RE: [tuning] Re: rothenberg and fifths

Jason Yust wrote,

>if both the acoustical and Rothenberg-derived
>considerations are relevant to differing degrees depending on the musical
>situation, then where inharmonic timbres with short decays are used, the
>Rothenberg-derived considerations will dominate and there will be no
>particular tuning which is heard as pure.

(a) As far as I know, Rothenberg does not give scales with a single
generator any special status.
(b) Even if he did, you still might expect to find scales that are
approximately based on the Phibonacci generator or the Lucas generator in
cultures using inharmonic timbres, but you don't. Even the wooden xylophones
of Africa approach 5-tET and 7-tET.

Carl wrote,

>>Perhaps the range of a "fifth" is better than most here, but many other
>generators do produce proper scales with reasonable number of tones. And
>>the fact that the fifth has been a historically popular generator isn't
>>really explained its utility here, since a given culture usually uses only
>>a single scale. Western music is overwhelmingly diatonic, for example.
>>Why not use one of the proper MOSs of the minor third? And, as you
pointed
>>out, Rothenberg's model does not imply that improper scales are "bad".

Jason wrote,

>Not "bad" but definitely "bad for a fugue." I'm not undertanding your
>point on how the fact that a given culture sticks to a single scale applies
>here. If certain scales work better than others given certain other
>stylistic traits of the music, then certainly a stylistically coherent
>music will often use only one scale, if it significantly better than others
>in some respects. You're definitely correct, however, that the
>characteristics I'm looking at are too weak to explain the use of the 5th
>as a generator.

Perhaps what Carl means is, if the music overwhelmingly uses just 7 notes in
the chain, what relevance could the properties of the chain, when extended
out to 50 or 81 notes, possibly have to the music?