Xen music in Quebec

Hi tuners, here is a post from your quebecois correpondant. I have a
lot to talk about, so I divided my post into sub-topics (if the typos bother
you, please respond via private email):

****
a)Stretched JI : For beatless chords in an harmonic context, we have JI. For
ease of modulation, there are all the various ET's (octave or non-octave).
All this stuff is fine, but I have been feeling incomfortable since I red
McLaren's article about psychoacoustics. I learned that musicians prefered
stretched octaves and found the 5/4 flat. It was demonstrated that classical
musicians *do* use stretched intervals. (Some aspect of perception, by
Shackford, is a good example.) These studies make me feel inconfortable.
Well, I found a plausible alternative about a week ago. Why not strech the
scale? A typical result would be :

[1/1 9/8 5/4 4/3 3/2 5/3 15/8 2/1] ** 136/135

(Or you could try 61/60 as the exponent, to make it more obvious)

If listen to a "61/60" major chord and compair it to the 4:5:6 chord, you
might think that the chord has moved by a microtone. If this happens, either
concentrate on the fundamental of the chord or use a smaller exponent.

I think of this new model is good, because it is a compromise between JI and
the "real world" scientific data. Larry Polansky and Linus Liu postulated
something similar.

****
b)Reference pitch : First, a stupid question : Where is A4=440Hz on the
piano staff? I have seen references to Yamaha using a different octave, can
anyone clear this up?
I find that 'A' is not a pretty note to start a scale on. Could we use C=512cps?

****
c)The Real World : There are not many concerts lately. When will we be able
to hear live microtonal music again? (Manuel?)
I tried to organize a GT earlier, with not much success (I received a single
answer.) GT is short for "get together", it is an occasion to meet the other
musicians of your area. Maybe we could have a jam session or something?
The physical location seems to be a problem : New England is not densely
populated. Maybe Boston would be a better place. (But I am not sure I can
afford a ride there.) Anyway, maybe some of you will be interested in a
group activity in this area.

****
d)Help me! : The xenharmonic culture is non-existant where I live
(Sherbrooke, next to Montreal, qc.ca.) I have written a small journal called
"Liberte d'accord" (Freedom of tuning) to educate the local musicians. When
I handed a free copy to the town's authority in music writing, the answer I
got was a 15 minute speech about the supremacy of jazz music. That
discouraged me a little bit. How do you make microtonal popular? How do you
explain to a normal person the signification of expressions like
1200*log2(x) and 3//13?

--Kami
http://www.interlinx.qc.ca/~kami/
kami@interlinx.qc.ca


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