Scales, scales, everywhere, and not a note to hear

Dear All,

yes I was a first time poster. (PNM Article)

I understand the mailgroup dynamic, and am aware that among the residents there will be some who have /views/ and others who like a good honest debate. From my own point of view as a theorist/composer, all I'll say is that, whether or no the scale in question is constructed from JI components (aka ratios) or whether it is formed from an ET or cyclic set of pitches shouldn't really be of concern. What should be of concern is trying to get others to see that there is beautiful music beyond 12TET.

Generalised diatonics are just one of my concerns. Please read the article (which for copyright reasons I can't reproduce here or on a website), and you will see that I also discuss ratios in relation to generalised diatonics, and makes some interesting discoveries.

I studied acoustics at university. The harmonic series is a phenomenon of certain physical systems, and there is a whole branch of mathematics for it. But, there is also an inharmonic world out there, just as valid. Not everything that is good is only formed from the relationships between integers.

On the front of notation, do people have an opinion about Equiton????

Mark

In-Reply-To: <E16TfMl-0007Mb-00@smtp.argonet.co.uk>
Mark Gould wrote:

> Generalised diatonics are just one of my concerns. Please read the
> article (which for copyright reasons I can't reproduce here or on a
> website), and you will see that I also discuss ratios in relation to
> generalised diatonics, and makes some interesting discoveries.

Can you give us some kind of summary, or relate it to Paul Erlich's
generalised diatonics as explained in
<http://www-math.cudenver.edu/~jstarret/22ALL.pdf>? When I mentioned this
before, I got summaries of Balzano and Zweifel's ideas, and they didn't
sound that interesting. How closely do you follow them, or what am I
missing?

> I studied acoustics at university. The harmonic series is a phenomenon
> of certain physical systems, and there is a whole branch of mathematics
> for it. But, there is also an inharmonic world out there, just as
> valid. Not everything that is good is only formed from the
> relationships between integers.

A few of us (a small and unrepresentative sample of this list, but an
important one from where I'm sitting ;) are interested in the
relationship between Well Formed/MOS scales and consonant intervals.
Those consonances needn't be taken from the harmonic series. If you check
the code at <http://x31eq.com/temper.html> you will see some
inharmonic examples. I don't know what it would mean to you at this
stage.

So for me, at least, it isn't the harmonic series that's the issue but
consonance. In practice, that's only a trivial difference between me an
certain other members of the list who only consider the harmonic series.
But as the Balzano/Zweifel ideas were explained to me, they seem to be
completely unrelated. Where do you fit in to all this?

These lists don't have a constitution, and you've chosen to make your
entrance here which is fine. But the way this thread's going, it would be
better on tuning-math.

> On the front of notation, do people have an opinion about Equiton????

What's Equiton????????????

Incidentally, contrary to what the subject line suggests there are quite a
few musical examples by members of these lists online. See
<http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/72/the_tuning_punks.html> and the files
area of </makemicromusic> (watch out for
those popups!). You can get example of mine from
<http://x31eq.com/music/> but don't take them too seriously.

Graham

Mark!
A variety of people have explored the furthest point from integer ratios being Golden and
noble ratios of which the convergence of the fibonacci series is an example. These exhibit a
certain "harmonicity" all their own with difference tones generating other tones in the scale but
not simple ratio relationships at all. It appears that one can only go so far and no further

jacky_ligon wrote:

>
> MG:
> But, there is also an inharmonic world out there, just as valid. Not
> everything that is good is only formed from the relationships between
> integers.
>
> J:L:
> A beautiful point to make, and one I always cherish to read in this
> forum.
>
> J:L

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

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

>Generalised diatonics are just one of my concerns. Please read the
>article (which for copyright reasons I can't reproduce here or on
>a website), and you will see that I also discuss ratios in
>relation to generalised diatonics, and makes some interesting
>discoveries.

Mark,

I'll get the article (I'm looking forward to it)! At the same
time, please consider publishing your ideas (in some form) here.
While the format of a mailing list varies greatly from a
traditional printed journal, offering many pros and many cons to
that essential medium, I humbly suggest that our forum supercedes,
by no small margin, all academic journals I am aware of (including
PNM) on the subject of musical tuning, from the depth and breadth
of theoretical work, right down to a body of music composed to
demonstrate it. In the near future, this forum (or some decedent
of it) will be the standard peer-review acid test for theoretical
work in musical tuning. Microtonality will be big news within the
next few decades, and the folks you'll meet here today are going
to be the same ones you'll want to meet then.

-Carl

--- In tuning@y..., mark.gould@a... wrote:

[...]

Hi Mark!

I would love it if you could touch on some of the more interesting
ideas in your paper. I would think you should certainly be entitled
to do so, whatever copyright restrictions may apply to your actual
text.

> I studied acoustics at university. The harmonic series is a
>phenomenon of certain physical systems, and there is a whole branch
>of mathematics for it. But, there is also an inharmonic world out
>there, just as valid. Not everything that is good is only formed
>from the relationships between integers.

This is very true. I especially like to point out cases where various
tempered systems might be seen as aesthetically preferable to JI. But
there are several unavoidable psychoacoustical phenomena that have a
huge impact on the _sensual_ qualities of musical sounds. Please bear
with me while I touch on just one of these.

When we hear a spectrum that approximates a harmonic series, we hear
a single pitch, the fundamental, even if the spectral component
corresponding to that fundamental is physically absent. If the
components of the spectrum are far from a harmonic series, we have no
such sense of a single pitch -- the sensation falls apart into two or
more different, less clearly grasped pitches. (See, for example,
Pierce's _Science of Musical Sound_ or Terhardt's web pages).

Now certain chords will, when all the spectral components are taken
together, approximate a harmonic series. These chords have a very
clear _root_, corresponding to the fundamental of that harmonic
series (see Parncutt's _Harmony: A Psychoacoustical Approach_). Other
chords will have spectra which fail mimic, even in part, a clear
harmonic series, and thus fail to evoke any sense of _coherence_
whatsoever. A composer who write music for multiple voices, either
consciously or unconsciously, must be aware of the play of coherence
and incoherence that his or her chords produce, or else he or she
will fail to be able to exercise artistic control over his or her
creation.

That's just one point, and I'm sure Bob Wendell and others would love
to expand on it. Although this point of view agrees with a lifetime
of music listening, performing, and experimenting, I am very open to
other viewpoints and the constructs/music that result from them. I
hope you will share!

-Paul

Hi Mark,

I just noticed your subject line and wonder what you are implying by
it.

A great many of us (myself included) are engaged at least part-time
in creating microtonal music. You haven't heard our music, and we
haven't heard yours, but isn't it a bit too early to cry "not a note
to hear"?

While many musical examples on the web, reviews, and radio broadcasts
have come up on this list, there is now a list specifically devoted
to the practice, as opposed to theory, of microtonal music:

MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com

I hope you will join us there and share, share, share!

Cheers,
Paul