Re: [tuning] Re: Re : The C-Fb-G major triad: Pythag-Just tuning.4

In a message dated 12/3/01 6:06:04 PM Eastern Standard Time,
paul@stretch-music.com writes:

> The medieval Arabic Rast is nearly identical to the modern Turkish
> Rast. And so on.
>

That's like saying Phrygian today is just like Phrygian in Anatolia. Rast is
different in different parts of the Muslim world. That one form of medieval
Arabic Rast should be "nearly identical" to modern Turkish Rast as to tuning
is a good connection, but it is poor scholarship to use words that have
exchangeable pitches for their proper names, depending upon one's geography.
At this time I would suggest 3rd limit JI is better than using the term
"Pythagor...etc." to describe the spiral of fifths tuning. This was not a
Greek enterprise (who theorized conceptually in tetrachord fourths as
Iranians and Bulgarians do today).

> > What I am suggesting to
> > you is that Arab theorists perhaps lengthened a chain of fifths
> that did not
> > fit into the practice they experienced much later.
>
> Can you phrase that sentence more clearly? I'll probably agree, I
> just want to know what you're saying.
>
Yes, there was an Arabic interpretation of what Greeks of the middle ages
were doing, even though the written theories didn't jive always with actual
aural information. The tuning today is STILL DIFFERENT again from whatever
was practiced in "17". Essentially, these are interesting themes of tuning
theory. Either we get picky on all the modern meanings, or we get sloppy and
fall into assumptions of what someone means.

> However, since there was
> > so much use of spiraling fifths by ancient Babylonia, et al., it is
> much more
> > likely that the term "Greek" was applied as erroneously as the name
> > Pythagorus, itself.
>
> Perhaps.
>
Do you have ANY evidence to the contrary?

> > > circumstantial evidence that they stumbled upon the schisma (much
> > > as
> > > the West did later, around 1420), since they used it to
> construct,
> > > essentially, 5-limit just scales.
> > >
> >
> > Why wouldn't the Middle/Near easterners have stumbled upon Didymus
> and his
> > explanation of the comma?
>
> If they did, they didn't go in that direction -- medieval Arabic
> ratios are steadfastly 3-limit.
>
It may be that the aural differences between different commas only added to
recognition of its importance AS an interval. In this way, a Pythagorean
comma might be a different derivation of the same tiny interval.

> > Why if they had all the ancient Greek books, or at
> > least the books or fragments we have today, would they need to
> reinvent the
> > wheel on the comma?
>
> I don't know what you mean "reinvent the wheel on the comma". What do
> you mean by that?
>

I was referring to being blind to the existence of a major discovery and
being forced to start from scratch. In other words, did the fire spread or
started fresh?

enjoying the repartee, Johnny Reinhard

>
>

Johnny Reinhard wrote:

> That's like saying Phrygian today is just like Phrygian in Anatolia.
> Rast is different in different parts of the Muslim world. That one
> form of medieval Arabic Rast should be "nearly identical" to modern
> Turkish Rast as to tuning is a good connection, but it is poor
> scholarship to use words that have exchangeable pitches for their
> proper names, depending upon one's geography. At this time I would
> suggest 3rd limit JI is better than using the term "Pythagor...etc." to
> describe the spiral of fifths tuning. This was not a Greek enterprise
> (who theorized conceptually in tetrachord fourths as Iranians and
> Bulgarians do today).

To clarify this: Touma says that al-Urmawi's scale (urmawi.scl in the
Scala list) has its first tetrachord "identical to that of the rast row
used in contemporary Arabian music". But he says much the same about
al-Farabi's 11-limit scale, and the two tetrachords clearly aren't
identical to each other. It looks like neither source called their scale
"rast".

We've really hit the same problem as with Ptolemy's syntonon diatonic --
although the scale was given at a particular date, we don't know what its
significance was. John Chalmers assigns very different tetrachords to all
these writers, and so may have some light to shed.

Touma also says "some music theorists" describe rast using 53-equal, 9 8 5
9 9 8 5. In another bit, he mentions 53-equal as being a Syrian thing,
but no names or dates. And in the next chapter, he gives rast in
24-not-quite-equal as 4 3 3 4 3 3 4 4 3 3 4 3 3 4. So the tuning of rast
varies across the Arabic world, before you even look at Turkey or Iran.

Re the Scala archive, is Safi-a-ddin Armavi the same as Safi ad-Din
al-Urmawi?

Graham

>Re the Scala archive, is Safi-a-ddin Armavi the same as Safi ad-Din
>al-Urmawi?
Yes, many different transliterations of his name.

Manuel

Graham and Paul!
OK we can now settle the argument about 24 ET. I assume you are referring to the tuning below.
well i would never call this close to 24 ET. 24 et has two cycle of fifths that don't meet, this
has no structural relation to that. Something 10 and 13 cents off is way out of the ball park for
me. It like calling the piano M3 a 5/4

graham@microtonal.co.uk wrote:

> And in the next chapter, he gives rast in
> 24-not-quite-equal as 4 3 3 4 3 3 4 4 3 3 4 3 3 4. So the tuning of rast
> varies across the Arabic world, before you even look at Turkey or Iran.
>
> Re the Scala archive, is Safi-a-ddin Armavi the same as Safi ad-Din
> al-Urmawi?
>
> Graham

-- Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria island
http://www.anaphoria.com

The Wandering Medicine Show
Wed. 8-9 KXLU 88.9 fm

--- In tuning@y..., Afmmjr@a... wrote:
> In a message dated 12/3/01 6:06:04 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> paul@s... writes:
>
> > The medieval Arabic Rast is nearly identical to the modern
Turkish
> > Rast. And so on.
> >
>
> That's like saying Phrygian today is just like Phrygian in Anatolia.

