re: Buzz and other tuning related stuff

Thee Eternal Hstick writes:

>For Feiten to devise a system that helps working musicians
>sound better on a gig, I have only good feelings...again, though, I
>personally feel it's time that the music world begins to understand what
>12 eq is, how and why it came into being, and that there are other
>options. Unfortunately, the magazine editors that I am in contact with
>seem uninterested in pursuing the subject...and that does piss me off,
>because they make it seem like 12eq is IT, and it surely is only one
>tuning out of zillions...Hstick

They ARE editors of a GUITAR MAGAZINE. Come on!

Instead of writing an article on theory try this...

Write an article on John Schneider. He's been performing
the music of this centuries ground breaking microtonal
composers (Lou Harrison, Harrry Partch, La Monte Young)
for a couple of years now, has a few cd's out with plans
for more. Next cd he releases - write an article about
him and his guitars and shop it around. If you get more
room than a half page, a feature even! - maybe you can
convince them that you should also write a side bar on
the short history of tuning.

You could even write about Rod Poole, hopefully
his next cd will come out this year. If GP still doesn't
go for it, try Musician magazine. They seem to be interested
in the educational aspect of magazine content. If it
goes that far, maybe the article should be written by somebody
else so that Neil Haverstick fellow (who?) can be included
with Jon Catler (that Birdhouse cd should be out this year),
John Schneider, Dan Stearns and other microtonal guitarists.
At that point - maybe, if it gets that far - Johnny
Reinhard or John Chalmers or some aspiring theorist
could write the side bar or even a full separate article.

Don't forget to include URLs like: 1/1, Starrett's Tuning Links page,
The main Partch site - Corpreal Meadows,
the La Monte site - MELA Foundation,
info about joining the list.

I know a bit about the magazine biz: I'm in it.

"Now stop it. You've proved your point."

Jimmy Brown
Guitar World/Maximum Guitar editor
after I showed him how to tune a guitar
to upper harmonics.



Thee Eternal Hstick also wrote:

>PS...Foote's accidental post about trolls was appreciated
>..this list is usually very peaceful; occasionally a
>personal dig surfaces, and it always says more about
>the digger than the digee...no need for personal
>attacks...HHH

You're way too fragile for the net Neil!

Maybe it would make you happy if you knew that
I finished writing this whole letter and Netscape
made my computer crash - I had to start all over.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

And some other things...

If you (that means anyone reading this!) catch a microtonal
concert in your neighborhood, maybe you can sit down at
the computer and wack out an in depth review for us?
There was a concert in Southern California last month
and it was hardly mentioned. Neil Haverstick (aka Hstick,
HHH, Aline Surman, any more?) has to review his own concerts. Sheesh!
If 100 people came: not one of them is on this list and
they can't write a review???

Before I step down off of my soap box...don't forget:
AFMM, this Thursday & Friday, Columbia U.,
Saint Paul's Chapel NY, NY 8pm.

Be there or be out of town. ;)


* D a v i d B e a r d s l e y
* xouoxnoREMOVE-THIS@virtulink.com
*
* J u x t a p o s i t i o n E z i n e
* M E L A v i r t u a l d r e a m house monitor
*
* http://www.virtulink.com/immp/lookhere.htm

On Mon, 4 May 1998, A440A wrote:

> Bruce writes:
> >Actually it seems to me that the fascination with polyphony along with
> >12ET's somewhat universal simplicity, has caused the predominance of
> >12TET-- it has taken 250-300 years to somewhat exhaust the rich endowment
> >of this tuning.
>
> If I understand Bruce to mean that ET has been used for 250-300 years, I
> must respectfully disagree. There is more than ample evidence to show that,
> while theorized about much earlier, the use of 12 TET didn't actually come to
> prominence before 1850.
>
Ed

My apologies for the numbers--actually I was thinking back to Bach and
Silberman's time-- when I believe that what they were really shooting for
was 12ET, the ability to modulate to any key with equivalent harmonic
development possible. This opened up a whole world of harmonic polyphony
that Bach hinted at in his music that was not possible before his time and
an ET tuning scheme. Thanks for pointing out my error in time scale.

Bruce Kanzelmeyer

> True, we have evidence that lutes and viols were capable of ET shortly after
>the Mersenne ratios were published

Does anybody know of any significant body (i.e., not just one or two
here and there) of fretted stringed instruments from Western culture since
mid-late Baroque times, deliberately intended to be tuned to other than
12TET?

Now obviously I'm excluding from that two sorts of instruments:
1. Explicitly microtonal instruments from very recent times, like the guitars
that many of we tuning-listers have explicitly refretted.
2. Systematic imprecision, such as using the "rule of the 18th" to place frets
rather than the actual 12th root of two, or insufficient bridge or nut
corrections.

> Now obviously I'm excluding from that two sorts of instruments:
>1. Explicitly microtonal instruments from very recent times, like the guitars
> that many of we tuning-listers have explicitly refretted.
>2. Systematic imprecision, such as using the "rule of the 18th" to place frets
> rather than the actual 12th root of two, or insufficient bridge or nut
> corrections.

Hopefully obviously, I'm also excluding mistakes, imprecision of
manufacture, wear and tear on the instruments, and other sources of
randomness.

On Mon, 4 May 1998, A440A wrote:
> Bruce writes:
> >Actually it seems to me that the fascination with polyphony along with
> >12ET's somewhat universal simplicity, has caused the predominance of
> >12TET-- it has taken 250-300 years to somewhat exhaust the rich endowment
> >of this tuning.
>
> If I understand Bruce to mean that ET has been used for 250-300 years, I
> must respectfully disagree. There is more than ample evidence to show that,
> while theorized about much earlier, the use of 12 TET didn't actually come to
> prominence before 1850.

