Query

Hello to all,
I am new to your list and need your assistance. I am setting up a graduate
level course for myself, and one of my areas of study will be harmonics and
alternate tunings. Can anyone suggest text(s) knowing that I am at the
beginning? Thank you very much.

Most Sincerely,
Azrael

Dave Benson has written a text precisely for this purpose.
I can recommend it but you'll have to ask him whether he'll
let you use it. Right now he's away for a few weeks and I
don't know if he reads his e-mail. His address is

Dave Benson djb@byrd.math.uga.edu
Department of Mathematics | 319 Beechwood Drive | 14 Aldrich Rd
University of Georgia | Athens, GA 30606 | Oxford OX2 7ST
Athens, GA 30602 USA | USA | England
706-542-2587 (fax: -2573) | 706-613-1076 | 01865-511454
Home Page: http://www.math.uga.edu/~djb/

Manuel Op de Coul coul@ezh.nl

>Hello to all,
>I am new to your list and need your assistance. I am setting up a graduate
>level course for myself, and one of my areas of study will be harmonics and
>alternate tunings. Can anyone suggest text(s) knowing that I am at the
>beginning? Thank you very much.

>Most Sincerely,
>Azrael

My top recommendation is Helmholtz' _On the Sensations of Tone_, with notes
from the translator, Ellis. If you're at the graduate level this shouldn't
be too difficult for you. Just keep in mind when you read it that it's a
little out of date.

Partch's _Genesis of a Music_ is full of alternate tunings, including his
own. Just keep in mind that Partch is not trying to offer a balanced view of
the subject.

The rest of these overlap very little but taken together give a very wide
view of the subject:

"Pitch, consonance, and harmony" by Terhardt in _Journal of the Acoustical
Society of America_ Vol. 55 (1974). p. 1061 will give you a more
late-20th-century viewpoint on psychacoustics; if you made it through
Helmholtz and Partch then the ramifications of this should be clear.
For historical tunings, check out Barbour's _Tuning and Temperament_ or
Jorgenson's huge tome, _Tuning_;
for diatonic tunings, with both feet planted in history, Blackwood's
_Structure of Recognizable Diatonic Tunings_;
for an extension of historically-based considerations to some new
possibilities, Fokker's _New Music with 31 Notes_;
for experimental scales, the articles "Harmony and New Scales" by Mathews,
Pierce, and Roberts and "General Properties of Musical Pitch Systems" by
Krumhansl (both in _Harmony and Tonality_ edited by Sundberg), all issues of
_Xenharmonikon_, "Modes and Chord Progressions in Equal Tunings" by
Blackwood in _Perspectives of New Music_ Vol. 29 (1991) No.2 pp. 166-200,
"Six American Composers On Nonstandard Tunings" in _Perspectives of New
Music_ Vol. 29 (1991) No.1, "Tuning: At the Crossroads" by Wendy Carlos in
_Computer Music Journal_
for an experimental idea that strains credibility but is fantastically
presented, Yasser's _Theory of Evolving Tonality_;
a similar take but in just intonation is "On The Development of Musical
Systems" by Kraehenbuehl and Schmidt in _Journal of Music Theory_ Vol. 6
(1962) no. 1
for relationships between timbre (especially inharmonic timbres) and tuning,
Sethares' _Timbre, Tuning, Spectrum, Scale_;
one engineer's idiosyncratic take on the same theme: "An Electronically
Generated Complex Microtonal System of Horizontal and Vertical Harmony" by
Goldsmith in _Journal of the Audio Engineering Society_ Vol. 19 (1971) no.
10 pp. 851-858

for the complete citations see the vast bibliography at
ftp://ella.mills.edu/ccm/tuning/papers/bib.html. Many of us have web pages
with information that goes beyond the above; for example (and with stuff for
beginners), Graham Breed's page,
http://www.compulink.co.uk/~gbreed/tuning.htm.

Azrael wrote me off-list:

I am addresses the
effects of sound on consciousness.

If you are interested in "mystical" (what I would consider unscientific)
approaches, read Danielou's _Introduction to the Study of Musical Scales_
and Levarie and Levy's book (can't remember the name -- not listed in the
_Tuning & temperament bibliography_). If you are interested in scientific
approaches, start with Hall's _Musical Acoustics_ (there are a few chapters
on psychoacoustics and tuning) and follow the references to books and
journal articles from there.

> From: "Paul H. Erlich" <PErlich@Acadian-Asset.com>
>
>
> If you are interested in "mystical" (what I would consider unscientific)
> approaches, read Danielou's _Introduction to the Study of Musical Scales_
> and Levarie and Levy's book (can't remember the name -- not listed in the
> _Tuning & temperament bibliography_). If you are interested in scientific
> approaches, start with Hall's _Musical Acoustics_ (there are a few chapters
> on psychoacoustics and tuning) and follow the references to books and
> journal articles from there.

The title of the Levarie/Levy book is _Tone: A Study in Musical Acoustics_.
Another excellent book from a more technical perspective is Martin Vogel's
_On The Relations Of Tone_. This book contains a wealth of basic information
on such wide-ranging topics as Greek theory, Euler, JI, and ETs>12-tone, and
contains some nice, easy-to-read lattices.

Dale Scott

Dale Scott wrote,

>Another excellent book from a more technical perspective is Martin Vogel's
>_On The Relations Of Tone_. This book contains a wealth of basic
information
>on such wide-ranging topics as Greek theory, Euler, JI, and ETs>12-tone,
and
>contains some nice, easy-to-read lattices.

Yes, I would highly recommend Vogel's book as a complement to the ones I
listed. Vogel may present certain concepts better than any of the other
authors. The Xenharmonikon review of _On The Relations Of Tone_ found it
racist and Germanocentric; I think these qualities are but minor blemishes
on an otherwise fine treatise (yes, we should oppose Vogel's politics, just
as we should oppose Wagner's, but that doesn't make their work less
valuable).

Paul,

Hmm... I wasn't aware of any overtly racist messages when I read the Vogel book.
Of course, I did skim a few parts here and there, and it was over a year ago. Which
volume of Xenharmonikon did the review appear in?

Dale

----------
> From: "Paul H. Erlich" <PErlich@Acadian-Asset.com>
>
> Dale Scott wrote,
>
> >Another excellent book from a more technical perspective is Martin Vogel's
> >_On The Relations Of Tone_. This book contains a wealth of basic
> information
> >on such wide-ranging topics as Greek theory, Euler, JI, and ETs>12-tone,
> and
> >contains some nice, easy-to-read lattices.
>
> Yes, I would highly recommend Vogel's book as a complement to the ones I
> listed. Vogel may present certain concepts better than any of the other
> authors. The Xenharmonikon review of _On The Relations Of Tone_ found it
> racist and Germanocentric; I think these qualities are but minor blemishes
> on an otherwise fine treatise (yes, we should oppose Vogel's politics, just
> as we should oppose Wagner's, but that doesn't make their work less
> valuable).

Dale Scott wrote,

>Hmm... I wasn't aware of any overtly racist messages when I read the Vogel
book.
>Of course, I did skim a few parts here and there, and it was over a year
ago. >Which
>volume of Xenharmonikon did the review appear in?

Volume 17, the latest one. Get it -- it contains my paper as well as Brian
McLaren's exhaustive (if not 100% accurate) overview of 20th century
microtonality.

I have a question: is the Kraig Grady that is listed on a Brad
Lanier/Electric Company MP3 file, the same one here?

Sincerely,
Micah

YES!

George