Re: [tuning] Re: "Enharmonic" explanation

>> This multiplicity lasted for some time, held over into meantone,
> where there STILL was a difference, even on some keyboards, between
> G# and Ab (although by that time, the G# became HIGHER than Ab,
> different from the Pythagorean... due to compression of the fifths
in quarter-comma meantone, for example).

>Sorry, Andy, I meant in meantone the G# became LOWER from the Ab. I

Hmm. There's something fishy going on here. I got the correction in the in
box but not the original message that was corrected. I wonder how many
other posts I've missed.

I think Margo's post covered it anyway. Thanks all.

BTW how cool is it that there are pre-12et historians on this list? I feel
like 12et in the whole flow of time is an ice-age and folks here have a foot
in pre-historic water.

Andy

--- In tuning@egroups.com, AMiltonF@a... wrote:

http://www.egroups.com/message/tuning/17352

> BTW how cool is it that there are pre-12et historians on this list?
I feel like 12et in the whole flow of time is an ice-age and folks
here have a foot in pre-historic water.
>
> Andy

Hi Andy...

Well, it doesn't really go back quite that far... In fact, as Paul
Erlich and Daniel Wolf are frequently reminding us, the age of strict
12-tET hasn't really been all that long at all! I guess maybe a
little over 100 years at best!

Regarding the past posts... you should check the on-line Web archive.
Occasionally messages and digests get lost. I don't know what
happens to them. Neither does anybody else.

Here is the archive:

http://www.egroups.com/messages/tuning

________ _____ ___ _
Joseph Pehrson

Joseph Pehrson wrote,

>the age of strict
>12-tET hasn't really been all that long at all! I guess maybe a
>little over 100 years at best!

I would say 150 years, even though Joe Monzo's glossary page for ET puts
1900 as the starting date. 1850 is a much more meaningful starting date, as
it is the decade when, for example, the last major English organs were
converted from meantone.

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

http://www.egroups.com/message/tuning/17386

> Joseph Pehrson wrote,
>
> >the age of strict
> >12-tET hasn't really been all that long at all! I guess maybe a
> >little over 100 years at best!
>
> I would say 150 years, even though Joe Monzo's glossary page for ET
puts 1900 as the starting date. 1850 is a much more meaningful
starting date, as it is the decade when, for example, the last major
English organs were converted from meantone.

Thanks, Paul, for the clarification! Well, that might "ingrain" it a
little more but still, in the history of musical time, it is still an
"augenblick" as you have mentioned yourself....

_______ _____ ___
Joseph Pehrosn

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

http://www.egroups.com/message/tuning/17386

> Joseph Pehrson wrote,
>
> > the age of strict 12-tET hasn't really been all that long
> > at all! I guess maybe a little over 100 years at best!
>
> I would say 150 years, even though Joe Monzo's glossary page
> for ET puts 1900 as the starting date. 1850 is a much more
> meaningful starting date, as it is the decade when, for example,
> the last major English organs were converted from meantone.

Joe, I'd modify your statement to "a little over 100 years
at *least*. Paul is right about English organ tuning, and
the English were the last in Europe to abandone meantone
for 12-tET.

I tend to feel that 1900 is more meaningful as the date of
complete domination of 12-tET because it was around that time
that composers started using the 12 chromatic notes as an
entity in itself, in ways that did not imply chromatic or
JI harmonic relationships. So my interpretation is based
also partly on compositional technique and style and not on
instrumental tuning practice alone.

c. 1850 is useful as the date of the complete acceptance of
12-tET as a tuning on fixed-pitch instruments as well as
a standard for non-fixed-pitch instruments (i.e., as far as
I know anyway, 12-tET was the standard against which all
the woodwind holes were drilled starting around c. 1830).

c. 1900 is useful as the date of the complete acceptance
of 12-tET as a compositional entity. I'd say that since
then, except in explicity microtonal circles, 12-tET has
been able to enjoy total domination in musical training.

As a rule of thumb during most of the 20th century, the
less trained the musician, the more microtonal the performance.

-monz

Monz wrote,

>I tend to feel that 1900 is more meaningful as the date of
>complete domination of 12-tET because it was around that time
>that composers started using the 12 chromatic notes as an
>entity in itself, in ways that did not imply chromatic or
>JI harmonic relationships.

Well, the other ETs in your list don't seem to have that requirement
attached.

And Chopin used atonal passages in his music.

>c. 1900 is useful as the date of the complete acceptance
>of 12-tET as a compositional entity.

Again, Chopin certainly qualifies.

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

> Monz wrote,
>
> > I tend to feel that 1900 is more meaningful as the date of
> > complete domination of 12-tET because it was around that time
> > that composers started using the 12 chromatic notes as an
> > entity in itself, in ways that did not imply chromatic or
> > JI harmonic relationships.
>
> Well, the other ETs in your list don't seem to have that requirement
> attached.

That's true. The dates I list in my table are citations to
the first advocation of a tuning in print. And note that
the date I give for 12-tET is quite long ago.

>
> And Chopin used atonal passages in his music.
>
> > c. 1900 is useful as the date of the complete acceptance
> > of 12-tET as a compositional entity.
>
> Again, Chopin certainly qualifies.

Yes, Paul... I'm not disagreeing about this. One point I was
making in my last post was that there is a range of time during
which 12-tET became accepted.

