timbral tessitura

I meant it in a kind of general way, rather than being specific about
signing. I was trying to say that if something was added to a timbre, then
it may alter its 'tessitura' and imply that the whole timbre appears to rise
or fall in pitch. Nothing about singing. I just felt tessitura rise did not
imply that tones rose, but that the overall timbral content 'rose'.

anyway, looking again at jerry 10, this is close to just, followed by an Et
Major third. The rise is due to the 14 cent rise in pitch from the raw open
fifth which dominates, and the beatless third, to a combination with beats.
The reinforcement of the fundamental through difference tones (however
perceived) is reduced, and the tone appears to rise timbrally. The 'aug 4th'
sonority must be an artefact of the harmonic components due to the minor
difference between a 3/2 and 702, and 386 and 5/4.

I suppose...

> From: tuning@yahoogroups.com
> Reply-To: tuning@yahoogroups.com
> Date: 17 Apr 2002 17:19:46 -0000
> To: tuning@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [tuning] Digest Number 2015
>
> Subject: Re: Jerry 10
>
> What does "a tessitura rise in the timbre" mean? Tessitura means the
> vocal range where most of the pitches in a vocal part fall.

Well, if there is anything in psychoacoustic research that would
demonstrate that harmonic timbres shift in subjective pitch with a
change in the "tessitura" of the harmonic overtones, I would be
rather surprised. I would think the change would have to be rather
extreme in any case to effect such a perceptual anomaly. Quite the
contrary, the timbres in Jerry10 did not shift at all in my
perception.

Respectfully,

Bob

--- In tuning@y..., Mark Gould <mark.gould@a...> wrote:
> I meant it in a kind of general way, rather than being specific
about
> signing. I was trying to say that if something was added to a
timbre, then
> it may alter its 'tessitura' and imply that the whole timbre
appears to rise
> or fall in pitch. Nothing about singing. I just felt tessitura rise
did not
> imply that tones rose, but that the overall timbral content 'rose'.
>
> anyway, looking again at jerry 10, this is close to just, followed
by an Et
> Major third. The rise is due to the 14 cent rise in pitch from the
raw open
> fifth which dominates, and the beatless third, to a combination
with beats.
> The reinforcement of the fundamental through difference tones
(however
> perceived) is reduced, and the tone appears to rise timbrally.
The 'aug 4th'
> sonority must be an artefact of the harmonic components due to the
minor
> difference between a 3/2 and 702, and 386 and 5/4.
>
> I suppose...
>
> > From: tuning@y...
> > Reply-To: tuning@y...
> > Date: 17 Apr 2002 17:19:46 -0000
> > To: tuning@y...
> > Subject: [tuning] Digest Number 2015
> >
> > Subject: Re: Jerry 10
> >
> > What does "a tessitura rise in the timbre" mean? Tessitura means
the
> > vocal range where most of the pitches in a vocal part fall.

Browsing trough the archive I discovered that in
/tuning/topicId_19047.html#19047, Ibo Ortgies
suggested

Gesualdo: Quinto libro dei madrigali
The Concsort of Musicke (S: Emma Kirkby and Evelyn Tubb, A: Mary
Nichols, T: Joseph Cornwell and Andrew King, B: Richard Wistreich).
Anthony Rooley
P 1983
released 1991 as CD
Decca: L'oiseau-lyre 410128-2

as being "one recording which comes close to a "Flexible Just
Intonation""

I am quite happy to have this information because, even though this
recording is not available, I had taken Monteverdi madrigals by the
same wonderful team to perform some of my little research. By taking
some tryadic chords here and there in the Madrigal "Ah dolente
partita" from the book IV, I verified that they are alway JI (4:5:6 or
10:12:15) no surprise.

I am puzzled by measurement of the interval between the degree III and
IV of the scale. In JI, as far as I understand, it should be a "large"
major semitone of 16/15 (am I correct?). As a matter of fact, it is a
"narrow" minor semitone which is (within the accuracy of my measure)
much more like 25/24. This seems to occur consistently on a "naked"
semitone between the sopranos (at the begining of the madrigal) as
well as in the context of 7th chords.

This 25/24 sounds great to my (moderately trained) ear, and it is
certainly not a piece of cake to perform it accurately and
consistently. But is it really what JI would predict? or is it an
idiosyncratic habit of those singers? of early music singers in
general?

Any idea ??

