Iļæ½m repreating a request I sent out to the Gamelan list:
Does anyone have tuning data (beyond Kunst and McPhee) on the Balinese seven tone Gamelan Selunding (variations in spelling: Slonding, Salonding, Selundung etc.)?
Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Fri, 6 Sep 1996 09:51 +0200 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA24065; Fri, 6 Sep 1996 09:52:47 +0200 Received: from eartha.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA24003 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id AAA12578; Fri, 6 Sep 1996 00:52:45 -0700 Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1996 00:52:45 -0700 Message-Id: <009A7F61476FB720.1C2C@vbv40.ezh.nl> Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
Interesting. Did they specify what they meant by "out of tune"?
I suppose it's worth cautioning the impressionable out there that, as with the debate we've witnessed over whether the ear tends to gravitate toward Just or stretched octaves, just because such a study suggests that we have some sort of innate tuning preference, doesn't mean that other tunings aren't equally useful.
After all, similar studies have suggested that babies have an innate fear of falling, but that doesn't seem to stop humans from hopping into rollercoasters and bunjee jumping, and such.
Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Mon, 9 Sep 1996 06:51 +0200 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA28717; Mon, 9 Sep 1996 06:53:23 +0200 Received: from eartha.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA28769 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id VAA22685; Sun, 8 Sep 1996 21:53:21 -0700 Date: Sun, 8 Sep 1996 21:53:21 -0700 Message-Id: <960909044942_71670.2576_HHB45-14@CompuServe.COM> Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
I find it interesting that tunners on this list cannot tell when music is out of tune.
I was asked once after I played for a wedding, he often could tell violinists playing out of tune. He was sure that the violinists themselves could tell it too. But what he could never understand was why those violinists never tried to correct it.
One Christmas when my baby was very small, I was carrying her walking pass a shopping arcade. The loudspeakers were playing some carols by some adults-pretending-like-kids. In order not let my daughter hear out-of-tune singing, I sang into her ears myself along with the carols. And the sales-girls in the shops came out to see who was singing.
My daughter won 3rd prize in grade 1 piano competition at 4, 3rd prize in grade 2 at 5, 2nd prize in grade 3 at six, in the open schools music festival open competition here. The last competition has 54 competitors, she was of course the youngest. She cannot read music. But she can play all notes and harmony just listening to the pieces a few times. She began to compose her little pieces at three.
My daughter will not listen to other violinists. I brought her to one violin concert, and I dare not bring her to another because her complaining (for the violinist playing out of tune) will disturb the other audiences. I sometimes would try to let her guest if it is I playing or someone else. Before I could ask, she would scream and shout, "shut it off, its terrible."
The Linus Liu intonation is for music.
ftp: kahless.isca.uiowa.edu in /pub/algo-comp/LinusLiu.
Linus Liu.
> Interesting. Did they specify what they meant by "out of tune"? > > I suppose it's worth cautioning the impressionable out there that, as with >the debate we've witnessed over whether the ear tends to gravitate toward Just >or stretched octaves, just because such a study suggests that we have some sort >of innate tuning preference, doesn't mean that other tunings aren't equally >useful. > > After all, similar studies have suggested that babies have an innate fear of >falling, but that doesn't seem to stop humans from hopping into rollercoasters >and bunjee jumping, and such.
Thats why we do sliding on the violin.
Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Mon, 9 Sep 1996 17:10 +0200 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA31956; Mon, 9 Sep 1996 17:11:29 +0200 Received: from eartha.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA31831 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id IAA03372; Mon, 9 Sep 1996 08:11:27 -0700 Date: Mon, 9 Sep 1996 08:11:27 -0700 Message-Id: <009A81F9482587E0.2123@vbv40.ezh.nl> Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
> I find it interesting that tunners on this list cannot tell when music > is out of tune.
I'd say that it's not so much a matter of telling when a note is out of tune as devising a strict mathematically rigorous definition - or even a general qualitative definition - of what constitutes being in-tune. Every careful studies I'm aware of suggests that singers players of indefinite-pitch instruments don't consistently follow any one particular standard.
And then you have to answer the question of whether an exactly perfect 9:7 third (for example) should be considered in-tune or out-of-tune. It's out of tune if 2^4/12 or 5:4 is your basis for deciding, but, by definition, it's exactly in-tune if 9:7 is your goal.
We probably need a few more words or phrases to describe these new concepts.
Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Tue, 10 Sep 1996 17:52 +0200 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA07876; Tue, 10 Sep 1996 17:54:20 +0200 Received: from eartha.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA07813 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id IAA02211; Tue, 10 Sep 1996 08:54:13 -0700 Date: Tue, 10 Sep 1996 08:54:13 -0700 Message-Id: <199609101551.XAA13289@hk.super.net> Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
Oh, yes, it is. We first aware that listeners feels notes being in tune or out, and then tell it. That is why there is this tuning list, right?
To explain why is another matter.
Any interval can be in tune if that interval can be and is used properly in music. Therefore:
do 10/9 re 10/9 me 27/25 fa 9/8 so 10/9 la 10/9 te 27/25 do
is a good scale because 1. identical tetrachords 2. same size whole tones adjacent to each other in each tetrachord 3. tetrachords a 3/2 good fifth apart. And:
do 9/8 re 9/8 me 16/15 fa 10/9 so 9/8 la 9/8 te 16/15 do
is also a good scale (Chinese scale) because of the very same reasons, plus the fact that the interval 9/8 is only 0.3 cent away from the tempered 1221.5 cent per octave mean tone (you call it equal tempered, 101.8 cent per half-tone) scale. 9/8 = 203.9 cents vs 101.8 x 2 = 0.3 cent difference.
You put half each scale from each to make a new scale, then you get a lousy scale.
When playing music FOR the Chinese scale, the intervals 81/64 (do-me), 32/27 (me-so), and 5/4 (fa-la) are all good intervals in the same music.
Linus Liu.
> I'd say that it's not so much a matter of telling when a note is out of tune >as devising a strict mathematically rigorous definition - or even a general >qualitative definition - of what constitutes being in-tune. Every careful >studies I'm aware of suggests that singers players of indefinite-pitch >instruments don't consistently follow any one particular standard. > > And then you have to answer the question of whether an exactly perfect 9:7 >third (for example) should be considered in-tune or out-of-tune. It's out of >tune if 2^4/12 or 5:4 is your basis for deciding, but, by definition, it's >exactly in-tune if 9:7 is your goal. > > We probably need a few more words or phrases to describe these new concepts. > >
Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Tue, 10 Sep 1996 18:28 +0200 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA10051; Tue, 10 Sep 1996 18:30:19 +0200 Received: from eartha.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA09967 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id JAA03775; Tue, 10 Sep 1996 09:30:17 -0700 Date: Tue, 10 Sep 1996 09:30:17 -0700 Message-Id: <199609101634.MAA30657@cerberus2.Ensoniq.Com> Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
I have delved up the contribution in Nature about the babies experiment: Marcel R. Zentner & Jerome Kagan: Perception of music by infants, Nature, vol. 383, 5 september 1996, p. 29. It is a letter to the editor. Firstly the newpaper report I mentioned made the mistake of mixing up "dissonant" with "out of tune" (vals). The experiment contains the playing of two different unfamiliar melodies of 35-second duration in a consonant and a dissonant version for a total of four trials to 32 infants. A computer program controlled a synthesizer. The dissonant version of the melody was composed in parallel minor seconds and the consonant version of parallel thirds. The babies were carefully monitored and showed more fixation to the consonant version. The conclusion was "Although less extreme forms of consonance/dissonance might be subject to cultural influence, we suggest that the human infant may possess a biological preparedness that makes consonance perceptually more attractive than dissonance." They wrote further that "it has been argued repeatedly that consonance judgements are acquired through exposure to the music of a particular culture", but that biological preparedness has never been demonstrated. I think only two intervals are not a broad basis to talk about consonance and dissonance in general so one might conclude from this experiment more cautiously that babies prefer parallel thirds over minor seconds.
Manuel Op de Coul coul@ezh.nl
Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Thu, 12 Sep 1996 22:59 +0200 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA28957; Thu, 12 Sep 1996 23:01:24 +0200 Received: from eartha.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA29190 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id OAA02038; Thu, 12 Sep 1996 14:01:23 -0700 Date: Thu, 12 Sep 1996 14:01:23 -0700 Message-Id: <960912165652.20202698@emuvax.emich.edu> Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu