Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup tuning Re: The Beethoven piece and AJI

Monzo [TD217.11]

>Ray Tomes has spoken a little about this idea of putting the
>comma shifts in stragegic 'breakpoints' in the music. I suppose
>that was what spurred me on to produce this experiment.

IMO the number of these break points should be very small and only used
to avoid the problem of key drift. When introduced they should be at
the points that require the least amount of discontinuity and jump back
to a place that is near (in the prime factorisation space) where the
music came from.

>I agree that characterizing this experimental tuning as JI
>is *not* a good idea, at least not plain unqualified JI, for the
>reasons David pointed out. It's probably unfortunate that
>many theorists and composers, including myself, have used
>'just-intonation' to mean these extended types of rational
>systems, since JI by definition already meant the usual 5-limit
>tuning which provides interlocking consonant 4:5:6 triads.
>Perhaps 'extended JI' is a reasonable name, altho just
>calling it a '5-limit rational tuning' is probably best.

Why not call it AJI. This is the name I came up with meaning
"Automatic Just Intonation" and Paul independantly (I assume) came up
with "Adaptive Just Intonation" for the same concept. The word AJI also
has the meaning in Japanese of "taste" which I think is appropriate.

With other people working on AJI programs of various sorts I have
decided to also have a go at it again. I intend to start with a program
that will simply read a MIDI file and add the necessary note-tuning
commands and produce an updated MIDI file which can then be played. It
will not be real time but it will probably not use look ahead so it
could be adapted to real time by someone else later. I am saying that I
will do it now so that I have to make a start soon.

I last did some work on an AJI program on an Amiga 500 which was before
I got a 286 which was three computers back! Ahh, those were the days.

-- Ray Tomes -- http://www.kcbbs.gen.nz/users/rtomes/rt-home.htm --
Cycles email list -- http://www.kcbbs.gen.nz/users/af/cyc.htm
Alexandria eGroup list -- http://www.kcbbs.gen.nz/users/af/alex.htm
Boundaries of Science http://www.kcbbs.gen.nz/users/af/scienceb.htm

🔗Paul H. Erlich <PErlich@xxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxxx>

Joe Monzo wrote,

>>I agree that characterizing this experimental tuning as JI
>>is *not* a good idea, at least not plain unqualified JI, for the
>>reasons David pointed out. It's probably unfortunate that
>>many theorists and composers, including myself, have used
>>'just-intonation' to mean these extended types of rational
>>systems, since JI by definition already meant the usual 5-limit
>>tuning which provides interlocking consonant 4:5:6 triads.
>>Perhaps 'extended JI' is a reasonable name, altho just
>>calling it a '5-limit rational tuning' is probably best.

Ray Tomes wrote,

>Why not call it AJI. This is the name I came up with meaning
>"Automatic Just Intonation" and Paul independantly (I assume) came up
>with "Adaptive Just Intonation" for the same concept.

It's about as far as you can get from the same concept! Joe Monzo is
proposing a scheme where major triads are not necessarily tuned 4:5:6, but a
reasonable number of fixed pitches are used overall. Adaptive JI tunes all
major triads as 4:5:6, but may have a much larger variety of fixed pitches.
By the way, I called it Adaptive JI after John deLaubenfels started doing
so.

🔗monz@juno.com

[Paul Erlich, TD 222.12]
>
> [me, monz] RE:
http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/beethove/son9schz.htm
>
>>> just calling it a '5-limit rational tuning' is probably best.
>
> [Ray Tomes]
>> Why not call it AJI. This is the name I came up with meaning
>> "Automatic Just Intonation" and Paul independantly (I assume)
>> came up with "Adaptive Just Intonation" for the same concept.
>
> [Paul]
> It's about as far as you can get from the same concept!
> Joe Monzo is proposing a scheme where major triads are not
> necessarily tuned 4:5:6, but a reasonable number of fixed
> pitches are used overall. Adaptive JI tunes all major triads
> as 4:5:6, but may have a much larger variety of fixed pitches.

Thanks for responding to Ray with a great synopsis of the
differences, Paul.

I would like to note that altho it's true that in my experimental
scheme 'major triads are not necessarily tuned 4:5:6', I *did*
try to keep major triads tuned to those proportions as much as
possible (sort of); that is, wherever the chord is used as a
resolution, but often in passing chords also. It depends on the
musical context and on the shifts I used in the root-movement.

What really makes it different from regular 5-limit JI is that
the *root*-movement contains commatic shifts.

-monz

Joseph L. Monzo monz@juno.com
http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/homepage.html
|"...I had broken thru the lattice barrier..."|
| - Erv Wilson |
--------------------------------------------------

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🔗Paul H. Erlich <PErlich@Acadian-Asset.com>

Ray Tomes wrote,

>>Why not call it AJI. This is the name I came up with meaning
>>"Automatic Just Intonation" and Paul independantly (I assume) came up
>>with "Adaptive Just Intonation" for the same concept.

