Re: 7-limit la Turk

> From: "ertugrulInanc" <ertugrulinanc@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: Middle-eastern tunings: Arabic, Turkish, Saz
>

Hi and welcome Ertugrul

Somehow I missed your arrival on this group but am greatly
pleased to have someone with your obvious practical and
theoretic knowledge of Middle-eastern tunings.

> I can play ba�lama sort of instruments poorly, depending on my
> knowledge of Ud. I didn't ever measure a fret but I remember
> occassionally moving some of them up or down for a better sounding
> interval. The "standard" major/minor/just intervals are no problem.
> However, I try to get 12/11 or 11/10 seconds (or 150~165 cents) which
> are vital. I also try to get 5/4 instead of a ditone.

I'm a fledgling 31et guitarist. 31et is a meantone and as such is
never (to my knowledge) mentioned as a good vehicle for these musics
as they reach back towards pythagorean tuning. I think the guitar
has the ability to tolerate things that would beat like crazy on a
piano, hence, though I find the 9/8 approximation to be a little
weak, I usually find the fifths to be fine.

Some of my improvisation is what some might hear as "Oriental
flavored" although I don't really pursue any fixed Maqam. An
example scale (that does have a name that I don't remember) is :

intervals 4 4 5 5 4 4 5
degrees 0 4 8 13 18 22 26
rational 1/1 11/10 6/5 4/3 3/2 18/11 9/5
cents 0 155 310 504 696 852 1006

(Other rational interpretations are legitimate...)

Regarding your comment on the 12/11 or 11/10... Is it an
important property that this be a bisection of the "minor
third" used by the performer, or do players nuance the
difference in sizes? Similarly, for those players who
use a mode with a tetrachord like

1/1 9/8 5/4 4/3

is it important that the 9/8 be differentiated from the
10/9 or do they play the 9/8 as a bisection of the 5/4?

>
> FWIW, I did some finger-position measurings on my Ud, which is a
> fretless instrument, so more practical for legati and pitch
> preciseness. For instance, 13/10 fourth came out from such
> measurements rather than mathemetical calculations. (It's used to
> form a Sab� tetrachord/pentachord 10:11:12:13:15)

This is a very interesting construct. About your 13/10, do you
sense this as the same size step as the two preceding it? For
instance, in 31et, 13/12, 12/11 and 11/10 are all the same thing
and I wonder if that is a desirable property or if it is missing
a necessary inflection.

I'm familiar with tetrachords and comfortable with (rightly
or wrongly) stacking them to create octave scales.
Do you stack pentachords to form a non-octave scale? Do players add
in the missing "14" as a passing tone or some such? Do they
extend it to "20" straight up the overtone series?

What is your opinion of the Signell book as that is one of the
few I have access to and can read?

Again, welcome

Bob Valentine

--- In tuning@y..., Robert C Valentine <BVAL@I...> wrote:
> Hi and welcome Ertugrul
>
> Somehow I missed your arrival on this group but am greatly
> pleased to have someone with your obvious practical and
> theoretic knowledge of Middle-eastern tunings.

Thanks. I'm not a newby, actually. I come and go occassionally but
cannot follow regularly bacause of the very high messaging traffic.
I'm, on the other hand, totally a novice in tuning theory and
although it does interest me, I cannot understand most of the thing
(lattices, terms etc.) because of my lack of background information.

> Some of my improvisation is what some might hear as "Oriental
> flavored" although I don't really pursue any fixed Maqam.

In Turkish (Ottoman) music (at least since early 18th c.),
compositions (including improvisations, except for some urban/popular
songs) have not depended on a particular scale or sort. Actually, a
makam is determined by its melodic progression and usage of
structural elements (tetracords etc.). You can, however, construct
scales which would serve for analytical purposes from any makam
progression.

> An
> example scale (that does have a name that I don't remember) is :
>
> intervals 4 4 5 5 4 4 5
> degrees 0 4 8 13 18 22 26
> rational 1/1 11/10 6/5 4/3 3/2 18/11 9/5
> cents 0 155 310 504 696 852 1006
>

You can name this scale (referring to makams) as Huseyni but as I've
said above, a piece in this scale do not have to be in Huseyni since
makam character is independent of the scale. Husyni pieces do use
(for instance) 9/8 or 8/5, too, without "modulating" to another makam.

