Notation (again?)

Dear all,

i have been reading with increasing understanding over the last weeks the
very interesting notations for various n-limit JI scales as approximated by
EDOs and other tunings.

May i be a pest and ask why we are all using a 3-limit notation to write n>3
limit music? At least, looking at how we've notated over the past centuries
- it seems to me that we have used 3-limit notation for 5-limit, and perhaps
even 7-limit (excusing the awful notation of Aug 6ths for the moment).
Perhaps we could continue this idea and use more complex augmented and
diminished pythagorean/5limit intervals for approximations to n-limit ratio
intervals. Take E as a classic example, one moment it could be at 408cent
and the next at 386cent; or D, at 204cent one moment and 182 the next (yet
nobody notates these alterations explicitly in music of the period). Trouble
is, these days, is that we want to write odd chords with notes in strange
places, and not always strictly 'consonant' too.

I'd vote for a few more note-letter names myself... but then think of the
stave size...

In-Reply-To: <B892F70D.360E%mark.gould@argonet.co.uk>
Mark Gould wrote:

> I'd vote for a few more note-letter names myself... but then think of
> the
> stave size...

I'm using 10 note names, but they're not letters. See
<http://x31eq.com/decimal_notation.htm>. In general, I'd go
for a number that works with the scale you're using. That means I don't
have much to say about the current discussion, which is assuming the
3-limit basis to make it easier for musicians. Use a notation that makes
sense for the music, and can convert it to whatever the musicians ask for
if they want to play it!

It would be nice to have notation software that automatically did the
conversions. And publishers that could print out bespoke scores to suit
the customer.

Graham

> From: <graham@microtonal.co.uk>
> To: <tuning@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Friday, February 15, 2002 9:50 AM
> Subject: [tuning] Re: Notation (again?)
>
>
> In-Reply-To: <B892F70D.360E%mark.gould@argonet.co.uk>
> Mark Gould wrote:
>
> > I'd vote for a few more note-letter names myself... but then think of
> > the
> > stave size...
>
> I'm using 10 note names, but they're not letters. See
> <http://x31eq.com/decimal_notation.htm>.

see also the adaptation i made here of Graham's decimal
notation, onto a 4-line staff where the reference note (C?)
is always written on the same line (in between staves, like
middle-C in standard notation):
http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/blackjack/blackjack.htm
(about 1/3 of the way down the page)

> In general, I'd go
> for a number that works with the scale you're using. That means I don't
> have much to say about the current discussion, which is assuming the
> 3-limit basis to make it easier for musicians. Use a notation that makes
> sense for the music, and can convert it to whatever the musicians ask for
> if they want to play it!

basically, i agree with Graham, and feel that the number of staff-lines
should be adjusted to work best with the cardinality of the nomenclature
of the scale in question, hopefully in such a way that "8ves" of the
reference pitch are always written at the same place on the staff, so
that when staves are stacked, they're all read the same way. of course,
this assumes a scale which has "8ve"-equivalence.

> It would be nice to have notation software that automatically did the
> conversions. And publishers that could print out bespoke scores to suit
> the customer.

yet another thing that my JustMusic software is supposed to be
able to do . . . someday.

-monz

_________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

--- In tuning@y..., Mark Gould <mark.gould@a...> wrote:

> I'd vote for a few more note-letter names myself...

mark, if you look at my paper, which concerns a move to a 7-limit
basis, you'll see that i propose 10 'letter names' (actually
numerals) and an associated 6-line staff (7 lines might be good
too) . . . graham breed and monz have written about a different 10-
nominal notation, for the miracle tuning system . . . erv wilson has
proposed systems with 8, 9, 11, and 12 'letter names' . . . but i
think the current discussion centers around the concerns of those who
would stay as close as possible to the current letter names and their
approximate meanings, and who would try to notate multifarious
systems in as 'compatible' a fashion as possible . . . personally i'm
looking upon this whole discussion as an 'outsider'.

