RE for the Gongs

Hello
i see your dates take you to florida
email and maybe we can meet and i can appraise the tunability of yr
interesting hybrids

cheers

Pat Pagano, Director
South East Just Intonation Society
http://www.screwmusicforever.com/SHREESWIFT/
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Sent: Thursday, May 23, 2002 11:27 AM
Subject: [tuning] Digest Number 2061

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There are 13 messages in this issue.

Topics in this digest:

1. Re: Digest Number 2060
From: John Starrett <jstarret@carbon.cudenver.edu>
2. Re: Re: I'm baack :) for a while anyhow
From: Carl Lumma <carl@lumma.org>
3. Re: beating v. roughness
From: Carl Lumma <carl@lumma.org>
4. Re: beating v. roughness
From: Carl Lumma <carl@lumma.org>
5. re: The Gongs
From: Carl Lumma <carl@lumma.org>
6. Re: Another talent of the 72-et
From: Carl Lumma <carl@lumma.org>
7. Re: I'm baack :) for a while anyhow
From: Carl Lumma <carl@lumma.org>
8. Re: beating v. roughness
From: "jonszanto" <JSZANTO@ADNC.COM>
9. Re: Another talent of the 72-et
From: "jpehrson2" <jpehrson@rcn.com>
10. microtonal players are here!!!
From: "jpehrson2" <jpehrson@rcn.com>
11. Adventures with the Pete Walton microtonal plug-in
From: "jpehrson2" <jpehrson@rcn.com>
12. Re: Another talent of the 72-et
From: "genewardsmith" <genewardsmith@juno.com>
13. Re: Another talent of the 72-et
From: "jpehrson2" <jpehrson@rcn.com>

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Message: 1
Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 12:15:06 -0600
From: John Starrett <jstarret@carbon.cudenver.edu>
Subject: Re: Digest Number 2060

> From: "M. Edward (Ed) Borasky" <znmeb@aracnet.com>
> Subject: Re: Re: I'm baack :) for a while anyhow
>
> On Tue, 21 May 2002, Carl Lumma wrote:
<snip>
>
> > Yep, this kind of wrong thing. Surprising coming from Hofstadter, a
> > man who for any other aspect of thought, including Turing tests, has
> > no problem admitting that computers will do it, and has even done
> > important work in getting them to!
>
> Considering the kind of compute horsepower involved in, say, today's
> chess engines, I'm not at all convinced that *I* will live to see a
> computer pass the Turing test.
<snip>

Computers have already passed the Turing test. The problem
is that they keep moving the goal lines. There are already
programs that can fool non-experts into thinking they are
talking with a human. Certainly the least bright among
humans can be fooled by very simple programs. The problem is
expectations. Modern researchers are used to a level of
"humanity" in interactive programs that would have astounded
Alan Turing, and maybe fooled him for a couple of minutes.
Do you recall the "reverse Turing test" in one of
Hofstadter's articles, where a student at a terminal tried
to convince Doug that she was an advanced AI machine? He was
fooled for a few minutes, and I would guess it was because
of his expectations.

John Starrett

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Message: 2
Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 14:30:32 -0700
From: Carl Lumma <carl@lumma.org>
Subject: Re: Re: I'm baack :) for a while anyhow

>Well ... I have Cope's CD of pseudo-Beethoven/Mozart etc. I am
>singularly unimpressed, but then, I'm not all that interested in
>generating pseudo-anyone. I'm looking for tools to assist musical
>analysis.

Hofstadter played samples for the audience in several trials for
Bach, Mozart, and Chopin. The audience was to vote to identify
the originals among several EMI compositions in each trial. It
was a bit of a laugh because it was completely obvious to everyone
in the audience in all cases. Many people felt the Bach came out
the best. I felt the Chopin. In all cases the endings were a
problem. Then we were informed that the examples given were selected
by Cope from hundreds of EMI runs. Not very impressive.

I haven't heard the CD. I'm not interested in copying either, per
se. EMI also has modes that turn out "original" works. Hofstadter
played one, but I don't remember it.

Yes, something like EMI could be very useful in musical analysis.

>Considering the kind of compute horsepower involved in, say, today's
>chess engines, I'm not at all convinced that *I* will live to see a
>computer pass the Turing test.

I don't know how old you are, but I'm 25 and have little doubt that
I'll see it before I retire.

Chess is a hard problem when approached in the simplest way. The
narrowness of the current approach is alarming. The fact that humans
can still compete with the state of the art brute-force stuff tells me
that the game is easier. I expect an algorithm based on an analysis
of the game to be produced before long and just beat everything, with
minimal searching. We can take this off-line if you'd like to discuss
it further.

