Microtonality in Minneapolis

Here's an update regarding the Clavette Microtonal MIDI Keyboard
Controller, and other recent activities of mine in Minneapolis:

In March, I completed a 36-minute documentary about it, including
introductions to the instrument and tuning principles suitable for the
layperson, and original compositions and arrangements in 19 and 31-ET.
Earlier this year I also began rehearsing my latest duet Endangered
Species with fellow list member Kris Peck, who built a 20-tone JI
electric guitar.
I presented the premiere of the video and Endangered Species at a
lecture-demonstration at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul on
March 10, to an audience of local composers and students.

So far, the video has been broadcast on Minneapolis public access, and
the suburban public access stations of Bloomington and Northwest
Communities. I am willing to send free copies of the video to any list
member who will promise to sponsor it for public access broadcast in
their community, but may withdraw this offer if I get too many requests
to handle, so first come, first serve! In addition to the US NTSC
standard, I can create copies in other video standards for other
countries.

In May, I recorded Endangered Species with Kris in the studio of John
Dieterich, another local list member, and arranged a 4-camera video
recording at the St. Paul public access studios later that month. I will
probably use these recordings as is, since the quality of performance
and recording was high, but I may tweak the audio in Digital Performer a
little. I expect the audio recording will eventually become part of a
Clavette CD, and the video should become part of a 20+ minute music-only
video of more recent Clavette music.(It's a good thing we recorded it
last month--Kris and wife Stephanie became the proud parents of Lydia
Peck on June 15!)

I've posted short QuickTime video clips of Clavette keyboard and pedal
technique on my website at
http://www.wavefront.com/~hfortuin/clavett.htm. If you don't have
QuickTime, which runs on Windows and Mac OS, there's a link there to
download it for free.

Thanks to some unusual circumstances on my day job, I had the time to
complete a Windows 95 version of my KTune Kurzweil 2000/2500 tuning
generator in April. This program generates octave-based equal
temperaments and JIs especially for the Keymap editor in these
synthesizers (but output could be entered in the Intonation editor). It
creates a text file with values to be entered into the synthesizer
manually. It can create decimal divisions of the octave, so by following
directions in the ReadMe file it can generate non-octave ETs. This
freeware program can now be downloaded as a .zip archive from
http://www.wavefront.com/~hfortuin/phdcurv.htm (For the programmers
amongst us, I created it with Microsoft Foundation Classes in MS Visual
C++ 4.0 and 5.0.) I've included a dump of a bank of Programs in various
ETs developed with the help of KTune for K2000 System 2.0+.

I've pulled the copy of my Curvaceous dissertation software for Mac OS
from the site, since for some reason the more recent versions of
Performer can't open its Standard MIDI file output; plus, I'm well along
the way with a standalone version of this, which should run on any
platform, but which I'll only test on Windows 95/98 and Mac OS. (I'm
writing this using Java 1.0's Abstract Windowing Toolkit using MS Visual
J++ 1.0, and the Sun JDK for the Mac.) I hope to post a version of this
in a few months for the xenrhythmicists amongst you.

Once again, new to my website:
--http://www.wavefront.com/~hfortuin/clavett.htm for video clips of
the Clavette
--http://www.wavefront.com/~hfortuin/phdcurv.htm for KTune software
and K2000 programs in various ETs using various sounds

And let me know if you can sponsor broadcast of the video. (If you live
in a community in the US with public access, you can sponsor this video
without any cost to you.)

Have a marvelous microtonal summer,
Harold Fortuin

Manuel Op de Coul wrote:
> I have uploaded new versions of the tuning and temperament
> bibliography and microtonal discography. Much effort has been
> put into them, so take a look:

I also hear say that W. Carlos was rather impressed by them.

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End of TUNING Digest 1456
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