"stability" and "efficiency"

The recent threads regarding "propriety" made me realize once again
that both "stability" and "efficiency" are missing from Joe Monzo's
"Definitions of tuning terms"... I think fleshing these terms out
would help give the "propriety" definition some much needed additional
focus. Anyone care to take a crack at some suitably layman-like
definitions for these?

thanks in advance,
ds

--- In tuning@egroups.com, "D.Stearns" <STEARNS@C...> wrote:
> http://www.egroups.com/message/tuning/12572
>
> The recent threads regarding "propriety" made me realize once
> again that both "stability" and "efficiency" are missing from
> Joe Monzo's "Definitions of tuning terms"... I think fleshing
> these terms out would help give the "propriety" definition some
> much needed additional focus. Anyone care to take a crack at
> some suitably layman-like definitions for these?

Thanks for pointing out these omissions, Dan. I'm afraid I must
demur to Paul Erlich, Carl Lumma, John Chalmers, or whomever
else knows more about this stuff... these are weak points in
my mental tuning 'database'. :)

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

>The recent threads regarding "propriety" made me realize once again
>that both "stability" and "efficiency" are missing from Joe Monzo's
>"Definitions of tuning terms"... I think fleshing these terms out
>would help give the "propriety" definition some much needed additional
>focus. Anyone care to take a crack at some suitably layman-like
>definitions for these?

Manuel just posted an excellent definition of stability. Here's a stab
at efficiency...

If a listener hears random samples of a pitch set tuned to a given
scale, then the _Rothenberg efficiency_ of the scale is the time it
takes her, on average, to determine which scale position each pitch
represents.

...Stability measures how easy it is for a listener to determine which
interval class an interval belongs to. Efficiency measures how
_difficult_ it is for her to determine what scale position a pitch
represents -- IOW, how long it takes the listener with "perfect pitch"
to figure out what key the average melody is in.

-Carl