By the way, I have 2 "modern" scores at hand, one in C (Dover
editions) one in Bflat (from www.cpdl.org). I do not know much of
musical notation by Monteverdi time? Is the Bflat a modern
transcription to cope with modern pitch?

yours truly

François Laferrière

--- In tuning@y..., "francois_laferriere" <francois.laferriere@c...>
wrote:
> Browsing trough the archive I discovered that in
> /tuning/topicId_19047.html#19047, Ibo Ortgies
> suggested
>
> Gesualdo: Quinto libro dei madrigali
> The Concsort of Musicke (S: Emma Kirkby and Evelyn Tubb, A: Mary
> Nichols, T: Joseph Cornwell and Andrew King, B: Richard Wistreich).
> Anthony Rooley
> P 1983
> released 1991 as CD
> Decca: L'oiseau-lyre 410128-2
>
> as being "one recording which comes close to a "Flexible Just
> Intonation""
>
> I am quite happy to have this information because, even though this
> recording is not available, I had taken Monteverdi madrigals by the
> same wonderful team to perform some of my little research. By taking
> some tryadic chords here and there in the Madrigal "Ah dolente
> partita" from the book IV, I verified that they are alway JI (4:5:6
or
> 10:12:15) no surprise.

some might be surprised that you didn't find 16:19:24 minor triads. i
think 10:12:15 is more appropriate in renaissance music.

> I am puzzled by measurement of the interval between the degree III
and
> IV of the scale. In JI, as far as I understand, it should be
a "large"
> major semitone of 16/15 (am I correct?). As a matter of fact, it is
a
> "narrow" minor semitone which is (within the accuracy of my measure)
> much more like 25/24. This seems to occur consistently on a "naked"
> semitone between the sopranos (at the begining of the madrigal) as
> well as in the context of 7th chords.

can you give more fully some examples of harmonic progressions where
you're finding this interval?

> This 25/24 sounds great to my (moderately trained) ear, and it is
> certainly not a piece of cake to perform it accurately and
> consistently. But is it really what JI would predict?

strict JI may be correct in its specification of the vertical
sonorities in renaissance music, but it's been quite clear to me for
some time that it fails to make reasonable predictions about melodic
intervals. my reasons tended to revolve around the issue of comma
shifts and comma drifts, although it seems there may be an even
stronger effect at work here.

> or is it an
> idiosyncratic habit of those singers? of early music singers in
> general?
>
> Any idea ??

what you're finding is sort of in accord with some published results
on the singing of barbershop quartets. supposedly, the melody or lead
line is performed in something resembling Pythagorean intonation,
with the chords adjusted to be 5-limit just *with respect to the
lead*. In Pythagorean, the diatonic semitone (256/243) is 90.2 cents,
as opposed to the just diatonic semitone (16/15) of 111.7 cents. of
course, 25/24 is only 70.7 cents, but at least this Pythagorean
melody explanation gets us halfway there . . . (?)

Francois said:
> I am puzzled by measurement of the interval between the degree III
and
> IV of the scale. In JI, as far as I understand, it should be
a "large"
> major semitone of 16/15 (am I correct?).

Bob W.:
Yes, in a fixed tuning, this would be true.

As a matter of fact, it is a
> "narrow" minor semitone which is (within the accuracy of my measure)
> much more like 25/24. This seems to occur consistently on a "naked"
> semitone between the sopranos (at the begining of the madrigal) as
> well as in the context of 7th chords.

Bob:
Well, of course a cappella singing is not bound by a fixed keyboard
tuning, and if you mean by "naked" semitone that it occurs without
harmony from the other parts, it could easily be this narrow,
especially if the ADAPTIVE JI in this cappella singing calls for
compensating a comma shift nearby.

>
> This 25/24 sounds great to my (moderately trained) ear, and it is
> certainly not a piece of cake to perform it accurately and
> consistently. But is it really what JI would predict?

Bob:
No, not what strict JI would predict, but adaptive JI allows for all
kinds of melodic fudging to eliminate comma drift problems,
especially when melodic phrases are left exposed with no harmony or
counterpoint, even if for only one note. Narrow leading tones and the
shift from melodic degree three to four in major mode like to be
narrow from a strictly melodic viewpoint. This can and often does
conveniently coincide with the need to eliminate comma drift.

or is it an
> idiosyncratic habit of those singers? of early music singers in
> general?

Bob:
'Nuff said. (See my previous comment.)

