Re: circle of fifths and where the half-steps are etc...

<snip> nice commentary of teaching #/b's in twelve via
circle of fifths. I'll hav to try the hand switching
trick with my daughter who is a young piano student.

>
> of course, thru all of this i'm always emphasizing to
> them that i t o n l y w o r k s i n
> T H I S t u n i n g !
>

And only with the diatonic scale (at least the part
about only altering one tone to get to the next rotation)
(and yes, there are a few other MOS represented in 12,
the pentatonic for one...).

Yeah, it was a funny conversation, since he is perfectly
comforable with #/b's being equivalent, and in fact would
probably rather see an Ab minor notated Ab B Eb (since
Cb, like E#, looks weird to him). (I don't, being a poor
reading guitarist, seeing that it is the "flat" function
applied to A C E is preferable).

But my comfort had come from playing with MOS in other
EDOs (on paper) and watching the same sort of system
pop out as diatonic mapped into 12. So it really was
coming from a different language and viewpoint even if
I thought it matched up with his "vision" (I wasn't
talking at all about limits, JI, little positive
numbers, etc, just patterns).

> my hope is that they'll get interested enough to want
> to learn about other tunings ... but until they do show
> an interest in that, i just discreetly keep reminding
> them that the tuning on their piano is only one out of
> a huge number that could be chosen, and that in many of
> those other tunings we get flats which are different
> from sharps, and the key of Gb might not be the same
> as the key of F#.
>

A nice demonstration tool might be some long flexible
thing (a rope) with the spiral of fifths on it (stickers
or attached name tags). By coiling it, one can show 12, 19,
etc... anything that is singly positive, singly
negative, or 12?

Bob Valentine

> From: Robert C Valentine <BVAL@IIL.INTEL.COM>
> To: <tuning@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Sunday, February 10, 2002 11:38 PM
> Subject: [tuning] Re: circle of fifths and where the half-steps are etc...
>
>
> <snip> nice commentary of teaching #/b's in twelve via
> circle of fifths. I'll hav to try the hand switching
> trick with my daughter who is a young piano student.

thanks. i find that it works better than any former
method i've used.

thanks to the John Thompson piano method (an oldie but
goodie available at your local music store) for teaching
m e to play the major scale that way! i never learned
it as a youth -- my piano teacher in the conservatory
taught me all the scales with the "correct" fingering.

> > of course, thru all of this i'm always emphasizing to
> > them that i t o n l y w o r k s i n
> > T H I S t u n i n g !
> >
>
> And only with the diatonic scale (at least the part
> about only altering one tone to get to the next rotation)
> (and yes, there are a few other MOS represented in 12,
> the pentatonic for one...).

can you give a list of several other 12-tone MOS ?

> Yeah, it was a funny conversation, since he is perfectly
> comforable with #/b's being equivalent, and in fact would
> probably rather see an Ab minor notated Ab B Eb (since
> Cb, like E#, looks weird to him). (I don't, being a poor
> reading guitarist, seeing that it is the "flat" function
> applied to A C E is preferable).

i totally agree with you there, Bob.

this replacing of "complex" notes with their 12edo
enharmonically-equivalent simpler aliases was something
Schoenberg did (starting around 1909, i believe), ostensibly
because it was easier to read, but fundamentally because
by that time he was thinking of the entire 12edo scale as
a tonal/harmonic unit, which according to him implied
an "incalculable" number of various JI pitches/intervals.

(i've been searching since last night for that citation,
but can't find it. oh well, it's somewhere in _Harmonielehre_.)

i explore some of these here
http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/schoenberg/harm/1911-1922.htm

in terms of the concept of "punning" which we've devised
on this list, i'd say that Schoenberg's intention (post-1907)
was to be able to employ puns continuously in his compositions,
essentially from one note to the next.

> But my comfort had come from playing with MOS in other
> EDOs (on paper) and watching the same sort of system
> pop out as diatonic mapped into 12. So it really was
> coming from a different language and viewpoint even if
> I thought it matched up with his "vision"

ok, you got me interested. you've probably posted this
kind of stuff before and i skipped it ... sorry. any
examples of "MOS in other EDOs" you can give now?
others may feel free to respond to this too.

> > my hope is that they'll get interested enough to want
> > to learn about other tunings ... but until they do show
> > an interest in that, i just discreetly keep reminding
> > them that the tuning on their piano is only one out of
> > a huge number that could be chosen, and that in many of
> > those other tunings we get flats which are different
> > from sharps, and the key of Gb might not be the same
> > as the key of F#.
> >
>
> A nice demonstration tool might be some long flexible
> thing (a rope) with the spiral of fifths on it (stickers
> or attached name tags). By coiling it, one can show 12, 19,
> etc... anything that is singly positive, singly
> negative, or 12?

thanks for that idea, Bob. actually it's pretty close
to what i already do ... i've printed out a few of my
meantones-compared-to-JI lattices
http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/meantone/lattices/lattices.htm
and cut and taped them into cylinders which i can show
my students.

a former adult student who still studies my book (in
fact i mentioned her here once because she's writing
about my work in *her* next book) is interested enough
in tuning to learn what it means, but unfortunately,
none of my current students are.

-monz

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--- In tuning@y..., "monz" <joemonz@y...> wrote:

> > And only with the diatonic scale (at least the part
> > about only altering one tone to get to the next rotation)
> > (and yes, there are a few other MOS represented in 12,
> > the pentatonic for one...).
>
>
> can you give a list of several other 12-tone MOS ?

three-tone such as c d g . . . also . . .
thanks to kraig grady, we now know that all of messaien's 'modes of
limited transposition' are mos in 12-equal.

> From: paulerlich <paul@stretch-music.com>
> To: <tuning@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Monday, February 11, 2002 3:43 PM
> Subject: [tuning] Re: circle of fifths and where the half-steps are etc...
>
>
> --- In tuning@y..., "monz" <joemonz@y...> wrote:
> >
> > can you give a list of several other 12-tone MOS ?
>
> three-tone such as c d g . . . also . . .

duh, that's right . . . i know about the 2-tone, 3-tone,
5-tone, and 7-tone MOS already, just had a weird memory loss.

in fact, i wrote up a description of MOS to explain it to
Dan Stearns a few years ago, after Carl explained it to
me one night when we got together in Pennsylvania. and
then later i emailed it to someone else ... can't remember who.

i can't find that anywhere on my computer . . . would either
of you (Dan or that other person) please email it to me if
you have it? it really belongs in the Dictionary MOS entry.
thanks.

> thanks to kraig grady, we now know that all of messaien's 'modes of
> limited transposition' are mos in 12-equal.

cool. yep, now that you mention it, i remember seeing that a
couple of weeks ago.

-monz

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