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

/tuning/topicId_34283.html#34287

> basically, i agree with Graham, and feel that the number of staff-
lines should be adjusted to work best with the cardinality of the
nomenclature of the scale in question, hopefully in such a way
that "8ves" of the reference pitch are always written at the same
place on the staff, so that when staves are stacked, they're all read
the same way. of course, this assumes a scale which has "8ve"-
equivalence.
>

***So, basically, this is a notation as an *analysis tool,* correct?
and not something that "real" acoustic musicians would *perform"
right?

So, that's great, but is such a notation really that *necessary* for
an analysis of scales? Is there that much more that it can tell you
than the kind of text analyses performed by, let's say, the Scala
command "SHOW DATA...??"

JP

--- In tuning@y..., "jpehrson2" <jpehrson@r...> wrote:

> ***So, basically, this is a notation as an *analysis tool,*
correct?
> and not something that "real" acoustic musicians would *perform"
> right?

not necessarily. i'll let mark gould reply as to what he had in mind,
since he started this thread, but my 10-nominal notation for 22-
equal, for example, is designed to be easily usable for a performer
with an appropriate keyboard mapping, as well as being much
more "analytically transparent" than any possible shoehorning of 22-
equal into a 7-nominal system would be.

> So, that's great, but is such a notation really that *necessary*
for
> an analysis of scales? Is there that much more that it can tell
you
> than the kind of text analyses performed by, let's say, the Scala
> command "SHOW DATA...??"

umm . . . aren't we talking about analysing *music*, not analysing
*scales*? i mean really . . .

--- In tuning@y..., "paulerlich" <paul@s...> wrote:

/tuning/topicId_34283.html#34302

> --- In tuning@y..., "jpehrson2" <jpehrson@r...> wrote:
>
> > ***So, basically, this is a notation as an *analysis tool,*
> correct?
> > and not something that "real" acoustic musicians would *perform"
> > right?
>
> not necessarily. i'll let mark gould reply as to what he had in
mind,
> since he started this thread, but my 10-nominal notation for 22-
> equal, for example, is designed to be easily usable for a performer
> with an appropriate keyboard mapping, as well as being much
> more "analytically transparent" than any possible shoehorning of 22-
> equal into a 7-nominal system would be.
>
> > So, that's great, but is such a notation really that *necessary*
> for
> > an analysis of scales? Is there that much more that it can tell
> you
> > than the kind of text analyses performed by, let's say, the Scala
> > command "SHOW DATA...??"
>
> umm . . . aren't we talking about analysing *music*, not analysing
> *scales*? i mean really . . .

****Hi Paul...

Well, that's the thing... What's the point in having a different
staff and setup for every different scale if it isn't to be used only
as a tool to analyze *scales* and not *music* in general or to use as
a score for *playing...* ??

JP

> From: monz <joemonz@yahoo.com>
> To: <tuning@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Friday, February 15, 2002 11:23 AM
> Subject: Re: [tuning] Re: Notation (again?)
>
>
> > From: <graham@microtonal.co.uk>
> >
> > I'm using 10 note names, but they're not letters. See
> > <http://x31eq.com/decimal_notation.htm>.
>
>
> see also the adaptation i made here of Graham's decimal
> notation, onto a 4-line staff where the reference note (C?)
> is always written on the same line (in between staves, like
> middle-C in standard notation):
> http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/blackjack/blackjack.htm
> (about 1/3 of the way down the page)
>

. . . . . . .