--- In tuning@y..., "francois_laferriere" <francois.laferriere@c...>
wrote:
> Browsing trough the archive I discovered that in
> /tuning/topicId_19047.html#19047, Ibo Ortgies
> suggested
>
> Gesualdo: Quinto libro dei madrigali
> The Concsort of Musicke (S: Emma Kirkby and Evelyn Tubb, A: Mary
> Nichols, T: Joseph Cornwell and Andrew King, B: Richard Wistreich).
> Anthony Rooley
> P 1983
> released 1991 as CD
> Decca: L'oiseau-lyre 410128-2
>
> as being "one recording which comes close to a "Flexible Just
> Intonation""
>
> I am quite happy to have this information because, even though this
> recording is not available, I had taken Monteverdi madrigals by the
> same wonderful team to perform some of my little research. By taking
> some tryadic chords here and there in the Madrigal "Ah dolente
> partita" from the book IV, I verified that they are alway JI (4:5:6
or
> 10:12:15) no surprise.
>
> I am puzzled by measurement of the interval between the degree III
and
> IV of the scale. In JI, as far as I understand, it should be
a "large"
> major semitone of 16/15 (am I correct?). As a matter of fact, it is
a
> "narrow" minor semitone which is (within the accuracy of my measure)
> much more like 25/24. This seems to occur consistently on a "naked"
> semitone between the sopranos (at the begining of the madrigal) as
> well as in the context of 7th chords.
>
> This 25/24 sounds great to my (moderately trained) ear, and it is
> certainly not a piece of cake to perform it accurately and
> consistently. But is it really what JI would predict? or is it an
> idiosyncratic habit of those singers? of early music singers in
> general?
>
> Any idea ??
>
> By the way, I have 2 "modern" scores at hand, one in C (Dover
> editions) one in Bflat (from www.cpdl.org). I do not know much of
> musical notation by Monteverdi time? Is the Bflat a modern
> transcription to cope with modern pitch?
>
> yours truly
>
> François Laferrière

--- In tuning@y..., "robert_wendell" <rwendell@c...> wrote:

> Well, of course a cappella singing is not bound by a fixed keyboard
> tuning, and if you mean by "naked" semitone that it occurs without
> harmony from the other parts, it could easily be this narrow,
> especially if the ADAPTIVE JI in this cappella singing calls for
> compensating a comma shift nearby.
>
> No, not what strict JI would predict, but adaptive JI allows for
all
> kinds of melodic fudging to eliminate comma drift problems,
> especially when melodic phrases are left exposed with no harmony or
> counterpoint, even if for only one note. Narrow leading tones and
the
> shift from melodic degree three to four in major mode like to be
> narrow from a strictly melodic viewpoint. This can and often does
> conveniently coincide with the need to eliminate comma drift.

hmm . . . the simplest (and often best) model of adaptive JI to
eliminate full-comma shifts and comma drift is vicentino's second
tuning of 1555 (at least as margo has interpreted it). here two (or
occasionally more) parallel 1/4-comma meantone chains, 1/4-comma
apart, are used to produce all the desired vertically just sonorities.

the diatonic semitone in 1/4-comma meantone tuning is 117.1 cents. so
the three most common diatonic semitones, by far, in this model of
adaptive JI would be 117.1 cents and 117.1 plus or minus 1/4 comma,
that is, 111.7 cents and 122.5 cents.

so it seems to me that the need to eliminate comma drift, taken
alone, does not lead to diatonic semitones narrower than 16/15 (111.7
cents), let alone ones near 25/24 (70.7 cents), and therefore
cannot 'conveniently coincide' with the strictly melodic desire to
narrow diatonic semitones.

what am i missing?

--- In tuning@y..., Mark Gould <mark.gould@a...> wrote:
>
> anyway, looking again at jerry 10, this is close to just, followed
by an Et
> Major third. The rise is due to the 14 cent rise in pitch from the
raw open
> fifth which dominates, and the beatless third, to a combination
with beats.
> The reinforcement of the fundamental through difference tones
(however
> perceived) is reduced, and the tone appears to rise timbrally.
The 'aug 4th'
> sonority must be an artefact of the harmonic components due to the
minor
> difference between a 3/2 and 702, and 386 and 5/4.
>
> I suppose...

actually, i used a precise, just 3/2 and 5/4, not a 'tempered' 702
and 386. fwiw.

Thanks for the comments

The score is available online at
http://cpdl.snaptel.com/sheet/mont-ahd.pdf. For the first 3 bars, both
soprano sing a D5, then at bar 4, soprano I rise to Eflat. As it is at
the very beginning, there is no possible pitch drift to fix. I doubt
we could find simpler exemple out of actual musical example. I whish I
have different realisation of this madrigal at hand.