>Well, there are four books, three of which come with CDs. I have the
>first three (two CDs) and just got a utility to read Mac CDs the other
>day. There are several variants of what's in the books: "EMI", "SARA"
>and "ALICE" at least. I don't know if the full EMI code or all of Cope's
>databases even exist. Given that the output is MIDI, I suspect there are
>better tools if all you're interested in is re-tuning existing music.

Maybe so, but the problem with just re-tuning music is that different
tunings require different structures. But if EMI creates any kind of
coherent higher-level abstractions of structures like you'd expect it
to, it might be possible to switch the tuning there above the point
where it would break anything... just a thought.

>There's probably millions of lines of MIDI out there and only thousands
>of lines of Cope's LISP-coded music.

That's why I'd rather see the LISP!

Actually, if it's thousands of lines of LISP, that's too much for it to
be much good.

-Carl

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Message: 3
Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 14:50:57 -0700
From: Carl Lumma <carl@lumma.org>
Subject: Re: beating v. roughness

>>>Could anyone post the universally agreed upon definitions of both
>>>beating and roughness?
>>
>> Anybody?
>
>To answer your question 2 different ways:
>
>1. I'll take info from any source, so 'anybody' works for me; I'm not
giving
>out gold stars this week for the first person with some helpful info, and
>would be happy to hear if there is clarity on the subject.
>
>2. If all you were doing was checking my grammar, thanks a lot.

Jon,

I'd like to see the definitions too -- I was just reiterating your
question.

-Carl

PS- What's "Anon"?

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Message: 4
Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 14:52:55 -0700
From: Carl Lumma <carl@lumma.org>
Subject: Re: beating v. roughness

Monzo gives:

Roughness - A quantity measuring the sonance of a tone, interval, or chord,
based the critical band interactions of proximate partials. This conception
of sonance is associated with the harmonic theories in the tradition of
Helmholtz, and finds a modern advocate in Sethares.

He doesn't have entries for beating or difference tone.

-Carl

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Message: 5
Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 14:55:55 -0700
From: Carl Lumma <carl@lumma.org>
Subject: re: The Gongs

>Hi- I'm in band called the Gongs, and we are going to be touring the
>country this summer with Momus, and a few others on the American
>Patchwork label.
/.../
> http://www.oberlin.edu/~chlatham
>
>We'd appreciate attention from the tuning community, since we are trying
>to bridge many styles and philosophies with our music...

Cool, a band! Now you're talking my language.

That's a very large jpg for your west coast dates. Why not post them
in text somewhere?

-Carl

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Message: 6
Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 14:59:45 -0700
From: Carl Lumma <carl@lumma.org>
Subject: Re: Another talent of the 72-et

>****Got it! Thanks, Dave. That clears it up for me. Why can I read
>*your* paragraphs and understand them and not Gene's?? Either Gene's
>paragraphs are too dense, or *I* am too dense. [Just joking...]

Fear not Joseph, I'm lucky to understand half of what Gene says. Not
any fault of his -- his style is clean and efficient -- and the part I
do understand is totally cool!

-Carl

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Message: 7
Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 15:09:40 -0700
From: Carl Lumma <carl@lumma.org>
Subject: Re: I'm baack :) for a while anyhow

Gene wrote...

>>EMI is just an expert system. Nothing interesting about it, as far as
>>I know. Rather I suspect it is like most expert systems; it took 25
>>years to build and is capable only of a relatively fixed set of
behaviors.
>
>You don't anything too elaborate to produce the Hofstadter Effect, since
>similar comments have been made about outout from high order Markov
chains.

I think that's a different Hofstadter. Maybe Douglas' father?

Markov chains keep coming up. I should probably learn what they are.

-Carl

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Message: 8
Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 22:23:28 -0000
From: "jonszanto" <JSZANTO@ADNC.COM>
Subject: Re: beating v. roughness

--- In tuning@y..., Carl Lumma <carl@l...> wrote:
> >> Anybody?
>
> Jon,
>
> I'd like to see the definitions too -- I was just reiterating your
> question.

Ahhhhhhh! Now, looking at that word, and using *that* kind of inflection it
makes sense... Without the subtle variations in voice and eye/head movement,
I had no idea it was a response thrown out to the group!

Gad, language can be so difficult. Thanks, I guess the two terms are in a
very grey and vague area, at least in pinning down a definition.

> PS- What's "Anon"?

