Re: JI and clangorous instruments

>Bill Alves wrote:
>
>>>>
>I myself have worked extensively with Javanese gender tuned to JI. For many
>things I prefer JI with the subtle but slightly bittersweet effect of some
>non-harmonic upper partials. It's a very different effect than playing on a
>gender which is (like most in Java) not tuned to JI, but no less beautiful
>than, say, JI with a synthesized timbre of all harmonics.

Darren Burgess wrote:

>Could you please elaborate on these ideas? I am in the process of
>restoring a 61 note 1961 bell instument that uses steel bars, solenoid
>strikers, and magnetic pickups to generate bell tones.

I would first of all like to clarify that I think it is often effective to
have a close relationship between timbre and tuning. I myself have done
experiments in this realm, often with striking effects. What I objected to
was the point of view (and I didn't mean to suggest that Sethares held this
opinion) that tuning MUST be mapped to timbre.

I think it is a complex issue, and I look forward to reading Sethares'
book. My experience is that musically successful tuning depends on a lot of
factors, which timbre can effect but ultimately aesthetics control. My
gender, like Daniel's, has a very prominent fundamental and several odd
harmonics. Because of the soft mallets and helmholtz resonators (which were
invented in Java long before Helmholtz), the fundamental and harmonics last
a long time, while most of the non-harmonic partials fade fairly quickly.
The timbres of Harrison's American Gamelan (Old Grandad), Kraig Grady's
Anaphorian metallophones, and those of Bill Sly and George Zellenz are
similar. They work very well with JI.

Now, if I had a timbre that was on the borderline of pitch definability,
like a bell with many prominent and long-lasting non-harmonic partials,
would JI still be a viable choice? I would say that it's possible,
depending on the musical context. I haven't tried this myself, but I have
heard the triangular "kenongs" of Harrison/Colvig and George Zellenz used
to great effect, likewise Colvig's oxygen tanks. Would another tuning,
possibly one based on the non-harmonic partials work? Again, it depends on
the music. I'm sure that great musical effects could be found either way.
In your own case, I think the ideal way to explore the possibilites would
be to sample your bell instrument and try it in different tunings in a
musical context.

In most music, the fundamental is not just any other partial -- it is the
pitch we hear. I think it has a special place in the perception of tuning
and consonance/dissonance.

Paul Erlich asked:

>Bill, have you used 7-limit or higher utonalities? With harmonic
>timbres, inharmonic ones, or both? What do you think of them?

I have experimented with some utonalities but I have never consistently
used them in a piece. For example, I thought about using an utonal tuning
system in one half of a piece I just did, but decided against it after
several experiments. For this particular section, I wanted a small semitone
above 1/1, and it would take a very high order utonality to achieve that. I
also decided that I wanted some intervallic parallelism and a 3:2 to
establish the initial tonality. At the same time I didn't otherwise want a
clear otonality. What I can up with was:

1/1 22/21 10/9 7/6 9/7 4/3 3/2 11/7 14/9 7/4 2/1

though some were used only briefly.

I did use noisy computer-generated timbres through a lot of the section
(though I can't say that any had clear non-harmonic partials), but
reinforced with sine waves at the important frequencies. I liked the
effect, though it was very different than an otonality (which was the next
section). The first section has a consonant, but definitely dark and
mysterious flavor that is missing in the firm, bright, otonal section
(where there are a few non-harmonic partials, but never prominent).

To get back to your specific suggestion, I will try it sometime.

Bill

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^ Bill Alves email: alves@hmc.edu ^
^ Harvey Mudd College URL: http://www2.hmc.edu/~alves/ ^
^ 301 E. Twelfth St. (909)607-4170 (office) ^
^ Claremont CA 91711 USA (909)607-7600 (fax) ^
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Message text written by Bill Alves

>Now, if I had a timbre that was on the borderline of pitch definability,
like a bell with many prominent and long-lasting non-harmonic partials,
would JI still be a viable choice? I would say that it's possible,
depending on the musical context. I haven't tried this myself, but I have
heard the triangular "kenongs" of Harrison/Colvig and George Zellenz used
to great effect, likewise Colvig's oxygen tanks.<

The Harrison/Colvig kenongs function extremely well, better in fact than
many of the other instruments in their gamelan, in simulating the Javanese
original although they are spectrally quite different. What they have done
is taken a few essentially qualities, namely the envelope and a clear,
long-ringing fundamental, and given them a spectra that was only broadly
similar to the model. It seems clear that a kenong needs inharmonic
partials, which presumably help in projecting the instrument distinctively
through the ensemble, but the acceptable tunings of those partials seem to
vary over a wide range.

In the middle of its two-octave range, my bonang (a Javanese gong-chime)
has gongs with a prominent overtone a bit wider than a fifth, much as
Sethares describes in his book. The lower you go, however, this interval
starts to widen to around a 7/4, and on the higher tones, this narrows to a
wide fourth. Again, the presence of this overtone is very important, but
the exact tuning is not, other than the fact that the interval between the
first two partials decreases in a smooth sequence over the range of the
instrument.

It's constantly amazing to me how little we know about how sounds cohere
and decohere and the powerful ways in which these qualities can be used to
'orchestrate' a set of pitches. I have been working recently on a series
of studies in Eikosanies. The first, intended as an homage to Skryabin,
uses the obstreperous set (1,5,7,9,11,13). To get acclimated, I first used
a set of twenty frequencies derived simply from multiplication by a
fundmental of 2 Hz, thus the tone (1*5*7) was set at 70 Hz, etc.. Then I
generated all 30 of the primary harmonic and subharmonic tetrads with sine
waves. It is amazing to hear how they progress from completely melded
composite sonorities to dissonant , albeit coherent chords with distinct
pitches. A sequence of these chords now forms the background for a
single-line faux-piano melody using tones from the complete stellate
Eikosany.