By the way, between the initial note and the last chord, the overall
pitch drift is less than 15 cents (quite impressive! )

I will be nowhere near a computer for the week to come. I will try to
provide more information when I am back.

yours truly

François Laferrière

--- In tuning@y..., "emotionaljourney22" <paul@s...> wrote:
> --- In tuning@y..., "robert_wendell" <rwendell@c...> wrote:
>
> > Well, of course a cappella singing is not bound by a fixed
keyboard
> > tuning, and if you mean by "naked" semitone that it occurs
without
> > harmony from the other parts, it could easily be this narrow,
> > especially if the ADAPTIVE JI in this cappella singing calls for
> > compensating a comma shift nearby.
> >
> > No, not what strict JI would predict, but adaptive JI allows for
> all
> > kinds of melodic fudging to eliminate comma drift problems,
> > especially when melodic phrases are left exposed with no harmony
or
> > counterpoint, even if for only one note. Narrow leading tones and
> the
> > shift from melodic degree three to four in major mode like to be
> > narrow from a strictly melodic viewpoint. This can and often does
> > conveniently coincide with the need to eliminate comma drift.
>
> hmm . . . the simplest (and often best) model of adaptive JI to
> eliminate full-comma shifts and comma drift is vicentino's second
> tuning of 1555 (at least as margo has interpreted it). here two (or
> occasionally more) parallel 1/4-comma meantone chains, 1/4-comma
> apart, are used to produce all the desired vertically just
sonorities.
>
> the diatonic semitone in 1/4-comma meantone tuning is 117.1 cents.
so
> the three most common diatonic semitones, by far, in this model of
> adaptive JI would be 117.1 cents and 117.1 plus or minus 1/4 comma,
> that is, 111.7 cents and 122.5 cents.
>
> so it seems to me that the need to eliminate comma drift, taken
> alone, does not lead to diatonic semitones narrower than 16/15
(111.7
> cents), let alone ones near 25/24 (70.7 cents), and therefore
> cannot 'conveniently coincide' with the strictly melodic desire to
> narrow diatonic semitones.
>
> what am i missing?

Bob:
Hi, Paul! Well, I was not referring to an overall strategy of
adaptive JI in the sense you illustrate above. With no idea of the
specifics of this piece, I was just guessing in a general way about
possibilities. Without the Vicento meantone strategy, the fudging
that takes place would not have to conform to the distributed comma
solution implicit in meantone.

I do, however, like the overall strategy from your other post on this
about using Pythagorean melody as an ideal in the lead voice (not
always necessarily soprano) and adapting the other voices to
harmonize justly with it. I actually tend to use a similar strategy
with 12-tone ET rather than Pythagorean, since such keyboards abound
everywhere and are the only practical reference in many situations.
It just tends to turn out that way in the musical ecosystem we
inhabit.

Actually 12-tET (11th-comma meantone) is quite handy for this
purpose, and not melodically so maladapted to it. I feel that singers
fudge intuitively without any directive to do so or even
consciousness of doing so when they wish to remain in the same
relationship to a tonal center, but aim for just vertical harmonies.

All kinds of things can happen with this kind of intuitive fudging,
but in our enviroment I believe it tends to be based on 12-tET, since
that's what we're accustomed to all our lives in most cases and
that's what most of us have available to check against when we wonder
if we're still in the same tonal realm.

Cheers,

Bob

Hello all,

we are a small group here rehearsing Orlando di Lasso's
Prophetiae Sybillarum, a set of highly chromatic pieces.
(Ed.: Bärenreiter 4281, 1990)

Just out of curiosity I calculated drift in the first piece (Carmina
chromatico...), and arrived at 4 or 5 synt. commas lower at the
end of it (whole length only 25 brevis). Almost all of the sonorities
are connected by common notes, or to say it the other way round:
there are too few opportunities to adapt melodic steps in order to
maintain a stable Finalis. Singing all of the 13 pieces in
succession would yield a drift a fourth down in my first rough
estimation.

[chromatic notes found in the first piece: F#, C#, G#, D# A#, Bb,
Eb]

Right now I can think of 4 solutions:

- live with this and hope for some helping inaccuracies (I don't
like this one...)
- try to shift upwards as much as possible where possible (i.e.
no common note) - not a very subtle method too
- try sort of "chromatizing" even held-over notes (maybe this
could be an proper image for "sybillinic speech"?)
- thinking about some sort of unearthly thirds (greater than 4:5)

What are your opinions in this case?

Michael Meixner
meixner@mdw.ac.at

(Sorry if my English isn't as clear to the point I wished.)