No it's not. Look at the cents values.

> Rast is
> different in different parts of the Muslim world.

Boy, is it ever!

> Yes, there was an Arabic interpretation of what Greeks of the
middle ages
> were doing,

The Greeks of the middle ages? Don't you mean the ancient Greeks?

> even though the written theories didn't jive always with actual
> aural information.

Probably true.

> The tuning today is STILL DIFFERENT again from whatever
> was practiced in "17".

Modern Arabic tuning is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT from the 17-chain-of-
fifths, and that's what I've been arguing with Kraig about. However,
Turkish classical theory, even today, teaches a tuning which conforms
quite closely to the extended chain of fifths spec -- and most
Turkish musicians seem to feel that this theory accurately describes
their practice (more so than even Indian musicians).

> > If they did, they didn't go in that direction -- medieval Arabic
> > ratios are steadfastly 3-limit.
> >
> It may be that the aural differences between different commas only
added to
> recognition of its importance AS an interval. In this way, a
Pythagorean
> comma might be a different derivation of the same tiny interval.

Yes -- and the same thing might have happened in India as well.

> > > Why if they had all the ancient Greek books, or at
> > > least the books or fragments we have today, would they need to
> > reinvent the
> > > wheel on the comma?
> >
> > I don't know what you mean "reinvent the wheel on the comma".
What do
> > you mean by that?
> >
>
> I was referring to being blind to the existence of a major
discovery and
> being forced to start from scratch.

What major discovery??

--- In tuning@y..., Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@a...> wrote:

> Graham and Paul!
> OK we can now settle the argument about 24 ET. I assume you are
referring to the tuning below.

Not sure what the range is supposed to be -- my Modern Arabic Rast,
from tonic to octave, is 4 3 3 4 4 3 3.

> well i would never call this close to 24 ET. 24 et has two cycle of
fifths that don't meet, this
> has no structural relation to that.

Yes but there are a lot of other ways of seeing 24-tET besides the
two cycles of fifths that don't meet! The only relevant point is that
these steps are approximately 4/24 oct. and 3/24 oct -- though
certainly in different styles they might approach 5/31 oct. and 4/31
oct., or 3/17 oct. and 2/17 oct., or something not easily expressible
in an ET. The structure is L m m L L m m, which has identical
tetrachords in five octave species.

> Something 10 and 13 cents off is way out of the ball park for
> me. It like calling the piano M3 a 5/4

OK. So what's your version with 10-13 cents errors from this?

>
> graham@m... wrote:
>
> > And in the next chapter, he gives rast in
> > 24-not-quite-equal as 4 3 3 4 3 3 4 4 3 3 4 3 3 4.

Paul Erlich wrote:

> --- In tuning@y..., Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@a...> wrote:
>
> > Graham and Paul!
> > OK we can now settle the argument about 24 ET. I assume you are
> referring to the tuning below.
>
> Not sure what the range is supposed to be -- my Modern Arabic Rast,
> from tonic to octave, is 4 3 3 4 4 3 3.
>
> > well i would never call this close to 24 ET. 24 et has two cycle of
> fifths that don't meet, this
> > has no structural relation to that.
>
> Yes but there are a lot of other ways of seeing 24-tET besides the
> two cycles of fifths that don't meet!

this is for me the most structural fact of the scale

> The only relevant point is that
> these steps are approximately 4/24 oct. and 3/24 oct -- though
> certainly in different styles they might approach 5/31 oct. and 4/31
> oct., or 3/17 oct. and 2/17 oct., or something not easily expressible
> in an ET. The structure is L m m L L m m, which has identical
> tetrachords in five octave species.
>
> > Something 10 and 13 cents off is way out of the ball park for
> > me. It like calling the piano M3 a 5/4
>
> OK. So what's your version with 10-13 cents errors from this?

I was referring to the whole tone size in the two systems as different by this amount.

>
>
> >
> > graham@m... wrote:
> >
> > > And in the next chapter, he gives rast in
> > > 24-not-quite-equal as 4 3 3 4 3 3 4 4 3 3 4 3 3 4.
>
>

-- Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria island
http://www.anaphoria.com

The Wandering Medicine Show
Wed. 8-9 KXLU 88.9 fm

--- In tuning@y..., Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@a...> wrote:

> > Yes but there are a lot of other ways of seeing 24-tET besides the
> > two cycles of fifths that don't meet!
>
> this is for me the most structural fact of the scale

But in the Arabic "diatonic" maqamat, you're only using five notes
from one chain of fifths and two notes from the other chain of
fifths. So the question of whether they are or are not cycles of 12
fifths, and the question of whether they meet or do not meet, doesn't
enter the picture.

> > > Something 10 and 13 cents off is way out of the ball park for
> > > me. It like calling the piano M3 a 5/4
> >
> > OK. So what's your version with 10-13 cents errors from this?
>
> I was referring to the whole tone size in the two systems as
different by this amount.

Which two systems, what whole tone sizes?