> From: jpehrson2 <jpehrson@rcn.com>
> To: <tuning@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Friday, February 15, 2002 7:14 PM
> Subject: [tuning] Re: "notation" as "analysis tool" ??
>
>
> --- In tuning@y..., "paulerlich" <paul@s...> wrote:
>
> /tuning/topicId_34283.html#34302
>
> > --- In tuning@y..., "jpehrson2" <jpehrson@r...> wrote:
> >
> > > ***So, basically, this is a notation as an *analysis tool,*
> > > correct? and not something that "real" acoustic musicians
> > > would *perform" right?
> >
> > not necessarily. i'll let mark gould reply as to what he
> > had in mind, since he started this thread, but my 10-nominal
> > notation for 22-equal, for example, is designed to be easily
> > usable for a performer with an appropriate keyboard mapping,
> > as well as being much more "analytically transparent" than
> > any possible shoehorning of 22-equal into a 7-nominal system
> > would be.
> >
> > > So, that's great, but is such a notation really that
> > > *necessary* for an analysis of scales? Is there that much
> > > more that it can tell you than the kind of text analyses
> > > performed by, let's say, the Scala command "SHOW DATA...??"
> >
> > umm . . . aren't we talking about analysing *music*, not
> > analysing *scales*? i mean really . . .
>
>
> ****Hi Paul...
>
> Well, that's the thing... What's the point in having a different
> staff and setup for every different scale if it isn't to be used
> only as a tool to analyze *scales* and not *music* in general or
> to use as a score for *playing...* ??
>
> JP

Joe, i mean for my new musical notations to be used for performance,
not simply for analysis. that's the whole point in designing a
new staff notation: something that's easier for performers to
negotiate than the cumbersome modifications that are made to
standard notation.

in my opinion, it's much easier to read and understand blackjack
using the 4-line staff with Graham's decimal and v^ nomenclature.
i don't have a blackjack-tuned instrument yet (and probably won't,
because i'm going for canasta), but it seems to me that it would be
much easier to read a score written like this rather than with the
72edo notation (and i'll probably use this notation for canasta).

i think you may underestimate how easy it is to adjust to reading
a radically new notation, given just a little time and practice.

for me, as long as there's an "interval of equivalence" in the
scale, the most important thing is to arrange the staff notation
so that the pitches separated by that interval always look exactly
the same. this is n o t the case with "8ve"-equivalence on the
standard 5-line staff notation, and i think it's one of the two
huge drawbacks to that notation.

the other drawback is the one i pointed out recently: that moving
from a line to a space and vice versa represents o n e step in
the diatonic scale, but those steps come in t w o different
sizes, and that is not reflected in the notation. this is another
problem that i always try to avoid when i design a new notation.

when a staff notation is designed so that the step size is
always the same and the interval of equivalence always looks
the same, it's surprisingly easy to get used to reading it.

try it, you might like it! ;-)

-monz

_________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

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

/tuning/topicId_34283.html#34323

> i think you may underestimate how easy it is to adjust to reading
> a radically new notation, given just a little time and practice.
>

****Hi Joe!

For tuning *theorists* and, maybe, composers... possibly, but for
*conventional performing musicians* absolutely *not*..

JP

--- In tuning@y..., "jpehrson2" <jpehrson@r...> wrote:

/tuning/topicId_34283.html#34330

> --- In tuning@y..., "monz" <joemonz@y...> wrote:
>
> /tuning/topicId_34283.html#34323
>
> > i think you may underestimate how easy it is to adjust to reading
> > a radically new notation, given just a little time and practice.
> >
>
> ****Hi Joe!
>
> For tuning *theorists* and, maybe, composers... possibly, but for
> *conventional performing musicians* absolutely *not*..
>
> JP

****Hi Monz!

I should add that the result will be, without question, that
they "won't touch the stuff..."

There's plenty of other more "conventional" music still to play...

JP

--- In tuning@y..., "jpehrson2" <jpehrson@r...> wrote:

> ****Hi Paul...
>
> Well, that's the thing... What's the point in having a different
> staff and setup for every different scale if it isn't to be used only
> as a tool to analyze *scales* and not *music* in general

what i meant is that music in different tunings can be most
effectively analyzed if each piece is notated in a system "native"
to that tuning . . . that way one wouldn't have to worry about which
commas vanish and which don't, etc . . .