--- In tuning@y..., "michaelmeixner" <meixner@m...> wrote:
>
> Hello all,
>
> we are a small group here rehearsing Orlando di Lasso's
> Prophetiae Sybillarum, a set of highly chromatic pieces.
> (Ed.: Bärenreiter 4281, 1990)
>
> Just out of curiosity I calculated drift in the first piece
(Carmina
> chromatico...), and arrived at 4 or 5 synt. commas lower at the
> end of it (whole length only 25 brevis). Almost all of the
sonorities
> are connected by common notes, or to say it the other way round:
> there are too few opportunities to adapt melodic steps in order to
> maintain a stable Finalis. Singing all of the 13 pieces in
> succession would yield a drift a fourth down in my first rough
> estimation.
>
> [chromatic notes found in the first piece: F#, C#, G#, D# A#, Bb,
> Eb]
>
> Right now I can think of 4 solutions:
>
> - live with this and hope for some helping inaccuracies (I don't
> like this one...)
> - try to shift upwards as much as possible where possible (i.e.
> no common note) - not a very subtle method too
> - try sort of "chromatizing" even held-over notes (maybe this
> could be an proper image for "sybillinic speech"?)
> - thinking about some sort of unearthly thirds (greater than 4:5)
>
> What are your opinions in this case?
>
> Michael Meixner
> meixner@m...
>
> (Sorry if my English isn't as clear to the point I wished.)

Hi! Your English is quite clear, Michael. In practical adaptive JI,
my approach is to simply allow the singers to intuitively adjust.
They are most often not even aware of the fudging they're doing to
avoid comma drift. There are three fundamental aspects to my approach.

1) Train or use singers trained to accurately hear just harmonies so
they spontaneously tend to tune vertically for absolute purity.

2) Set the goal of not migrating the pitch. I use a standard 12-EDO
electronic keyboard to check pitch. Timbre selection is important, so
you might want to experiment. I use a lighter organ timbre with
moderate harmonic content.

3) Let the necessary fudging take place intuitively. No need to talk
about it except to establish the goal, nor should you attempt to
implement predefined tuning strategies. This is beyond almost
everyone's capability. Good luck if you attempt it, because you will
definitely need a lot of that!

What happens when there are common tones as in your situation that
would seem to "lock in" some comma drift? The singers, again usually
unconsciously, fudge even while singing the same pitch. For
example,if you use a standard 12-EDO electronic keyboard and tune a
pure vocal G between octave Cs, then move the keyboard notes inward
to Eb and Bb, a pitch-sensitive singer will retune the G down by
about 18 cents to make the Eb major triad just.

The voice can execute this "fudging" much more subtly than a fixed
pitch instrument, moving stealthily down in a short enough time to
avoid creating an unpleasantly long tuning dissonance, but long
enough to eliminate the aural "shock" of a sudden shift down by 18
cents. A move of 18 cents on a keyboard in one discrete quantum leap
is disturbing, but the voice can do this with little to no disturbing
effect to anyone except the most exquisitely sensitive, fastidiously
addicted microtonalists (the "Princess and the Pea" types).

We are all accustomed to continuously making subtle pitch adjustments
of this order of magnitude or greater in non-fixed pitch instruments
and/or vocal parts. These adjustments must occur if we are to react
to our corrective aural feedback. Only fixed tunings do not use such
adjustments as a normal part of performance practice.

A series of such adjustments made intuitively by singers who
themselves are hardly aware of them should not prove disturbing to
anyone else either. If there are vocal ensembles in the world who
nail JI pitches spot on with no adjustments of this size or greater,
please let me know, but I've never heard them. I would tend to regard
that as a pipe dream. On the other hand, although rare enough, there
are ensembles that sing beautifully in adaptive JI and do not drift
over the longer haul even through highly chromatic passages.

Hope this helps, Michael!

Cheers,

Bob

--- In tuning@y..., "robert_wendell" <rwendell@c...> wrote:
>
> --- In tuning@y..., "emotionaljourney22" <paul@s...> wrote:

> > so it seems to me that the need to eliminate comma drift, taken
> > alone, does not lead to diatonic semitones narrower than 16/15
> (111.7
> > cents), let alone ones near 25/24 (70.7 cents), and therefore
> > cannot 'conveniently coincide' with the strictly melodic desire
to
> > narrow diatonic semitones.
> >
> > what am i missing?
>
> Bob:
> Hi, Paul! Well, I was not referring to an overall strategy of
> adaptive JI in the sense you illustrate above. With no idea of the
> specifics of this piece, I was just guessing in a general way about
> possibilities. Without the Vicento meantone strategy, the fudging
> that takes place would not have to conform to the distributed comma
> solution implicit in meantone.