> Regarding your comment on the 12/11 or 11/10... Is it an
> important property that this be a bisection of the "minor
> third" used by the performer, or do players nuance the
> difference in sizes? Similarly, for those players who
> use a mode with a tetrachord like
>
> 1/1 9/8 5/4 4/3
>
> is it important that the 9/8 be differentiated from the
> 10/9 or do they play the 9/8 as a bisection of the 5/4?

When performers are concerned, you can find a maximum of three (at
best bet) who are involved with the tuning stuff! Traditionally,
Turkish music is taught orally and it has to be so to pass the vital
properties from one to another.

Regarding the bisection of minor third, it's a characteristical
cadential structure found in many makams and performers "slide" (not
essentially by glissando) the second degree up or down to get the
best interval. My interpretation of 11/10 or 12/11 (I prefer the
prior electronically cunstructing or composing) is a "tuning-wise"
explanation attempt. However, 12/11 and 13/12 are what's found in old
sources (Farabi... to Abdulkaadir... to Nâsır Dede et al.)

> > FWIW, I did some finger-position measurings on my Ud, which is a
> > fretless instrument, so more practical for legati and pitch
> > preciseness. For instance, 13/10 fourth came out from such
> > measurements rather than mathemetical calculations. (It's used to
> > form a Sabâ tetrachord/pentachord 10:11:12:13:15)
>
> This is a very interesting construct. About your 13/10, do you
> sense this as the same size step as the two preceding it? For
> instance, in 31et, 13/12, 12/11 and 11/10 are all the same thing
> and I wonder if that is a desirable property or if it is missing
> a necessary inflection.

Intervals become existent when they are performed, imho. In Turkish
music (as I hear them more or less fixed in Arabic/Persian practice),
especially the second (major, minor or "else") is rather flexible.
Regarding the Sabâ example, you need to manipulate the fourth degree
as the melody requires. It can be as wide as 11/10 or even narrower.
However, I insistently played (improvised) some Sabâ and used the
fourth degree oftenly (say, A-D). I observed that I was tending to
keep it at the same finger position and I measured the string length.
The ratio was interestingly 1.3 which came out to be 13/10.

Speaking theory wise, you would find three types of second intervals
in 'classical' resources: "Tanînî" (whole tone, 9/8 or
10/9), "Bakiye" (semitone, generally 16/15 or 256/243 in Pythagorean
influenced constructions) and "Mucenneb (Mujannab?)" (function as
major or minor depending on the circumstance, can be 11/10 to 14/13).
Hence, hear it or not, the three mentioned intervals are "the same
thing".

I have to refer to performance (recordings) to make it clearer. Below
are a couple of links to the two important ("must have") CDs of the
greatest living performer of Turkish music genres, composed or
improvised: Kâni Karaca. If you decide getting them, you'll
understand the "pitch shifting" clearly. (For the record, I'm not
working for the recording company, nor am I an affiliate. I don't
even like them but I don't know of any better, either.)

<http://www.kalan.com/english/scripts/album/dispalbum.asp?id=745>
<http://www.kalan.com/english/scripts/album/dispalbum.asp?id=428>

> I'm familiar with tetrachords and comfortable with (rightly
> or wrongly) stacking them to create octave scales.
> Do you stack pentachords to form a non-octave scale? Do players add
> in the missing "14" as a passing tone or some such? Do they
> extend it to "20" straight up the overtone series?

I think it's been replied by the above paragraph but let me mention
again that (speaking performer-wise) scales are used for pedagogical
purposes for learning the instrument rather than learning the music,
whose only textbook is the inheritence of present compositions.

Rearding many makams, octave scales would fail to represent the
structure properly. However, I dared to construct a non octave scale
for Sabâ:

! sab00.scl
!
Sabâ scale spanning a perfect eleventh, constructed on 1., 3. and 7.
degrees. Copyright © 2002 by Ertugrul iNANÇ
10
!
11/10
6/5
13/10
3/2
8/5
9/5
39/20
9/4
12/5
8/3

> What is your opinion of the Signell book as that is one of the
> few I have access to and can read?

