cents and centsability

Since we're on a "roll" with the +/- cents notation issue, I have
another question...

Shouldn't the notation actually be "quartertone +/- <or= 25 cents"
notation?? What do we do about 1/8th tones otherwise??

Might this be expressed as "quartertone +/- <26 cents" notation??
since I seem to be running into a "symbol" problem sometimes in not
having "less than or equal..."

Is this cents or non-cents??
_________ ____ __ __ ___
Joseph Pehrson

--- In tuning@egroups.com, "Joseph Pehrson" <pehrson@p...> wrote:

http://www.egroups.com/message/tuning/12434

I had actually wrote a rather involved continuation of this thread,
and then my computer crashed... maybe it knows something I don't
know..

Anyway, the friendly debate with Johnny Reinhard centers upon the
"flexibility" of the notation. He phoned me yesterday about it, but I
find I can discuss such an issue better in print than on the
telephone...

Essentially, Johnny likes the "multiplicity" of using quarter-tones as
basic landmarks, but then being able to use WHATEVER cents value he
wants to afterward, whether it "duplicates" another pitch indication
from a closer quarter-tone landmark or not.

The idea is to be able to retain certain features of "total" music in
Johnny's view... ie. -31 for the 7/4 ratio and other features which he
feels are paramount...

Does this seem reasonable to other people??

My own initial contention is that it is better to have a system where
ONLY ONE pitch can possibly be indicated by ONE notation... i.e. the
"quartertone +/- <26" notation that Joe Monzo has been discussing...

It seems this specificity is preferable to the "emotional" tonal or
historic associations that might be preserved in the "flexible"
method...

Johnny cites, in his defense, the system of "enharmonics" in 12-tET
music... ie. A#/Gb whatever. However, personally, I feel the
enharmonics are DEFICIENCIES in the system... dynosaurs left over from
a period where each designation ACTUALLY MEANT a different pitch.

This fact, by the way, was NEVER taught in music schools... no matter
how long a person stayed in them...

Comments?? Is this just a matter of personality, or is there a clear
superiority of one method or another? This might be good to clear up
before we make a "definitive" post of this notation or kinds of
notation to Joe Monzo's dictionary.

By the way... it might be possible to include MORE THAN ONE
alternative in this vein in the dictionary... thereby accomodating
some of Johnny's concerns to a degree (??)

I'm hoping we can continue this discussion free of rancor, and in a
pleasant manner with civility and humor! This is not a war to be
won... just a little tuning definition!
________ ____ ___ __ __
Joseph Pehrson

--- In tuning@egroups.com, "Joseph Pehrson" <pehrson@p...> wrote:
> http://www.egroups.com/message/tuning/12516
>
> Essentially, Johnny likes the "multiplicity" of using
> quarter-tones as basic landmarks, but then being able to use
> WHATEVER cents value he wants to afterward, whether it
> "duplicates" another pitch indication from a closer
> quarter-tone landmark or not.
>
> The idea is to be able to retain certain features of "total"
> music in Johnny's view... ie. -31 for the 7/4 ratio and other
> features which he feels are paramount...
>
> Does this seem reasonable to other people??

Joe, I've just mailed to you Dan Stearns's copy of the Joe
Maneri & Scott Van Duyne book _Preliminary Studies in the
Virtual Pitch Continuum_, which could just as aptly be titled
'Ear Training in 72-EDO' or '-tET'. (Thanks for the long loan,
Dan!)

Along with it, I sent a very 'arachnophilic' package: the
program notes, score, and my sketches for _A Noiseless Patient
Spider_.

In comparing my sketches with the score, you'll see that the
important 'flinging' motive (associated with the spider's flinging
its thread out of its body and into space) is a series of
tetrads which start with a Pythagorean 'major 6th' and hold
the bottom note and top two intervals constant (32/27 and 9/8)
while the lowest interval keeps getting more and more narrow,
so that all three of the upper notes keep descending, until
ending on a Pythagorean 'dominant 7th, first inversion' chord.
(This is a precise description of its first appearance, anyway...
it gets varied a lot as the piece progresses...)

The motive passes thru a variety of 5-, 7-, and 11-limit tetrads
on the way. If I were to notate all of them *strictly* according
to 144-tET principles, sometimes all three upper notes would
have exactly the same accidentals, and sometimes two of them
would be the same but one would be different.

But as I noted above, the interval *structure* of the upper
three notes never changes. So I thought it would be better to
notate it so that the upper three notes *always* have the same
accidentals.

This is precisely the 'consistency' issue brought up by Paul
Erlich, and precisely why he prefers 72-tET over 144-tET.

My point in bringing this up on the List is just to show everyone
that even tho I've argued against both Paul and Johnny on this
issue, I fudge the precision of my own notation when I feel it's
appropriate, which brings me somewhat into agreement with both of
them, especially Johnny in this particular case, because I *did*
still retain the use of 144-tET (contra Paul) because of the very
small size of many of the melodic intervals in my piece.

72-tET, which I *do* prefer on general principles, just didn't
suffice in this case, because the gaps between degrees are
too big to adequately represent what I wrote.

So I do understand exactly the points being made by both Johnny
and Paul. But at the same time, in general, I do agree with
you (Joe P.) that notational efficiency is a good thing.

So, there's my stance: contradictory, inconclusive, ...
but it works for me, which I suppose is the 'bottom line'
on notation. You use what works.

-monz
http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/homepage.html