Paul Erlich

Yes Paul would be interested!
The question of Native American tuning is something I have been looking
into for quite a while having a potent amount of Chipewa blood. For
years I have been collecting transcriptions (mainly Francis Densmore) as
well as listening to the recordings at the southwest museum which is
about 3 miles from where I am. There they have tape from the edison
cylinders. Still by the time these recordings were done, she was only
able to get solo recordings where as much of this music was sung in
groups. This music is gone for the most part or greatly corrupted by
12et. Here though are some of my observations: for the most part the
vocal style (high vibrato) bend so much that a definite pitch is
impossible to determine scientifically. To the ear when I "have" to
play them on a fixed pitched instrument I have found they "work" better
over harmonic and subharmonic sequences or related pentatonics. 7s make
more sense than not and 11 are common in more places than one. That
various tribes have subharmonic flutes is well known. There is oral
tradition that says that it was common with some tribes to have the
women hold high drones on which the male voices would start in unison
and descend downward. A subharmonic scale supplies good intervals.
In the southwest you have quite a few varied tribes. the Yaqui have
always been one of my favorites (my father played my 78s of them). I
believe that Partch heard this tribe growing up. Their music represents
some of the most remote from western music found in the U.S.

--
Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island
http://www.anaphoria.com