I don't have it. I'm rather weak about bibliography.</gulp>

Best,
Ertugrul iNANÇ

--- In tuning@y..., "ertugrulInanc" <ertugrulinanc@y...> wrote:
> --- In tuning@y..., Robert C Valentine <BVAL@I...> wrote:

> > An
> > example scale (that does have a name that I don't remember) is :
> >
> > intervals 4 4 5 5 4 4 5
> > degrees 0 4 8 13 18 22 26
> > rational 1/1 11/10 6/5 4/3 3/2 18/11 9/5
> > cents 0 155 310 504 696 852 1006
> >

We were calling this (or an inversion of it) "Arabic diatonic" on Post Tonality, but not necessarily because we knew what we were talking about. Graham Breed might have some name for it also. The property which is most interesting to me about it is that the whole thing is an 11-limit chord of sorts, so that it seems tailor-made for harmonic uses, a fact which does not seem to have been exploited.

> You can name this scale (referring to makams) as Huseyni but as I've
> said above, a piece in this scale do not have to be in Huseyni since
> makam character is independent of the scale. Husyni pieces do use
> (for instance) 9/8 or 8/5, too, without "modulating" to another makam.

Would 5445544 in 31-et count as Huseyni? How is that defined?

Thanks for the tip on CDs.

--- In tuning@y..., "genewardsmith" <genewardsmith@j...> wrote:
> Would 5445544 in 31-et count as Huseyni? How is that defined?

Why not? As I said, it's the melodic progression what makes up a
makam. If you can do that melodic progression in 31-et, then you can
frely call the scale Huseyni.

I've just tried 31-et with Fred Nachbaur's tiny n-tone.exe (which
lets
you play n-et scales with the computer keyboard through the pc
speaker) and actually it's 4455445 which really sounds Huseyni.

Regarding the harmonic structure of the scale, I must refer to the
work of Kemal İlerici, who (in 53-et) cited it as the fundamental
scale. I don't know if he dealt with harmonic ratios and limits,
though.

I'l let you know if I find out anything.

Regards,
Ertuğrul

--- In tuning@y..., "ertugrulInanc" <ertugrulinanc@y...> wrote:

> I've just tried 31-et with Fred Nachbaur's tiny n-tone.exe (which
> lets
> you play n-et scales with the computer keyboard through the pc
> speaker) and actually it's 4455445 which really sounds Huseyni.

Have you tried Scala or Fractal Tune Smithy?

--- In tuning@y..., "genewardsmith" <genewardsmith@j...> wrote:
> --- In tuning@y..., "ertugrulInanc" <ertugrulinanc@y...> wrote:
>
> > I've just tried 31-et with Fred Nachbaur's tiny n-tone.exe (which
> > lets
> > you play n-et scales with the computer keyboard through the pc
> > speaker) and actually it's 4455445 which really sounds Huseyni.
>
> Have you tried Scala or Fractal Tune Smithy?

I don't have FTS but I'm going the Scala way right now. The other (n-
tone) was just too handy.

<...>

It works. However, I couldn't find the appropriate command to make a
4455445 scale out of equal 31. Can it be done?

Best,
Ertugrul

Ertugrul wrote:
>It works. However, I couldn't find the appropriate command to make a
>4455445 scale out of equal 31. Can it be done?

Yes, mode/equal 4 4 5 5 4 4 5
Then you can do fit/mode to find the current name for it.

Manuel

Thanks Manuel, it works like a charm.

It's Huseyni, indeed, and Scala modes archive agrees with that too.

Best,
Ertugrul

--- In tuning@y..., manuel.op.de.coul@e... wrote:
> Ertugrul wrote:
> >It works. However, I couldn't find the appropriate command to make
a
> >4455445 scale out of equal 31. Can it be done?
>
> Yes, mode/equal 4 4 5 5 4 4 5
> Then you can do fit/mode to find the current name for it.
>
> Manuel