"adv. [< OE, 'on an', in one] 1. soon 2. at another time"

Cheers (more universally understood!),
Jon

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Message: 9
Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 23:38:55 -0000
From: "jpehrson2" <jpehrson@rcn.com>
Subject: Re: Another talent of the 72-et

--- In tuning@y..., Carl Lumma <carl@l...> wrote:

/tuning/topicId_36979.html#37015

> >****Got it! Thanks, Dave. That clears it up for me. Why can I
read *your* paragraphs and understand them and not Gene's?? Either
Gene's paragraphs are too dense, or *I* am too dense. [Just
joking...]
>
> Fear not Joseph, I'm lucky to understand half of what Gene says.
Not any fault of his -- his style is clean and efficient -- and the
part I do understand is totally cool!
>
> -Carl

***Thanks, Carl! That's encouraging! I was beginning to get
paranoid...

jp

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Message: 10
Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 03:23:07 -0000
From: "jpehrson2" <jpehrson@rcn.com>
Subject: microtonal players are here!!!

Well, the great news is that trombonist Chris Washburne is *terrific*
and *really* can play 72-tET right off! It's easy to spot a
microtonal player who really has it down. He says it comes from 25
years of playing with Joe Maneri's group. It's great news to find
somebody who has mastered this language so expertly, and he has a
great tone as well. (Johnny Reinhard also says Washburne has a
doctorate in ethnomusicology from Columbia... among these other
accomplishments)...

Don't forget to come to the concert for this Blackjack premiere
(trombone and electronics)

Yes, it's true we're doing BLACKJACK at ROULETTE! (Should've told
you!)

Saturday, May 25, Roulette, 228 W. Broadway, NYC, 8PM

It's a great weekend to be in New York. It's gonna be a blast!

J. Pehrson

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Message: 11
Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 03:58:14 -0000
From: "jpehrson2" <jpehrson@rcn.com>
Subject: Adventures with the Pete Walton microtonal plug-in

I posted the following to the Sibelius website. I thought that maybe
somebody using Sibelius might be interested in it:

____________________________________________________________
Adventures with the Pete Walton Sibelius microtonal plug-in

I wanted to make a short post concerning my recent activities with
Pete Walton's excellent microtonal plug-in for Sibelius.

If you recall, Pete has created a plug-in that will automatically
adjust pitch-bends for a microtonal temperament which is user-
specified.

Basically one specifies, in the plug-in, the cents deviations from a
given set of Sibelius accidentals. Let's take an example: Cbb,
C3/4flat, Cb, C1/4flat, C, C1/4sharp, C#, C3/4sharp, Cx.

So, at maximum, using NON-equivalence of enharmonics, it's
possible to use these 9 native Sibelius symbols times the 7 "white
note" names for a total of 63 pitches. Indeed, Pete has created
a 63-tET temperament to test the upper extreme of this system.

Since the upper limit is 63, it's not possible to make a
temperament of the full 72-tET temperament, an extremely versatile
system, since our "regular" 12-equal is imbedded in it. (In
fact it consists of 6 different 12-equal scales transposed against
each other by simple just intonation ratios!!)

However, I was able to create a 21-note subset of 72-tET, which has
been called the "Blackjack" scale on the Internet Tuning
List, after the 21 pitches.

It's pretty easy to alter Pete's plug-in to adapt it to any
given temperament, simply by entering in the alterations in cents
values for each Sibelius accidental from the pitch Sibelius would
normally play.

There are a couple of things one must be careful about. One, which
initially confused me quite a bit when working with this, was the
fact that when using the Sibelius quarter-tone FLAT accidental,
Sibelius is altering the pitch a semi-tone below the given note. For
example, "E-quartertone flat" is actually Eb raised by a
quartertone. This solves the mysterious situation, probably noticed
by anyone who has run the Sibelius quartertone plug in, that both
quartertone FLATS and quartertone SHARPS have the same pitch bend:
~B0,80 !! (One would think a quartertone flat should be ~B0,48. So
if anybody is encountering strange goings on when trying to alter
quartertone playback by pitch bends, this is what is causing it. (It
stumped me for some time.)

Pete's terrific plug-in creates the pitch bends for us, so we get
appropriate pitch bends for our temperaments. In the case of 72-tET
we get the following numbers, in case anybody is interested in
manually entering in this wonderful, practical and versatile
temperament. (Anybody think I like this temperament?? :))

A "convention" has been established on the Internet Tuning
List to use the following ascii accidentals which emulate the Sims
written ones:

^ = twelfth-tone high (an arrow)
v = twelfth-tone low

> = sixth-tone high
< = sixth -tone low

] = quarter-tone high
[ = quarter-tone low

Using the Pete Walton plug-in, we find the following values for these
accidentals. This is using the "refined" scale for pitch
bend. I was never quite sure how this operated until Pete explained
it to me: basically the "coarse" number is the number
furthest to
the RIGHT. The "fine" number runs from 1-128 and is the first
number, or the number to the left.

