Re: Jamming (was Digest Number 1483 - Sorry)

Hi Haresh,

> Hi Robert, thanks for your response and illustrative mp3 file. If it
> will be of any use to you, I volunteer to record a few raga-s for
> your jamming sessions and practice, in the key of your choice. They
> will be in slow alap-s, staying long on legitimate notes. I will
> select those raga-s which are amenable to accompaniement of soft
> chords. I can record in MIDI format, to make tanpura track and
> chords track mutable. I have Cubase VST. Or, anyway you like and I
> can do. I can record the main track in piano, or any instrument you
> choose and I may have (on the synthesizer). I would prefer to use an
> instrument naturally capable of glissando [or, is it a mere matter of
> using pitch bend?]. I have to use 12-teT. Can you tell me how to use
> MIDI and yet get JI? Or, will 12-teT do for now?

Thanks, that's great!

I think j.i. will be pretty important for me as I think it may be
the j.i. that helps make it easy to play with.

If you've got windows 95/98 you can relay through my Fractal Tune
Smithy program to get j.i. MIDI. I can give more details.

You can also record in 12-tet and say which j.i. pitches correspond
to which notes, and I can play the midi file through FTS to those
pitches, or use Scala to retune the midi file in place.

Would be nice to have it in Indian instruments as there are a few
in midi, if there are ones suitable.

The sitar voice on my soundcard is very nice. Soundcard
has the General Midi list of voices - Sitar = 104.

I'll be able to change the selection of voice for the midi channels
anyway (and in FTS can also play any of them with a combination of
two or more voices in unison too).

Hard to find a nice pitched percussion to match the tabla if you have
that. Maybe I'll try something like kalimba in unison with melodic tom,
or synth drum (maybe a shade of agogo) or something or other.

Kalimba + melodic tom doesn't sound much like a tabla but is rather a
nice timbre, dep. how it goes with the rest.

You can do glissandi with pitch bends in midi by recording while moving
the pitch bend wheel but limited to glissandi up or down two midi notes.
i.e. if note is close to say A, then you can do glissando up to B
and down to G in that way.

If for ex. the j.i. note was 9/5, 17.6 cents above a midi note,
then you have a range of -200 cents to + 182.4 cents for the
original glissando after retuning.

If your pitch bend wheel has range of +- 1 semitone then that will
always be okay after retuning, no matter what the retuned
j.i. pitch.

So for ex. if you had midi clip in 12-tet with glissandi, then
on retuning by playing through FTS, they'd be in the j.i. scale
with glissandi by the same amounts in terms of distance from
the target pitch.

(at least it should work like this. Checking this in FTS has
just turned up a bug in the retuning of a glissando when midi
relaying from midi in which I'll fix).

Pitch bend glissandi work on midi voices even if not naturally capable
of glissandi, even keyboard instruments like piano, at least
on my soundcard.

As for which scales are best, it is a bit hard to say, as
one can play any pitch on the recorder with appropriate
fingerings and finger shading, and what lies "well under
the hands" is a bit hard to characterise.

The C on the base recorder in F is a good strong note and may
be a reasonable choice for the tonic, if there are no other
considerations to place it somewhere else.

Could be nice to include whatever scale the one was that
I was jamming with.

> Please delete it tomorrow (07/20 evening).

Okay will do, this evening.

Much appreciated, :-)

Robert