pitch constellations

Ben Hume has recently built a replica of the Sumerian Aulos which is built
on just intonation relationships -- not 3-limit of the _later_
Babylonians. And the enharmonic genus of the Greeks was discussed in the
litereature as more anicient than the upstart chromatic and diatonic
genus. Chicken or the egg?

Tidbit: microtonal composer Stephen Mayer told me years ago that it was
his deaf brother (a medical doctor) that got him singing microtonally. An
apparently idionsyncratic relationship of pitch fed into the imagination
of a perfect pitch microtonal composer (who mainly uses quartertones).

Elodie Lauton's work (just reviewed by David) was based on her hearing an
inner "chord" which she made manifest in the drone basis of the work. Too
bad the Knitting Factory is so sloppy with their part of the concert
(late sound check, inaequate microphones, sound pops, noises in
general...ouch). Awfully hard to be meditative with that kind of
inteference. The tuning was based on a transposed Pythagorean.

Johnny Reinhard
Director
American Festival of Microtonal Music
318 East 70th Street, Suite 5FW
New York, New York 10021 USA
(212)517-3550/fax (212) 517-5495
reinhard@idt.net
http://www.echonyc.com/~jhhl/AFMM

On Thu, 12 Nov 1998, Paul H. Erlich wrote:
>> the definition of
>> harmonic waste [is] any thirds narrower or fifths wider than just.
>
> Presumably, this means major thirds, but shouldn't the criterion be
> minor thirds? Is 2/7-comma meantone harmonically wasteful? I think the
> criterion about thirds should be changed to "any minor thirds wider than
> just."

Well, it's defined the way it is because if you add up the total amount
of tempering in all of the fifths, major thirds, and minor thirds (i.e.
the consonant intervals) in any temperament, that total will be constant
as long as no harmonic waste exists. If we change the definition to
Paul E.'s proposed one this is no longer true.

--pH http://library.wustl.edu/~manynote
O
/\ "Do you like to gamble, Eddie?
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