I wrote,

>It's about as far as you can get from the same concept! Joe Monzo is
>proposing a scheme where major triads are not necessarily tuned 4:5:6, but
a
>reasonable number of fixed pitches are used overall.

Whoops, Monzo does tune major triads 4:5:6, but rather than being adaptive
in any way, his scheme sticks strictly to the 5-limit lattice and the
"spotlight" jumps around very erratically.

Adaptive JI refers to the the fact that each pitch is retuned in subtle
(subcommatic) and multifarious ways in order to achieve JI in simulaneities
with a minimum of sacrifice in the melodic dimension; i. e., the tuning of
each note "adapts" to its harmonic and melodic environment.

🔗monz@xxxx.xxx

[Paul Erlich, TD 223.22]
>
> Whoops, Monzo does tune major triads 4:5:6, but rather than
> being adaptive in any way, his scheme sticks strictly to the
> 5-limit lattice and the "spotlight" jumps around very
> erratically.
>
> Adaptive JI refers to the the fact that each pitch is retuned
> in subtle (subcommatic) and multifarious ways in order to
> achieve JI in simulaneities with a minimum of sacrifice in
> the melodic dimension; i. e., the tuning of each note "adapts"
> to its harmonic and melodic environment.

This is also a good explanation of the differences between the
two approaches... But in my experiment, does the "spotlight"
*really* jump around erratically?

I admit that I did this more by 'feel' than by any kind of
rigorous analytical formula, but I let myself be guided by
the principles of a Pythagorean leading-tone melodically
(horizontally) and *basically* 5-limit JI harmonies (vertically).

The leap of a 40:27 '4th' between the two phrases (bars 8-9),
instead of the expected 4:3, doesn't bother my ears or
sensibilities one bit. I read about this kind of substitution
somewhere (unfortunately I can't recall the reference) in
connection with the first few notes of _Le Marseilleaise_.

How 'bout it Paul?... I issue a challenge to you to figure
out a formulaic mathematical desecription of what I did with
the root-movements here. I know it's just a short fragment,
but there should be enough meat there to chew on.

(apologies for offending the vegetarians in the audience)

Joseph L. Monzo monz@juno.com
http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/homepage.html
|"...I had broken thru the lattice barrier..."|
| - Erv Wilson |
--------------------------------------------------

🔗rtomes@xxxxx.xxx.xxxxxxxxxxxxx)

Paul H. Erlich [TD223.21]

>Whoops, Monzo does tune major triads 4:5:6, but rather than being adaptive
>in any way, his scheme sticks strictly to the 5-limit lattice and the
>"spotlight" jumps around very erratically.

I listened to Monzo's piece but haven't read the description - I guess I
got found out - the trouble is that there aren't enough hours in the
day.

>Adaptive JI refers to the the fact that each pitch is retuned in subtle
>(subcommatic) and multifarious ways in order to achieve JI in simulaneities
>with a minimum of sacrifice in the melodic dimension; i. e., the tuning of
>each note "adapts" to its harmonic and melodic environment.

Your description is the same as my meaning for AJI. I like the term AJI
because it stands for both the terms that we came up with independently.
When did you first coin this term, and when did you first devise a
scheme for doing it? I am curious as to whether we both got hit by the
same "inspiration particle" as Terry Pratchett calls them.

and in another post:
>Whoops, sorry I accidentally clicked twice and the "send" button came up
>exactly where the "reply" button had been on the first click. So I posted an
>entire copy of TD 222. Sorry!

One advantage of composing posts off line - about half my blunders get
caught before I send them :-)

🔗perlich@acadian-asset.com

I wrote,

>>Adaptive JI refers to the the fact that each >>pitch is retuned in subtle
>>(subcommatic) and multifarious ways in order to >>achieve JI in simulaneities
>>with a minimum of sacrifice in the melodic >>dimension; i. e., the tuning of
>>each note "adapts" to its harmonic and melodic >>environment.

Ray Tomes wrote,

>Your description is the same as my meaning for >AJI.

I don't think so, because it seems like you would never use shifts of less than a comma.

>When did you first coin this term,

I already told you that I didn't! And I believe Harold Waage has been talking about automatic JI for some time.

>and when did
>you first devise a scheme for doing it?

I think I mentioned the idea of tuning the roots in meantone and the chords in JI several years ago, but it really came up in detail in the discussion with John deLaubenfels. I thought of it after I attended an AFMM concert (1995?) and Johnny Reinhard told me that they had performed a piece with the roots in Pythagorean and the chords in JI. I immediately thought that would lead to a large number of full-comma shifts and thought of a better solution.