Re: My Chime Ratios [TD691.2]

Hi Bekah,

On Mon, 26 Jun 2000 09:57:41 -0400 [TD691.2],
Rebecca Robb <beckah@childsgarden.com> wrote:
>Someone asked what ratios I had for my Woodstock Chimes. I bought this
>ten pipe set used, and all the labels were worn off.
>
>I used info from this list, plus what labels remained, and a little guess
>work to arrive at the following.
>
>From largest to smallest size:
>3/2 8/5 5/3 16/9 1/1 9/8 6/5 5/4 4/3 3/2
>
>Would someone, who has experience with these chimes, like to verify the
>accuracy of these numbers?

Okay, my reply is partially based on information at the following websites:

http://www.grandrapids.com/x/WoodstockChimes/9y.htm
http://www.egroups.com/message/tuning/9609
http://nowitzky.hypermart.net/justint/nnn.htm

The notes are (from largest to smallest size, so from lowest to highest
pitch):

3/2 D
8/5 Eb
5/3 E
16/9 F
1/1 G
9/8 A
6/5 Bb
5/4 B
4/3 C
3/2 D

From your set of 10 tubes you could create these sets of 6 tubes each (as
Lydia stated at http://www.egroups.com/message/tuning/9609):

Olympus: D Eb G A Bb D
Partch: D E G A B D
Lun: D F G A C D

Each 6-tube set alone produces a pentatonic scale. The following
combinations (from "favorite combinations" suggested at
http://www.grandrapids.com/x/WoodstockChimes/9y.htm) produce diatonic scales:

Olympus + Lun: D Eb F G A Bb C D (G Æolian)
Partch + Lun: D E F G A B C D (G Mixolydian)

Maybe it's the combination of Olympus with Partch that sounds odd to you.
Or maybe it's just too many notes to combine all three sets. Maybe it's
too windy outside. :)

It might (or might not) help to visualize the tunings in two dimensions.
In the following diagrams,
- Perfect Fifth intervals are horizontal
- Major Third intervals are vertical
- Nowitzkian Note Names (http://nowitzky.hypermart.net/justint/nnn.htm) are
used

All 9 notes (not 10 notes, 'cuz 2 tubes produce 5C):
4E 4B
5F 5C 5G 5D 5A
6Eb 6Bb

Olympus:
. .
. . 5G 5D 5A
6Eb 6Bb

Partch:
4E 4B
. . 5G 5D 5A
. .

Lun:
. .
5F 5C 5G 5D 5A
. .

I hope that's more than you wanted to know...

--Mark Nowitzky
nowitzky@alum.mit.edu, AKA tuning-owner@egroups.com

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Hi, Bekah,

Mark Nowitzky's discussion in his previous email is a good description of the

10 tubes of the Woodstock chimes set.

I started my Woodstock gamelan with one of the 10-chime sets. I spoke to the
people from Woodstock Percussion when I bought it (they were a smaller
company then, and it was at a crafts fair). The 10-chime set came on a
holder which held 6 chimes at a time, and they were intended to be in the
same 6-tone sets as the windchimes they produce in their factory (they
only had three pentatonic scales way back then). The lowest and highest
tones were 3/2 (their more current literature shows it as 1/1 in the key of
D, instead of 3/2 in the key of G). All three pentatonic scales used
3/2, 1/1, 9/8 and 3/2 (D, G, A, D). The other pairs of tones were swapped
around on the modular holder.

I got another holder so I could have all the tones available all the time.
Then I had 2 more empty spaces in the second holder, so I asked them to
make some custom tubes to fill those spaces, and the Woodstock gamelan
kept growing from there.

Anyway, I hope that explains why they have such precision just intonation,
but some of the relactionships can be unexpected when you combine the
3 pentatonic scales together -- they didn't design it to be a 10-tone
set.

Best,

Lydia Ayers

HI, thanks Lydia,
for the history on the Woodstock chimes and gamelan.
My chime set sounds just like the one you originally bought at that crafts fair.
I found this used set a few months ago at a Luthier's shop. He was the original
owner, and told me he bought them when they first came out. [BTW, this fellow
and his wife are very creative/inventive Luthiers who I would be happy to introduce to anyone
that is interested in his craft.]

I really appreciate the suggestions for ordering from you all.

Happy I am
Bekah
PS. Sorry about the double-post, subject: ThankYou/Bio. Was trying to post
through the on-line webpage and the computer seemed to get confused.

Lydia Ayers wrote:
>Hi, Bekah,
>
>Mark Nowitzky's discussion in his previous email is a good description of the
>
>10 tubes of the Woodstock chimes set.
>
>I started my Woodstock gamelan with one of the 10-chime sets. I spoke to the
>people from Woodstock Percussion when I bought it (they were a smaller
>company then, and it was at a crafts fair). ...