan P4 could be the same as but not higher than
S5. My initial set of conditions made reference
to Slendro, but I wanted to try it without.

>...4 is a subsidiary
>tone in pelog lima, an alternate to 3; and some
>gendhing use all 7 tones; so the boundaries between
>the three "keys" are not strict. =


I find myself continuously rethinking how one divides
the pelog repertoire. The three pathet division does
apply to a large chunk of the repertoire in terms
of techniques used on the elaborating instruments
(which don't have pitch 4) where the
tone pelog is sometimes a substitute for 3 and
sometimes takes a scalar function in the sequence
4-5-6 parallel to that of 1 in the sequence 1-2-3. =


While most of the seven tone repertoire (i.e.
Solonese gendhing bonangan and Yogya gendhing soran)
can be analysed as modulating locally to one of
the five tone sets that I identified or a 4 for 3
substitution, there are uses
of 4 as a kind of chromatic tone (particularly in
contemporary Lagu Dolanan), a kind of 'pelog pathet
slendro' where both 3 and 4 are used, and sometimes
pitch 7 is introduced in the absence of a high 1.

I may be entirely wrong about this, but I imagine
these 'chromatic' uses of the residua from the =

tuning method to be like Skryabin, Slonimsky or
Bartok inventing new scales or Harry Partch playing
chromatic scales or 'octaves' on the chromelodeon.
(Or, for that matter, Doug Leedy's meantone black-
key slendro). The best evidence I have for this,
in the absence of rebab and voices in gendhing
bonangan/soran. =



This can be reversed. I believe in practice that
2 and 6 are set first and then 3 and 7 set with
checks of 3 against 5 and 6 and 2 against 7. =



No, but if someone does come up with a just solution
(I lean toward the view that these tunings are kinds
of 'well temperaments'), I would be _very_ interested
in hearing it.

<(already >80 cents, but usually a good deal

These are already satisfied by setting 1-3 and 1-5.

As you can read from your table, the results are
still broad enough to include, for example, a 12tet
phrygian scale. =


Can you imagine any additional constraints to narrow this? =