Bohlen-Pierce as "octatonic"???

I'm experimenting around with the Bohlen-Pierce scale, hoping to do
something with it.

You know, it has a vaguely "octatonic" sound to it when the pitches
are played "chromatically." Does that make any sense??

I guess most of the consecutive intervals are close to a step and a
quarter... Well, according to SCALA, the average is 146 cents...

Why would that have an "octatonic" effect on my brain?? What's going
on here? I'll have to say, that this development rather surprised
me...

Here is the scale I'm considering, in case anybody has anything to
say about it. Comments would be most welcome...

See Bohlen, H. 13-Tonstufen in der Duodezime, Acustica 39: 76-86
(1978)
0: 1/1 0.000 unison, perfect prime
1: 27/25 133.238 large limma, BP small semitone
2: 25/21 301.847 BP second, quasi-tempered minor third
3: 9/7 435.084 septimal major third, BP third
4: 7/5 582.512 septimal or Huygens' tritone, BP fourth
5: 75/49 736.931 BP fifth
6: 5/3 884.359 major sixth, BP sixth
7: 9/5 1017.596 just minor seventh, BP seventh
8: 49/25 1165.024 BP eighth
9: 15/7 1319.443 septimal minor ninth, BP ninth
10: 7/3 1466.871 minimal tenth, BP tenth
11: 63/25 1600.108 quasi-equal major tenth, BP eleventh
12: 25/9 1768.717 classic augmented eleventh, BP twelfth
13: 3/1 1901.955 perfect 12th

________ _____ ____ _
Joseph Pehrson

Not sure what your hearing Joe, but you could play a small large
pseudo or stretched octatonic in Bohlen-Pierce as,

0 146 439 585 878 1024 1317 1463 1756 1902

Or how about this 7-tone symmetrical stretching of a 6-tone augmented
scale,

0 146 585 732 1170 1317 1756 1902

Do either of these seem to mimic the feel/proportions of their
twelve-tone brethren to you?

--Dan Stearns

--- In tuning@egroups.com, "Joseph Pehrson" <josephpehrson@c...>
wrote:
> I'm experimenting around with the Bohlen-Pierce scale, hoping to do
> something with it.
>
> You know, it has a vaguely "octatonic" sound to it when the pitches
> are played "chromatically." Does that make any sense??
...
>
> Why would that have an "octatonic" effect on my brain?? What's
going
> on here? I'll have to say, that this development rather surprised
> me...

Why _wouldn't_ it sound octatonic? It has 8 steps in its approximate
octave (1165 cents).

Regards,
-- Dave Keenan

Joseph wrote,

>I'm experimenting around with the Bohlen-Pierce scale, hoping to do
>something with it.

>You know, it has a vaguely "octatonic" sound to it when the pitches
>are played "chromatically." Does that make any sense??

>I guess most of the consecutive intervals are close to a step and a
>quarter... Well, according to SCALA, the average is 146 cents...

>Why would that have an "octatonic" effect on my brain?? What's going
>on here? I'll have to say, that this development rather surprised
>me...

Joseph, isn't it totally obvious? Round each of the notes to the nearest 100
cents:

0.000 0
133.238 100
301.847 300
435.084 400
582.512 600
736.931 700
884.359 900
1017.596 1000
1165.024 1200

Voila, the octatonic scale! Is it any surprise that after decades of nothing
but 12-tET, your brain tends to quantize melodies into 12-tET?

--- In tuning@egroups.com, "Paul H. Erlich" <PERLICH@A...> wrote:

http://www.egroups.com/message/tuning/17282

>
> Joseph, isn't it totally obvious? Round each of the notes to the
nearest 100
> cents:
>
> 0.000 0
> 133.238 100
> 301.847 300
> 435.084 400
> 582.512 600
> 736.931 700
> 884.359 900
> 1017.596 1000
> 1165.024 1200
>
> Voila, the octatonic scale! Is it any surprise that after decades
of nothing but 12-tET, your brain tends to quantize melodies into
12-tET?

This is absolutely obvious, now that you've shown it to me! Of
course! Thanks for the help. Now to get my mind out of that
traditional "groove..."
________ _____ ____ __
Joseph Pehrson

>This is absolutely obvious, now that you've shown it to me! Of
>course! Thanks for the help. Now to get my mind out of that
>traditional "groove..."

It should be possible, with constant and exclusive exposure to a particular
alternate scale for a couple of weeks, to get your brain to quantize to
something other than 12-tET. HOWEVER, the BP scale goes one step further and
says that you have to stop hearing near-octaves as equivalent pitches -- you
now are supposed to hear _twelfths_ (i.e., a 3:1 ratio) as equivalent
pitches. Weird? You bet. It's been suggested that square wave be used since
they have no octaves in their overtones. Try listening to square waves in BP
for a year and see if you can get octave-equivalence to give way to
twelfth-equivalence. I bet you can't.

BUT -- great music can be made in BP anyway -- check out Charles
Carpentier's music especially.

--- In tuning@egroups.com, "Paul H. Erlich" <PERLICH@A...> wrote:

http://www.egroups.com/message/tuning/17286

>
> It should be possible, with constant and exclusive exposure to a
particular alternate scale for a couple of weeks, to get your brain
to quantize to something other than 12-tET.

Actually, I think already in the context of composing with it, I am
escaping the "mold..."

In fact, the funny part was that the octatonic thing didn't strike me
right away! I had been messing around with the scale and wasn't
thinking of that at all...

Then SUDDENLY, it "clicked" that way... kind of like one of those
strange visual images where something is hidden inside, and we
suddenly see it... whether we want to or not!

That's why it seemed suddenly so surprising! However, I think it
WILL be possible to go back to my "first impression" which didn't
contain that association!

>HOWEVER, the BP scale goes one step further and
> says that you have to stop hearing near-octaves as equivalent
pitches -- you now are supposed to hear _twelfths_ (i.e., a 3:1
ratio) as equivalent pitches. Weird? You bet. It's been suggested that
square wave be used since they have no octaves in their overtones.
Try listening to square waves in BP for a year and see if you can get
octave-equivalence to give way to twelfth-equivalence. I bet you
can't.
>

It certainly does seem a stretch... I would greatly doubt it as
well...

> BUT -- great music can be made in BP anyway -- check out Charles
> Carpentier's music especially.

Thanks... where do I find this?? Maybe I'll check the BP site first...

Thanks again!
_______ _____ ____
Joseph Pehrson