Re: [tuning] 13 tones equal tempered

Alita Morrison wrote,

> Will someone suggest what notes to combine together to make chords
or at least two notes together to play harmonies? I have used the
scale of 2212231. I never found very nice chords or two notes
together to play harmonically with my scale.

Starting from a position of looking for "nice chords" in 13 equal is
probably going to lead to frustration for most anyone... I generally
use these scales from a melodic standpoint first, and let the
'harmonies' take care of themselves; see "With Eyes So Blue And
Dreaming" for an example of this:

<http://stations.mp3s.com/stations/55/117_west_great_western.html>

Though others may not, I guess I personally have a very high tolerance
for the resultant 'incidental harmonies' that arise from going about
things in this way, and in fact, one of my very favorite things about
using equal tunings *is* the various distortions of consonances that
can arise, as they can also give the familiar new and striking
emotional nuances, and thereby (to my mind anyway) new compositional
potentials.

> My microtonal instrument is a "steel guitar" of a homemade type.

Neat. Do you mean like a lap steel, or maybe like a pedal steel with
no pedals, or something else?

> Does anyone have some suggestion on what tones go together with 13
tet?

I'll put together a post sometime later on this weekend with some
(chordal and incidental harmonic) excerpts from some of the pieces
I've done in 13 equal... perhaps some others have some suggestions as
well.

Dan

"D.Stearns" wrote:
>
> Alita Morrison wrote,

> > My microtonal instrument is a "steel guitar" of a homemade type.
>
> Neat. Do you mean like a lap steel, or maybe like a pedal steel with
> no pedals, or something else?

And how many strings does it have?

--
* D a v i d B e a r d s l e y
* xouoxno@virtulink.com
*
* 49/32 R a d i o "all microtonal, all the time"
* M E L A v i r t u a l d r e a m house monitor
*
* http://www.virtulink.com/immp/lookhere.htm

> Does anyone have some suggestion on what tones go together with 13 tet?
Alita Morrison

I like to think of it as every other note of 26-tET, which is consistent
though the 13-limit and also a meantone (4/9-comma). In 13-tET, you can't
get 26-tET's approximations of the 3rd harmonic or the 7th harmonic, but you
can get a full 4:5:9:11:13 chord, as well as (obviously) subsets and
subharmonic versions. The intervals in this chord are approximated about as
well as the intervals in 4:5:6 are approximated by 12-tET.

The 4:5:9:11:13 chord is 0 4 15 19 22 in 13-tET. Try it!