music: "Vocation of the Cracking Embers of Dawn Sight", in 10th root of fifth

http://www.nonoctave.com/tunes/VocationOfTheCracklingEmbers.mp3

A primitive polyphonic double reed instrument plays plaintively,
contemplatively. It is tuned to the 10th root of fifth, which is a nonoctave
tuning. Embellistments on a cymbal set accompanies the soloist.

It is a fire from the night before, the embers crackling as a new day
arrives. The white whisps of smoke mix with the dampness of the early
morning fog. The deep orange and black embers contrast with the orange of
the sun below the horizon, rising, and the black of the sea beneath it.

Comments welcome.

- xj

Hi Jeff,

Sorry, just a quick jot...

This is really gorgeous. I hope you'll forgive me comparing it to Rahsaan Roland Kirk in the throes of a deep depression...or RRK under the influence of Wayne Shorter?

In any case, I never heard Rahsaan sound less than joyful or ebullient even on the grimmest of days.

Thanks!

More, please! :-)

"X. J. Scott" <xjscott@...> wrote:

http://www.nonoctave.com/tunes/VocationOfTheCracklingEmbers.mp3

A primitive polyphonic double reed instrument plays plaintively,
contemplatively. It is tuned to the 10th root of fifth, which is a nonoctave
tuning. Embellistments on a cymbal set accompanies the soloist.

It is a fire from the night before, the embers crackling as a new day
arrives. The white whisps of smoke mix with the dampness of the early
morning fog. The deep orange and black embers contrast with the orange of
the sun below the horizon, rising, and the black of the sea beneath it.

Comments welcome.

- xj

Yahoo! Groups Links

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

That was beautiful. Ends a bit abruptly, but it's hard to avoid that
in a non-octave scale... I would have liked it to go on longer. Good
work.

--- In crazy_music@yahoogroups.com, "X. J. Scott" <xjscott@e...> wrote:
>
> http://www.nonoctave.com/tunes/VocationOfTheCracklingEmbers.mp3
>
> A primitive polyphonic double reed instrument plays plaintively,
> contemplatively. It is tuned to the 10th root of fifth, which is a
nonoctave
> tuning. Embellistments on a cymbal set accompanies the soloist.
>
> It is a fire from the night before, the embers crackling as a new day
> arrives. The white whisps of smoke mix with the dampness of the early
> morning fog. The deep orange and black embers contrast with the
orange of
> the sun below the horizon, rising, and the black of the sea beneath it.
>
> Comments welcome.
>
> - xj

Sorry for my delay in responding. I've been working on various things and
putting it off until I had something more to share.

(re: crackling embers)

> [Pete] This is really gorgeous. ... More, please! :-)

Hi Pete and Paul,

Thanks; I'm glad you liked it. A lot of people have liked this one and it's
even being used during the morning news on an LA radio station. Wow.

> [dc yelps] I like it very much.

Hi Yelps: Thanks! And thanks for posting links to your own music.

> Windows Media Sound file requires Windows Media player 9 or above and
> Broadband connection

Unfortunately, I am not able to play wma files as I have neither Windows nor
broadband - still poking along here, lucky to get a 14,400 baud connection
with all the phone line noise. I can do mp3s though and some oggs
(apparently not all though).

> [Paul] That was beautiful.
> ... Here's a link to the title track from my CD, which I just finished.

Thanks Paul! That's a nice and interesting track. 5tET is such an extreme
case and yet it is surprisingly workable, which is amazing.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Here's another work that is in the same general direction: a bit slower and
more contemplative than much of the energetic, frentic work of the last
album.

I hoped to write more prose about this one and the details of what is
happening, but for now I'll just have a few notes.

"Saturn Rising in the Early Morning on Titan"

http://www.nonoctave.com/tunes/SaturnRisingOnTitan.mp3

Saturn Rising is composed in my own Celestial Interference, a tuning based
on the 14th root of 12:7.

I've done many pieces is this tuning and I am realizing that it has a very
special character that unifies all the pieces composed with it. It is
earthy, gurgling, primal, tribal, icey, organically alien. This new piece is
powerful and crystallizes the nature of this tuning.

As you probably all know, the Huygens probe successfully landed on Titan on
January 14th - the first landing on any alien moon with an atmosphere. It
was named after Christiaan Huygens, who, more than three centuries ago, was
the first to propose that light was a wave. He also discovered Saturn's moon
Titan, and as a microtonalist, discovered and advocated 31 tone equal
temperament for use as a meantone tuning based on a 2^18:31 generator.

Comments are welcome and appreciated.

- Jeff

--- In crazy_music@yahoogroups.com, "X. J. Scott" <xjscott@e...>
wrote:
>
> Sorry for my delay in responding.

Hi Jeff,

Same here, as in delay. That is, I still haven't had time to really
listen to your latest...

But, I just put a "new" thing up, myself, that I'm calling Windhoek,
WV. I wanted to do it for Black History Month, but life intruded,
so it's done now, in a first sketch.

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/5/petemcraymusic.htm

It's a kind of Leo Kottke/Ry Cooder thing on my Eikosany guitar,
fretted in Erv Wilson's Pascal tuning.

www.anaphoria.com/dal.PDF

I just decided to run with the idea of playing an "Americana" sort
of thing in JI, basically 1/1 8/7 9/7 3/2 12/7 2/1 with a 4/3 chord
and a couple of 'chromatics' thrown in. I hope it has some interest
as a tweak of the "tradition".

Back soon, thanks!

Pete

on 3/21/05 10:40 AM, ambassadorbob wrote:

> But, I just put a "new" thing up, myself, that I'm calling Windhoek,
> WV. I wanted to do it for Black History Month, but life intruded,
> so it's done now, in a first sketch.
>
> http://www.soundclick.com/bands/5/petemcraymusic.htm
>
> It's a kind of Leo Kottke/Ry Cooder thing on my Eikosany guitar,
> fretted in Erv Wilson's Pascal tuning.

Dang Pete, you need to be publishing music more often. I had no idea! You
the man.

This is *the* most capably executed, both in technique and in expression,
microtonal acoustic guitar composition I have ever heard. It's also a great
Americana style folk song.

Unlike many microtonal works out there, you can take this one out on the
stage anywhere and play it and people will be cheering. Hats off and three
cheers for Pete.

Talk to me about the fretting. It's a JI style broken fret fretting? Do you
have a photo of the fretboard anywhere, or a chart of fret lengths? If you
don't have this up somewhere already and want to send me a photo and a set
of lengths, I'll put a web page up for you documenting what you've done for
all to see since it's remarkable and this sort of work needs to be
advertised to the world.

- Jeff

Wow, that's really unexpected high praise. Thank you.

I'm in the midst of a bunch of things (and I'm still a bit in shock :-), but I will follow up on this as soon as I can.

More soon,

Pete

"X. J. Scott" <xjscott@...> wrote:

Dang Pete, you need to be publishing music more often. I had no idea! You
the man.

This is *the* most capably executed, both in technique and in expression,
microtonal acoustic guitar composition I have ever heard. It's also a great
Americana style folk song.

Unlike many microtonal works out there, you can take this one out on the
stage anywhere and play it and people will be cheering. Hats off and three
cheers for Pete.

Talk to me about the fretting. It's a JI style broken fret fretting? Do you
have a photo of the fretboard anywhere, or a chart of fret lengths? If you
don't have this up somewhere already and want to send me a photo and a set
of lengths, I'll put a web page up for you documenting what you've done for
all to see since it's remarkable and this sort of work needs to be
advertised to the world.

- Jeff

Yahoo! Groups Links

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]