A couple of thoughts here:

(a) I'm not sure that 12TET has been exhausted even yet (I've posted on
this before, and recently, so I won't belabor the point).

(b) Just because tunings weren't 100% exactly 12TET doesn't disqualify
the music of the Baroque period from being (in some essential way)
12TET-ish, as it were. Heck, most purportedly 12TET instruments
even today aren't all that exact--see Barbour, or the recent thread
on synthesizer tuning resolution. To me, the essential things are
that there are 12 pitch/interval classes and no wolves; if those two
conditions are met (that pretty much describes the circulating
temperaments that were used increasingly throughout the Baroque) I'd
be willing to call it some form of 12TET. Certainly it's closer to
that than JI, or other tempered schemes with more than 12 pitch
classes.

--pH http://library.wustl.edu/~manynote
O
/\ "Churchill? Can he run a hundred balls?"
-\-\-- o
NOTE: dehyphenate node to remove spamblock. <*>

Paul Hahn:
>(b) Just because tunings weren't 100% exactly 12TET doesn't disqualify
> the music of the Baroque period from being (in some essential way)
> 12TET-ish, as it were. Heck, most purportedly 12TET instruments
> even today aren't all that exact--see Barbour, or the recent thread
> on synthesizer tuning resolution. To me, the essential things are
> that there are 12 pitch/interval classes and no wolves; if those two
> conditions are met (that pretty much describes the circulating
> temperaments that were used increasingly throughout the Baroque) I'd
> be willing to call it some form of 12TET.

I agree to a point, but I think that there was at least one other important
criterion that influenced composers -- the relative distribution of the
comma. That is, some wolf-less tunings clearly give more consonance to the
more commonly played keys. The more foreign keys, while still playable,
have relatively more dissonant intervals. This gives pieces in foreign keys
a very different affect or mood that Baroque composers were often
preoccupied with.

However, there are other temperaments in which the "preference" for a
particular key is minor, and the comma is distributed more or less
symmetrically around the circle of fifths. Of course a precisely equal
distribution would be equal temperament, but I'm thinking here of Neidhardt
or Marpurg, whose temperaments, according to Barbour, "all keys are pretty
much alike, whether nearer to C major or F# major."

So, if your point is that a composer will write the same music whether the
temperament is 12TET or 12TET-like, I would have to add the above criterion
(symmetrical distribution of dissonance) to your two conditions on the
definition of 12TET-like. However, I think with that added condition it
applies much more to post-Baroque music than Baroque. I think even Mr.
Well-Tempered Clavier himself suffers when shoe-horned into that most
equally gray of tunings.

Bill

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^ Bill Alves email: alves@hmc.edu ^
^ Harvey Mudd College URL: http://www2.hmc.edu/~alves/ ^
^ 301 E. Twelfth St. (909)607-4170 (office) ^
^ Claremont CA 91711 USA (909)607-7600 (fax) ^
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

On Mon, 11 May 1998, Bill Alves wrote:
> > To me, the essential things are
> > that there are 12 pitch/interval classes and no wolves; if those two
> > conditions are met (that pretty much describes the circulating
> > temperaments that were used increasingly throughout the Baroque) I'd
> > be willing to call it some form of 12TET.
[snip]
>
> So, if your point is that a composer will write the same music whether the
> temperament is 12TET or 12TET-like, I would have to add the above criterion
> (symmetrical distribution of dissonance) to your two conditions on the
> definition of 12TET-like.

No, that's not quite my point. My point is that unequal circulating
temperaments, even with key color, are so close to 12TET compared to
other stuff that I consider them still part of the whole process of
exploring the possibilities of the number 12. If you think of a tree
diagram:

-+-Just Intonation
|
+-Open (meantone) temperaments
|
+-Closed (circulating) temperaments
|
+-with 12 pitch classes
| |
| +-unequal with key color
| |
| +-Unequal with little or no key color
| |
| +-absolutely equal
|
+-with 19 pitch classes
|
+-with 31 pitch classes
|
etcetera . . .

I don't consider meantone very 12-ish because the wolves make some
intervals and triads unusable, so instead of 12 usable triads there are
really only 8 (okay, 24 and 16, but you know what I mean)--and even if
you add more notes you still can't make the enharmonic modulations,
because the circle doesn't close.

Paul Erlich has mentioned that he's been messing with a
"well-temperament" variation in his 22TET work, but I doubt he considers
it significantly de-22-ated. (-ized?)

This is _really_ splitting hairs. Agree or disagree as you will.

--pH http://library.wustl.edu/~manynote
O
/\ "Churchill? Can he run a hundred balls?"
-\-\-- o
NOTE: dehyphenate node to remove spamblock. <*>

>(a) I'm not sure that 12TET has been exhausted even yet (I've posted on
> this before, and recently, so I won't belabor the point).

My immediate reaction to that is to point to the ol' law of diminishing
returns. But perhaps that's belaboring the point too.





>(b) Just because tunings weren't 100% exactly 12TET doesn't disqualify
> the music of the Baroque period from being (in some essential way)
> 12TET-ish, as it were.

Without a doubt, there are tunings that sound different, and tunings
that sound REALLY different. Well-temperaments can provide a veritable
cosmos of flavoring differences within the realm of 12-toned tunings, to
the point that, if that's mostly what you work with, those differences can
be as striking as night and day.

But there can be no denying that the differences between 12-toned
temperaments are pretty subtle compared to tunings that bring in entirely
alien harmonies such as 9:7, 7:4, 11:9, 13:9, and such, and compared to
tunings that provide scale structures that don't conform to diatonic
prejudices.





> Heck, most purportedly 12TET instruments
> even today aren't all that exact

I can certainly relate to that, especially considering a rather
frustrating and elusive acoustical problem that has cropped up on my
soprano saxophone!