Certainly Chopin used all 12 notes in ways that make the most
sense when tuned as 12-tET. I'd say that Beethoven was really
the first composer to exploit the unique possibilities of
12-tET in a serious way. His use of surprise modulations, etc.,
could not have been done in meantone or well-temperament, which
are what I assume he grew up with. I think Beethoven's pieces
are both a reflection of and a stimulus for the further
acceptance of 12-tET as a standard tuning. So this is around
1800-1825.

The entire 19th century was thus a time when 12-tET slowly
gained acceptance. I would argue that as late as the 1880s
and 1890s composers of even very experimental music (say,
Mahler) were still regularly using harmonies that were based
on JI or meantone theory. It wasn't until the turn of the
last century that free use of the chromatic scale really came
into its own as a compositional resource.

-monz
http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/homepage.html
'All roads lead to n^0'

Monz wrote,

>Certainly Chopin used all 12 notes in ways that make the most
>sense when tuned as 12-tET. I'd say that Beethoven was really
>the first composer to exploit the unique possibilities of
>12-tET in a serious way. His use of surprise modulations, etc.,
>could not have been done in meantone or well-temperament, which
>are what I assume he grew up with. I think Beethoven's pieces
>are both a reflection of and a stimulus for the further
>acceptance of 12-tET as a standard tuning. So this is around
>1800-1825.

I'd completely disagree. Any well-temperament worth its salt would handle
Beethoven perfectly well, as Ed Foote's CD helps demonstrate.

>The entire 19th century was thus a time when 12-tET slowly
>gained acceptance. I would argue that as late as the 1880s
>and 1890s composers of even very experimental music (say,
>Mahler) were still regularly using harmonies that were based
>on JI or meantone theory.

Yes, but:

>It wasn't until the turn of the
>last century that free use of the chromatic scale really came
>into its own as a compositional resource.

From a tuning standpoint, what really characterizes an ET in an immediately
audible way is the melodic smoothness of the chromatic scale, and this is
where I would say Chopin's music may have been the first to exploit this
feature as a compositional resource. I'm hard pressed to think of any 20th
century compositional technique that necessitates ET more directly and
convincingly than this.

Paul wrote:
> I'd completely disagree. Any well-temperament worth its salt
> would handle
> Beethoven perfectly well, as Ed Foote's CD helps demonstrate.
<snip>
> From a tuning standpoint, what really characterizes an ET in
> an immediately
> audible way is the melodic smoothness of the chromatic scale,
> and this is
> where I would say Chopin's music may have been the first to
> exploit this
> feature as a compositional resource. I'm hard pressed to

I can't claim to know much about the develoment of ET, but I do know a bit
about Beethoven. I also haven't heard Ed Foote's CD, and I'd be curious to
know what works appear on it, but short of that, I'd have to agree more with
Monz on the subject of Beethoven and ET.
Two characterstic Beethoven figures lend themselves to ET, in my opinion:
The first would be long, fast chromatic runs, almost like slow glisses. As
Paul pointed out, these would sound smoother on an ET keyboard. A good
example of a long, fast, descending chromatic run in Beethoven would be near
the end of his very famous, untitled sonatina commonly referred to as "Fur
Elise."
The second characteristic figure that would lend itself to equal temperment
in my mind would be Beethoven's use of parallel thirds, as in his "Turkish
March." I can't really see (or hear) parallel thirds in a subject working
well when restated after a modulation on a non-ET keyboard.
I would also bet that any relationship between Beethoven and ET would show
up much more in his piano works than in his symphonic pieces, simply because
intonation is completely fixed on the piano, and much more fluid in an
orchestra. I also know that Beethoven was one of the first to exploit the
capabilities of a new breed of piano that became available in his lifetime.
These newer pianos were the first to have cast-iron frames, making higher
string tension and greater dynamic range possible. It would be interesting
to research whether these newer pianos were primarily tuned ET or not.

Todd

Todd Wilcox, your comments about Beethoven lead me to believe that you've
never tried to play, or heard, Beethoven in a well-temperament other than
equal temperament. The well-temperaments in use in Beethoven's day (equal
temperament was not tuned on a piano with any accuracy until after his
death) would support the effects you mention quite well -- chromaticism
within a harmonic context, and motivic parallel thirds in all keys. Foote's
CD uses some extreme well-temperaments whose pairings with the pieces seem
almost arbitrary, yet the music doesn't suffer at all -- it merely gains a
little color.

--- In tuning@egroups.com, " Monz" <MONZ@J...> wrote:

http://www.egroups.com/message/tuning/17410

> As a rule of thumb during most of the 20th century, the
> less trained the musician, the more microtonal the performance.
>

Ha ha. That could be taken in a funny way... but I don't think that
would be particularly what we're going for.... (!)
_________ _______ ______ _
Joseph Pehrson

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

http://www.egroups.com/message/tuning/17413

>
> From a tuning standpoint, what really characterizes an ET in an
immediately audible way is the melodic smoothness of the chromatic
scale, and this is where I would say Chopin's music may have been the
first to exploit this feature as a compositional resource. I'm hard
pressed to think of any 20th century compositional technique that
necessitates ET more directly and convincingly than this.

The idea of Chopin as a "wild, flaming" chromaticist really appeals
to me!
_______ ______ _____ _
Joseph Pehrson