right, but can you think of any example where narrowing the diatonic
semitones can 'conveniently coincide' with the need to eliminate
comma drift? i can't.

just being picky as usual,
paul

--- In tuning@y..., "michaelmeixner" <meixner@m...> wrote:
>
> Hello all,
>
> we are a small group here rehearsing Orlando di Lasso's
> Prophetiae Sybillarum, a set of highly chromatic pieces.
> (Ed.: Bärenreiter 4281, 1990)
>
> Just out of curiosity I calculated drift in the first piece
(Carmina
> chromatico...), and arrived at 4 or 5 synt. commas lower at the
> end of it (whole length only 25 brevis). Almost all of the
sonorities
> are connected by common notes, or to say it the other way round:
> there are too few opportunities to adapt melodic steps in order to
> maintain a stable Finalis. Singing all of the 13 pieces in
> succession would yield a drift a fourth down in my first rough
> estimation.
>
> [chromatic notes found in the first piece: F#, C#, G#, D# A#, Bb,
> Eb]
>
> Right now I can think of 4 solutions:
>
> - live with this and hope for some helping inaccuracies (I don't
> like this one...)
> - try to shift upwards as much as possible where possible (i.e.
> no common note) - not a very subtle method too
> - try sort of "chromatizing" even held-over notes (maybe this
> could be an proper image for "sybillinic speech"?)

can you explain exactly what you mean by this?

> - thinking about some sort of unearthly thirds (greater than 4:5)
>
> What are your opinions in this case?
>
> Michael Meixner
> meixner@m...
>
> (Sorry if my English isn't as clear to the point I wished.)

personally i'd advocate, in theory, something like Vicentino's second
tuning of 1555 for this piece (or anything similar). all vertical
harmonies are pure, and there is no drift. the distinctions involved
in this tuning are very subtle -- every written note has two
different versions 5-6 cents apart -- so translating the theory into
practice could be very difficult. i mostly side with bob's
suggestions about allowing intuition to rule, but i will add a caveat.

as bob suggested in another recent posts, musicians today, left to
their 'intution', tend to gravitate toward 12-equal intonation for
melodies. combining this kind of 'intuition' with the adaptive JI
desideratum both he and i advocate (again, vertically pure harmonies,
and no drift), given that Lassus' music is eminently polyphonic, with
no voice deserving to be called the 'lead line', will be problematic.
(i'll leave an analysis of this situation as an exercise.)

my advice is to try to wean the singers away from any 12-equal
habits. if a meantone-tuned instrument is available, use this as much
as possible to train the singers singing the piece -- i believe this
to be a historically appropriate approach for Lassus. the Vicentino
solution can take off from this tuning and acheive vertical JI by
tuning triad roots and major thirds a tiny amount (less than 3 cents)
lower than the keyboard reference, and tuning triad minor thirds and
fifths a tiny amount (less than 3 cents) higher than the keyboard
reference. but these distinctions don't even need to be mentioned,
and will probably only be confusing if they are. these are
melodically subliminal distinctions. if the singers are familiar with
both the melodic intervals of meantone, and the experience of
vertical JI, everything else should fall into place.

in previous discussions on these sorts of issues, Johnny Reinhard
expressed conviction that strict JI would be more appropriate, and
that the 'natural' amount of drift implied by the piece is not only
allowable, but actually desirable, for renaissance music. search the
archives for 'Gesualdo' and you're likely to find much of this
discussion. so these issues are certainly not without their
controversy!

good luck,
paul

Comma drift can occur in either direction, up or down. It seems,
shooting from the seat of my pants, that most progressions tend to
lower it. A thin move of a semitone downwards moves pitch back up a
bit. Conversely, in the case of an upward comma drift, a thin move up
lowers the pitch a bit. These moves would have to happen either with
the diatonic half-step in one lone voice part left exposed with no
other parts temporarily, or the other parts would have to shift
stealthily with it.

(You're "good picky", and your pickiness is based on solid reasoning
and pretty reliable data.)

