Article on Sims 72-tET notation

I had some "back issues" of Xenharmonicon still coming to me and I
was fortunate to receive number XI today, since it had an interesting
article in it by Ezra Sims on his 72-tET notation.

He first describes the only extant 1/12-tone notation that he had
seen, that of Haba's... It's too hard to post that here, but let me
characterize it as a cross between "chicken scratches" and somebody
trying to play "tick tack toe..." It would be *very* difficult to
distinguish this system in performance. (I will scan it and put it
up sometime if there is exaggerated interest in seeing it...)
Basically it consists of anywhere from one to three vertical lines,
and one to three horizontal lines going through these... not always
all the way through... depending on the "inflection..." There are,
basically 11 different symbols.

Here is Sims' commentary about this notation from his article:

"I knew that if confronted with such a set of symbols, I'd, myself,
give up and go back to modal monody. The graphic distinctions seemed
too minute for practical purposes, the symbols too hard to
distinguish in either rapid reading or writing. So I worked up my
own, which used rather fewer symbols in combination with the familiar
accidentals."

This one we have a scan for... it's here:

/tuning/files/Pehrson/Sims.GIF

Anyway, somebody mentioned a while ago, and Sims does in his article,
that the main reason for the use of a square root "radical" to
indicate quarter tones stems from the idea that the quarter tone is
the *24th* root of 2... hence the square root of the semitone (12th
root of 2). Well, that makes sense, and is the origin of that,
er, "peculiar" symbol and it's inversion. (As you can see on
the .gif)

Many of us have been indicating these symbols in ascii as: [ =
quarter-tone down and ] = quarter-tone up...

Those ascii symbols are about the closest ascii match to the Sims...

Well, Sims' idea of using the "half arrows" for 1/6 tones stems
partially from the fact that he wanted a "smaller" visual sign for
those. You can also see them on the .gif. In ascii, we have been
using < = 1/6 tone down, > = 1/6 tone up. Sims half arrows really
look quite a bit like this, except they are rotated slightly and have
one line longer from the vertex for each...

The 1/12 tone, which Sims concludes would be "much less used" gets a
small arrow, upwards and downwards (please see .gif). Our ascii
notation uses the closest symbols to these arrows: ^ = 1/12 tone up
and v = 1/12 tone down...

Sims piece for solo viola was accepted for publication by the _Corpus
Microtonale_ of Diapason Press. Editor Rudolph Rasch suggested Sims
use a notation for his piece that was *very* similar to the Haba. A
few of the crossing lines are different, but there still is this
*multitude* of different inflections, both 11 for sharps and 11 for
flats!

Sims objected strongly to the use of the modified Haba notation,
since he felt it was impractical. In a letter to the editor, Mr.
Rasch, he states the following:

"When I began writing in a 72-note temperament, I was well aware of
the various notations that had been proposed. Choosing not to use
one of them was not the result of fascination with my own invention,
and was done with full awareness that it would add yet another to an
already sizeable repertory of competing possibilities.

"I chose to use the system I do because it involved the least
disruption of performers' established habits and more accurately
mirrored the way they would approach the identification of the
pitches indicated. I very much doubt I would have had the success
with performers that I have had, had I been obliged to use a system
like Haba's or the one you give in your letter. In fact, I doubt I
should have continued as a composer -- I'd have gone over, I suspect,
to something like library cataloguing, or computer programming,
instead."

Fortunately, for all of us, Rudolph Rasch (not being so "rash" :) )
relented, and used the Sims notation!

_________ _______ __________
Joseph Pehrson