Newbie

Hi everyone,
I'm new to the list and new to this whole alt.tuning business, but very
interested in it. I'm a guitar player, a composer, I have a Mac and a Roland
XP-50 with a GI-10.
Can you recommend any particular composers or recordings I should listen to
help me broaden my horizons?

I have a specific question regarding my XP-50: it has a function called
*Keyfollow* which allows me to tune the keyboard using percentages.
+200 gives me a 6-tone (whole-tone) scale, +150 gives me an 8-tone scale (the
negative values reverse the keyboard), and if I tune the proper pitches 50 cents
sharp (or flat) I get a diminished scale. It's very interesting (and fun) to
take something like a Bach midi file and listen to it using one of these
tunings.
+120 gives me a 10-tone scale.
+50 gives me a 24-tone scale.
Now, +70 gives me a 17-tone scale, +40 gives me a 30-tone scale, +30 gives me
a 40-tone scale, and +20 gives me a 60-tone scale. With these tunings, though, I
can't really tell (I guess my ears aren't good enough yet) how accurate the
octaves are, and I don't know how to figure it out mathematically. Can anyone
tell me how accurate these octaves are, just from the *numbers*, and are these
um legitimate or *actually used* scales (I've heard of 17-tone, 24-tone, and I
think 31-tone scales?)?
Excuse my ignorance of proper terms, thanks for the help, and do these scales
have proper names? Is there maybe a good book someone can recommend that would
explain a bit about *microtonal harmony*?

P.S. Mr. Haverstick (sp?), I've heard of you. Don't you have some guitars
that are um fretted differently to allow you to play *microtonally*? I live here
in beautiful Westminster - when and where might I be able to hear you play some
music on some of these instruments, and where might I check one out?

Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl
with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Thu, 8 Aug 1996 01:52 +0200
Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA14805; Thu, 8 Aug 1996 01:52:05 +0200
Received: from eartha.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA14850
Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI)
for id QAA21798; Wed, 7 Aug 1996 16:52:52 -0700
Date: Wed, 7 Aug 1996 16:52:52 -0700
Message-Id: <199608072352.RAA23531@freenet.uchsc.EDU>
Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu
Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu