Yves Hellegouarch

I've been reading through the papers related to
Hellegouarch. This recently unrestricted download
summarizes his work in English:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/17459737.2010.496582

The important thing, from our point of view, is that the
work was originally published in 1982-3. So I have to take
back the suggestion that he should have given a citation to
Karp or me because he was first.

To start with, he works with Pythagorean scales. There's
some fairly uninteresting calculations to do with finding
MOS scales generated by pure fifths, related to continued
fractions. But then he goes on to look at 5-limit scales.
He tempers out two commas (he calls them "commas") written
as octave-specific ratio space vectors and finds the
resulting equal temperament mapping or val. He doesn't
talk about equal temperaments or write the val out, but he
knows all the group theory to say what he's doing. If
this is in the 1982 paper, as it probably is because it's
intrinsic to the whole process, it's the first published
mentions of vals. One year ahead of Gene's unpublished
paper.

Then, he finds ratios that map to a given number of scale
steps according to the val, and takes the simplest possible
one in each case. That gives the 5-limit JI equivalent of
a hobbit. A periodicity block (without citations for
Fokker or Tanaka) but not a Fokker block.

And that's about it. He doesn't seem to have gone on to
independently discover the regular mapping paradigm. I
found an English paper, "A Mathematical Interpretation of
Expressive Intonation", that says conventional notation
depends on 81:80 being in the kernel, but doesn't take it
any further. Still, he deserves a mention in any review of
regular mapping ideas.

Graham

Wow, great work Graham! -Carl

At 03:50 AM 10/19/2011, you wrote:
>I've been reading through the papers related to
>Hellegouarch. This recently unrestricted download
>summarizes his work in English:
>
> http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/17459737.2010.496582
>
>The important thing, from our point of view, is that the
>work was originally published in 1982-3. So I have to take
>back the suggestion that he should have given a citation to
>Karp or me because he was first.
>
>To start with, he works with Pythagorean scales. There's
>some fairly uninteresting calculations to do with finding
>MOS scales generated by pure fifths, related to continued
>fractions. But then he goes on to look at 5-limit scales.
>He tempers out two commas (he calls them "commas") written
>as octave-specific ratio space vectors and finds the
>resulting equal temperament mapping or val. He doesn't
>talk about equal temperaments or write the val out, but he
>knows all the group theory to say what he's doing. If
>this is in the 1982 paper, as it probably is because it's
>intrinsic to the whole process, it's the first published
>mentions of vals. One year ahead of Gene's unpublished
>paper.
>
>Then, he finds ratios that map to a given number of scale
>steps according to the val, and takes the simplest possible
>one in each case. That gives the 5-limit JI equivalent of
>a hobbit. A periodicity block (without citations for
>Fokker or Tanaka) but not a Fokker block.
>
>And that's about it. He doesn't seem to have gone on to
>independently discover the regular mapping paradigm. I
>found an English paper, "A Mathematical Interpretation of
>Expressive Intonation", that says conventional notation
>depends on 81:80 being in the kernel, but doesn't take it
>any further. Still, he deserves a mention in any review of
>regular mapping ideas.
>
>
> Graham
>
>
>------------------------------------
>
>Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>

Wait, the only Hellegouarch paper they cite is from 1999. (?)

-Carl

At 03:50 AM 10/19/2011, you wrote:
>I've been reading through the papers related to
>Hellegouarch. This recently unrestricted download
>summarizes his work in English:
>
> http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/17459737.2010.496582
>
>The important thing, from our point of view, is that the
>work was originally published in 1982-3. So I have to take
>back the suggestion that he should have given a citation to
>Karp or me because he was first.
>
>To start with, he works with Pythagorean scales. There's
>some fairly uninteresting calculations to do with finding
>MOS scales generated by pure fifths, related to continued
>fractions. But then he goes on to look at 5-limit scales.
>He tempers out two commas (he calls them "commas") written
>as octave-specific ratio space vectors and finds the
>resulting equal temperament mapping or val. He doesn't
>talk about equal temperaments or write the val out, but he
>knows all the group theory to say what he's doing. If
>this is in the 1982 paper, as it probably is because it's
>intrinsic to the whole process, it's the first published
>mentions of vals. One year ahead of Gene's unpublished
>paper.
>
>Then, he finds ratios that map to a given number of scale
>steps according to the val, and takes the simplest possible
>one in each case. That gives the 5-limit JI equivalent of
>a hobbit. A periodicity block (without citations for
>Fokker or Tanaka) but not a Fokker block.
>
>And that's about it. He doesn't seem to have gone on to
>independently discover the regular mapping paradigm. I
>found an English paper, "A Mathematical Interpretation of
>Expressive Intonation", that says conventional notation
>depends on 81:80 being in the kernel, but doesn't take it
>any further. Still, he deserves a mention in any review of
>regular mapping ideas.
>
>
> Graham
>

Carl Lumma <carl@lumma.org> wrote:
> Wait, the only Hellegouarch paper they cite is from 1999.
> (?)

Yes, but that reference points to another. It's a
Hellegouarch article in a book with another primary author,
and so that author's listed in the citation. It checks out
with Google Scholar. If you find the 1999 paper (follow
Google), and you can read the French, you'll see that also
says it's reworked from a preliminary draft. Except he
points to a 1982 paper. But there are other self-citations
so he must have been busy early Eighties and taken a break
for some reason.

Graham

Graham wrote:

>Yes, but that reference points to another. It's a
>Hellegouarch article in a book with another primary author,
>and so that author's listed in the citation. It checks out
>with Google Scholar. If you find the 1999 paper (follow
>Google), and you can read the French, you'll see that also
>says it's reworked from a preliminary draft. Except he
>points to a 1982 paper. But there are other self-citations
>so he must have been busy early Eighties and taken a break
>for some reason.

Have you read the 1982 paper?

-Carl

Carl Lumma <carl@lumma.org> wrote:
> Graham wrote:
>
> >Yes, but that reference points to another. It's a
> >Hellegouarch article in a book with another primary
> >author, and so that author's listed in the citation. It
> >checks out with Google Scholar. If you find the 1999
> >paper (follow Google), and you can read the French,
> >you'll see that also says it's reworked from a
> >preliminary draft. Except he points to a 1982 paper.
> >But there are other self-citations so he must have been
> >busy early Eighties and taken a break for some reason.
>
> Have you read the 1982 paper?

No. All I found are the two parts of the 1999 one. I
don't think any of the 80s papers are online. They
presumably aren't interesting from his point of view to
scan or transcribe. It's only interesting to us to see how
far he got at what date.

What does he say, then?

"Le texte qui suit est une version révisée d’une tentative
déjà assez ancienne [15] de construction d’un modèle
destiné à rapprocher la « musique théorique » de la «
musique pratique » (comme aurait dit Euler [12]) tout en
préservant la structure de groupe qui fait le succès
populaire des échelles tempérées (Z doit agir sur les
gammes abstraites)."

I make that "The text that follows is a revised version of
a tentative, already old, construction of a model aiming to
reconcile music theory to music practice (as Euler said)
that preserves the group stucture that leads to the popular
success of tempered scales (Z [something] on abstract
gamuts)."

I'll be disappointed if the old model doesn't have the group
structure.

Graham

Graham wrote:

>> Have you read the 1982 paper?
>
>No. All I found are the two parts of the 1999 one. I
>don't think any of the 80s papers are online.

How... convenient. ;-)

>What does he say, then?
>
>"Le texte qui suit est une version révisée d’une tentative
>déjà assez ancienne [15] de construction d’un modèle
>destiné à rapprocher la « musique théorique » de la ½AB
>musique pratique » (comme aurait dit Euler [12]) tout en
>préservant la structure de groupe qui fait le succès
>populaire des échelles tempérées (Z doit agir sur les
>gammes abstraites)."
>
>I make that "The text that follows is a revised version of
>a tentative, already old, construction of a model aiming to
>reconcile music theory to music practice (as Euler said)
>that preserves the group stucture that leads to the popular
>success of tempered scales (Z [something] on abstract
>gamuts)."

Google offers

The following is a revised version of an attempt already quite
old [15] to construct a model to reconcile the "music theory"
of 1/2AB music practice "(looked like Euler [12]) while
maintaining the group structure that makes the popular success
of temperate scales (Z to act on abstract lines).

-Carl