Cheers,

Bob

--- In tuning@y..., "emotionaljourney22" <paul@s...> wrote:
> --- In tuning@y..., "robert_wendell" <rwendell@c...> wrote:
> >
> > --- In tuning@y..., "emotionaljourney22" <paul@s...> wrote:
>
> > > so it seems to me that the need to eliminate comma drift, taken
> > > alone, does not lead to diatonic semitones narrower than 16/15
> > (111.7
> > > cents), let alone ones near 25/24 (70.7 cents), and therefore
> > > cannot 'conveniently coincide' with the strictly melodic desire
> to
> > > narrow diatonic semitones.
> > >
> > > what am i missing?
> >
> > Bob:
> > Hi, Paul! Well, I was not referring to an overall strategy of
> > adaptive JI in the sense you illustrate above. With no idea of
the
> > specifics of this piece, I was just guessing in a general way
about
> > possibilities. Without the Vicento meantone strategy, the fudging
> > that takes place would not have to conform to the distributed
comma
> > solution implicit in meantone.
>
> right, but can you think of any example where narrowing the
diatonic
> semitones can 'conveniently coincide' with the need to eliminate
> comma drift? i can't.
>
> just being picky as usual,
> paul

Comma drift can occur in either direction, up or down. It seems,
shooting from the seat of my pants, that most progressions tend to
lower it. A thin move of a semitone downwards moves pitch back up a
bit. Conversely, in the case of an upward comma drift, a thin move up
lowers the pitch a bit. These moves would have to happen either with
the diatonic half-step in one lone voice part left exposed with no
other parts temporarily, or the other parts would have to shift
stealthily with it.

(You're "good picky", and your pickiness is based on solid reasoning
and pretty reliable data.)

Cheers,

Bob

--- In tuning@y..., "emotionaljourney22" <paul@s...> wrote:
> --- In tuning@y..., "robert_wendell" <rwendell@c...> wrote:
> >
> > --- In tuning@y..., "emotionaljourney22" <paul@s...> wrote:
>
> > > so it seems to me that the need to eliminate comma drift, taken
> > > alone, does not lead to diatonic semitones narrower than 16/15
> > (111.7
> > > cents), let alone ones near 25/24 (70.7 cents), and therefore
> > > cannot 'conveniently coincide' with the strictly melodic desire
> to
> > > narrow diatonic semitones.
> > >
> > > what am i missing?
> >
> > Bob:
> > Hi, Paul! Well, I was not referring to an overall strategy of
> > adaptive JI in the sense you illustrate above. With no idea of
the
> > specifics of this piece, I was just guessing in a general way
about
> > possibilities. Without the Vicento meantone strategy, the fudging
> > that takes place would not have to conform to the distributed
comma
> > solution implicit in meantone.
>
> right, but can you think of any example where narrowing the
diatonic
> semitones can 'conveniently coincide' with the need to eliminate
> comma drift? i can't.
>
> just being picky as usual,
> paul

--- In tuning@y..., "robert_wendell" <rwendell@c...> wrote:

> Comma drift can occur in either direction, up or down. It seems,
> shooting from the seat of my pants, that most progressions tend to
> lower it. A thin move of a semitone downwards moves pitch back up a
> bit. Conversely, in the case of an upward comma drift, a thin move
up
> lowers the pitch a bit. These moves would have to happen either
with
> the diatonic half-step in one lone voice part left exposed with no
> other parts temporarily, or the other parts would have to shift
> stealthily with it.

didn't think of that approach! certainly there's a lot of room
for 'microtonal ficta' of these kinds in performing renaissance
choral music -- and not just via the whole commas that strict ji and
jonathan walker restrict you to :)

(looks like you're posting things repeatedly again -- your posts are
well worth the wait, so let's try a little patience instead, ok?)

--- In tuning@y..., "emotionaljourney22" <paul@s...> wrote:
> --- In tuning@y..., "robert_wendell" <rwendell@c...> wrote:
>
> > Comma drift can occur in either direction, up or down. It seems,
> > shooting from the seat of my pants, that most progressions tend
to
> > lower it. A thin move of a semitone downwards moves pitch back up
a
> > bit. Conversely, in the case of an upward comma drift, a thin
move
> up
> > lowers the pitch a bit. These moves would have to happen either
> with
> > the diatonic half-step in one lone voice part left exposed with
no
> > other parts temporarily, or the other parts would have to shift
> > stealthily with it.
>
> didn't think of that approach! certainly there's a lot of room
> for 'microtonal ficta' of these kinds in performing renaissance
> choral music -- and not just via the whole commas that strict ji
and
> jonathan walker restrict you to :)
>
> (looks like you're posting things repeatedly again -- your posts
are
> well worth the wait, so let's try a little patience instead, ok?)

Bob:
Oh, sorry, and thank you, but the interface is screwed up so it
doesn't even always confirm it was posted. I don't get it. Yahoo used
to work better than this. This was not due to impatience or expecting
it to appear earlier than it did.

On your statement:
"...certainly there's a lot of room
> for 'microtonal ficta' of these kinds in performing renaissance
> choral music -- and not just via the whole commas that strict ji
and
> jonathan walker restrict you to..."

I think that "not thinking of this approach" comes from your strong
orientation toward fixed tunings rather than flexibly-pitched
performance. My orientation is an outgrowth of what simply happens
naturally when you insist on pure vocal harmonies in the context of
not drifting.

--- In tuning@y..., "robert_wendell" <rwendell@c...> wrote:

> I think that "not thinking of this approach" comes from your strong
> orientation toward fixed tunings rather than flexibly-pitched
> performance.

not at all -- i simply have a great deal of familiarity with
completely-flexibly-pitched computer-optimized realizations of
classical music of john delaubenfels, which i got kind of deeply
involved in for a while back there . . . my ear barked whenever i
heard 20-cent shifts in the bach, and even 11 cent shifts left me
squirming. i guess real human voices attached to real musical sense
can smooth over such shifts a lot better than a computer-retuned midi
file.

--- In tuning@y..., "emotionaljourney22" <paul@s...> wrote:
> --- In tuning@y..., "robert_wendell" <rwendell@c...> wrote:
>
> > I think that "not thinking of this approach" comes from your
strong
> > orientation toward fixed tunings rather than flexibly-pitched
> > performance.
>
> not at all -- i simply have a great deal of familiarity with
> completely-flexibly-pitched computer-optimized realizations of
> classical music of john delaubenfels, which i got kind of deeply
> involved in for a while back there . . . my ear barked whenever i
> heard 20-cent shifts in the bach, and even 11 cent shifts left me
> squirming. i guess real human voices attached to real musical sense
> can smooth over such shifts a lot better than a computer-retuned
midi
> file.

Bob:
"Not at all?...I think you just confirmed my hypothesis. Real human
voices don't have this problem, so although potentially the computer-
based optimizations are "completely flexibly-pitched", the algorithms
may not realize this potential appropriately. My statement was
intended to refer precisely and only to what your following
observation states:

> "my ear barked whenever i
> heard 20-cent shifts in the bach, and even 11 cent shifts left me
> squirming. i guess real human voices attached to real musical sense
> can smooth over such shifts a lot better than a computer-retuned
> midi file."

That was exactly my point and was the only point intended.

Cheers,

Bob

P.S. In light of our recent posts on 217-EDO, a viable computerized
approach might be to use this ET as a convenient and even more
flexible modern substitute for Vicento's strategy and then use
algorithms that smoothly spread even these 5.5-cent shifts over a few
milliseconds.

Such shifts, as I've pointed out in a previous post, are perpetually
occurring in flexibly-pitched performances and are totally acceptable
to even the most demanding ears in my experience. If there are ears
that refuse to accept them, they are ears that live in perpetual
musical hell in our current musical environment.

anyone out there? all three incarnations of this list are silent . . .

--- In tuning@y..., "robert_wendell" <rwendell@c...> wrote:

> P.S. In light of our recent posts on 217-EDO, a viable computerized
> approach might be to use this ET as a convenient and even more
> flexible modern substitute for Vicento's strategy

well, john delaubenfels' approach became a lot more advanced than
even this, as it independently retunes every pitch in the piece, to
minimize total pain. vicentino's stategy begins to be less clear when
minor seventh or diminished chords appear, and when simple jazz
chords like six-nine chords come in. and vicentino's strategy utterly
fails for the non-meantone-appropriate music 250 years in his future,
which requires enharmonic modulation -- there the meantone diminished
second of c. 40 cents throws a wrench into the works, and this diesis
(128:125) needs to be distributed out along with the usual syntonic
comma (81:80) (taking the diaschisma and pythagorean comma along with
them) -- not to mention more for complex jazz chords.

if you have any spare time now, you might want to check out
adaptune.com and the archives here on this subject.

> and then use
> algorithms that smoothly spread even these 5.5-cent shifts over a
few
> milliseconds.

there was some such 'sliding' going on in john's work; i'm not sure
how widely it got implemented. i know john's not reading the list
anymore; i wonder if he's reachable by e-mail. perhaps we can get a
little 'adaptive tuning' group together . . .

--- In tuning@y..., "emotionaljourney22" <paul@s...> wrote:

/tuning/topicId_36466.html#36628

> there was some such 'sliding' going on in john's work; i'm not sure
> how widely it got implemented. i know john's not reading the list
> anymore; i wonder if he's reachable by e-mail. perhaps we can get a
> little 'adaptive tuning' group together . . .

***I wonder what 'ol John is up to these days. I remember the great
excitement when I first started on this list and Paul and John were
working out the tuning of his computer model. I didn't understand
half of it, but that somehow made it even *more* exciting! Ah,
nostalgia...

jp