Re: Byzantine Music

George Bilalis, a Greek Orthodox Liturgical cantor that Joe Monzo and I
recently met in San Diego says that he was taught that the diatonic
tetrachord is 10 8 12 steps of 72-tet but that he thinks it is closer to
9 9 12 as performed now. This tuning is a medieval Arabic (Al-Farabi, I
think) tuning. However, GOL music uses a number of tetrachords including
6 12 12, 6 18 6, and 6 9 15 in addition to the canonical diatonic above
as well as permutations and inflections of all of them. I hope to be
able to get more information from him or perhaps even run some samples
of his music through Can Akkoc's software to discover what intervals are
actually produced.

Xenakis, in "Towards a Metamusic" claimed that 7 11 12 and its
permutations were used. These approximate Ptolemy's Intense Diatonic in
its various positions quite well.

Bilalis also performs Turkish music and accepts the 53-tet approximation
as valid. However, Can has data from solo wind instrument samples that
there is more variation than the rules would seem to allow, IIRC.

Johnny Reinhard says that Bilalis will be on the next AFMM concert, so
anyone in the NYC area will be able hear him.

--John

--- In tuning@y..., John Chalmers <JHCHALMERS@U...> wrote:

> However, Can has data from solo wind instrument samples that
> there is more variation than the rules would seem to allow, IIRC.

And too much variation to empirically decide between a JI
interpretation and a 72-tET interpretation, no doubt.

--- In tuning@y..., John Chalmers <JHCHALMERS@U...> wrote:
> George Bilalis, a Greek Orthodox Liturgical cantor that Joe Monzo
and I
> recently met in San Diego says that he was taught that the diatonic
> tetrachord is 10 8 12 steps of 72-tet but that he thinks it is
closer to
> 9 9 12 as performed now. This tuning is a medieval Arabic
(Al-Farabi, I
> think) tuning. However, GOL music uses a number of tetrachords
including
> 6 12 12, 6 18 6, and 6 9 15 in addition to the canonical diatonic
above
> as well as permutations and inflections of all of them. I hope to be
> able to get more information from him or perhaps even run some
samples
> of his music through Can Akkoc's software to discover what intervals
are
> actually produced.
>
> Xenakis, in "Towards a Metamusic" claimed that 7 11 12 and its
> permutations were used. These approximate Ptolemy's Intense Diatonic
in
> its various positions quite well.

Thanks John.

Rami, I'm sorry that you have had to endure some offensive 72-tET
mappings of your scales. But as Paul Erlich pointed out, you should
not find the _correct_ mapping to be a problem, with errors less than
4 cents. 53-tET would be nowhere near as kind to your scale.

Rami's gamut in its rational description has only one kind of
step-wise "tetrachord" (undecachord?), which in steps of 72-tET is
(approximately):
5 2 5 2 2 3 4 3 2 2
This allows for tetrachords (where no step is smaller than 6 or larger
than 18) of
7 7 16
7 9 14
7 12 11 Xenakis
7 16 7
12 7 11
12 11 7 Xenakis
14 9 7
16 7 7

The disjunction is always 12 steps.

But when Rami's gamut is _correctly_ mapped to 72-tET (or the
Secor/MIRACLE temperament and maybe the Keenan planar temperament) it
has 2 more "undecachords".
2 5 2 5 2 2 3 4 3 2
2 2 5 2 5 2 2 3 4 3
which allow for these additional tetrachords:
7 11 12 Xenakis
7 14 9
9 7 14
9 9 12 Bilalis (proposed practice)
9 12 9 Bilalis (proposed practice)
9 11 10
9 14 7
11 7 12 Xenakis
11 9 10
11 12 7 Xenakis
14 7 9
16 7 7

Note that Rami's gamut doesn't contain _any_ intervals of 6 or 8
(72-tET steps). So those other Greek Orthodox Liturgical tetrachords
are not available. However they are crudely approximated
6 12 12 -> 7 12 11 or 7 11 12
6 18 6 -> 7 16 7
6 9 15 -> 7 9 14

Whether Rami's gamut covers the scales used by ancient Byzantines or not, I can't imagine a better choice of 23 notes, for 7-limit (and even
11-limit) harmony combined with a large choice of tetrachords for melody.

-- Dave Keenan
-- Dave Keenan
Brisbane, Australia
http://dkeenan.com

----- Original Message -----
From: John Chalmers <JHCHALMERS@UCSD.EDU>
To: <tuning@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, August 29, 2001 4:53 PM
Subject: [tuning] Re: Byzantine Music

> George Bilalis, a Greek Orthodox Liturgical cantor that Joe Monzo and I
> recently met in San Diego says that he was taught that the diatonic
> tetrachord is 10 8 12 steps of 72-tet but that he thinks it is closer to
> 9 9 12 as performed now. This tuning is a medieval Arabic (Al-Farabi, I
> think) tuning. However, GOL music uses a number of tetrachords including
> 6 12 12, 6 18 6, and 6 9 15 in addition to the canonical diatonic above
> as well as permutations and inflections of all of them. I hope to be
> able to get more information from him or perhaps even run some samples
> of his music through Can Akkoc's software to discover what intervals are
> actually produced.
>
> Xenakis, in "Towards a Metamusic" claimed that 7 11 12 and its
> permutations were used. These approximate Ptolemy's Intense Diatonic in
> its various positions quite well.
>
> Bilalis also performs Turkish music and accepts the 53-tet approximation
> as valid. However, Can has data from solo wind instrument samples that
> there is more variation than the rules would seem to allow, IIRC.
>
> Johnny Reinhard says that Bilalis will be on the next AFMM concert, so
> anyone in the NYC area will be able hear him.
>
> --John

I can insure that the tetrachord 9/8 10/9 16/15 is used now, which in the
72 per
octave form is 12 11 7 ,and in the 53 form is 9 8 5 which is more accurate.

The tetrachord 12 9 9 is used in Arabic modern music but it is not
Byzantine, and I think before two hundred years ago it was not used in
Arabic music ( am I going to open a new discussion, I hope not ).

I think it is better to speak with real tunings ( as 9/8 10/9 16/15 ) not
with commas ( as 12 11 7 ).

Rami Vitale