So we can go from ~B0,64 to ~B128,64 and then from ~B0,65 to ~B128,65
and so forth. ~B0,64 is actually the "regular" or natural
note, and it's possible to bend a whole step down from this pitch
and a whole step up from this pitch. That means ~B0,128 is a whole
step up, ~B0,96 is a semitone bend up, ~B0,64 is "normal,"
~B0,32 is a semitone down and ~B0,0 is a whole tone down. Since there
are a total of 16384 bend units (128 x 128) in the two whole note
span (400 cents), the resolution of the pitch bends is: 400/16384
= .0244 cents. Not bad.

It's hardly "rocket science" to realize that a
quartertone is a bend
of 16 up or ~B0, 80, and a quartertone bend down: ~B0,48. As I
mention above, however, there is the anomaly that, in the use of the
quartertone FLAT, Sibelius starts on the semitone BELOW and bends
up. This results, as mentioned, in both the quartertone up and
quartertone down having the same pitch bend, ~B0,80. Try the simple
quartertone playback plug-in which comes with every copy of Sibelius
and you'll see what I mean, if you don't know that already.

Simple arithmetic will give us the correct coarse pitch bends for the
12-th tones up and down and 6th tones up and down of the Sims 72-tET
system, but the correct numbers of both coarse and fine as realized
by the Pete Walton plug-in are as follows:

^ = twelfth-tone high (an arrow) ~B56,69
v = twelfth-tone low ~B72,58

> = sixth-tone high ~B71,74
< = sixth -tone low ~B57,53

] = quarter-tone high ~B0,80
[ = quarter-tone low ~B0,48 [or ~B0,80 with the quartertone flat as
mentioned]

Now if one is to actually use the Sims-Maneri, symbols, one needs to
use the Postscript font created by New York cellist Ted Mook for this
purpose. Mook plays many just intonation pieces in 72-tET, including
Harry Partch. Some people find that heretical, but it does come very
close to just intonation and in a practical manner.

https://www.mindeartheart.org/micro.html

Given the fact that each pitch of a scale such as "Blackjack"
which uses many of the Sims accidentals has a special accidental on
just about every note of the scale except two, one has to decide if
the Pete Walton plug-in facilitates that particular scale as opposed
to manually entering in the pitch bends according to the bend numbers
given above. Since it's so very easy to copy Technique text in
Sibelius from one note to the next, and since the 72-tET system uses
a very few symbols, it's extremely easy to "alt-click"and
just copy the bends to the notes.

So, possibly that kind of scale, which uses so many symbols, could be
just as easily done manually. There is also the situation that the
quartertones provided by Sibelius are not the ones used by Sims! He
has his own, that look a little like square-root signs. Personally I
find the Tartini ones that Sibelius uses more elegant, but it is a
fact that many performers who are working in 72-tET now (and indeed
there are several now, one trombonist, in fact, is still coming over
this night for a rehearsal!) are very much used to the Sims symbols,
and would prefer that they be used.

This means that the quartertone symbols generated by Sibelius
actually have to be REMOVED after the plug-in is run, since there is
no way to HIDE accidentals without hiding the given NOTE in
Sibelius. (That could be very convenient, and actually would have
been quite useful for a gentleman who posted recently on notating
scores where accidentals only apply to the notes they immediately
precede, very common in contemporary music, of course.)

One has to figure out the pitch bend numbers for this based upon the
fact that the Sibelius quartertones are REMOVED after the
temperaments plug-in is run! That really isn't very difficult,
but it did present a puzzling quandary for a while.

The Pete Walton plug-in works even better for temperaments such as 19-
tET, which use just our "regular" accidentals, but without
enharmonic equivalence. There are no "extra" symbols to
import in
that case. One could just select all the notes on one staff of the
score, run the plug-in and voila!

Of course, our standard 12-equal pitches do not work in 19-tET, which
is one of the terrific advantages of 72 over practically every other
system.

I really wish that somebody would have explained this all to me in
the way that I am explaining this all to me, so I hope some of it has
been useful! :)

To get the plug-in, please contact Pete Walton at:

pete@pswalton.freeserve.co.uk

Pete was extremely patient in explaining all of this, and will help
anybody interested in using his plug in or in "plugging in"
one's own temperament into the plug-in, as I did.

Joseph Pehrson

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Message: 12
Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 04:09:04 -0000
From: "genewardsmith" <genewardsmith@juno.com>
Subject: Re: Another talent of the 72-et

--- In tuning@y..., Carl Lumma <carl@l...> wrote:

Not
> any fault of his -- his style is clean and efficient -- and the
part I
> do understand is totally cool!

Part of a good style is to be aware of one's audience, and since I
had Joseph in mind I perhaps should have explained certain matters.
Could mean I'm dense. :)

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Message: 13
Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 13:30:59 -0000
From: "jpehrson2" <jpehrson@rcn.com>
Subject: Re: Another talent of the 72-et

--- In tuning@y..., "genewardsmith" <genewardsmith@j...> wrote:

/tuning/topicId_36979.html#37021

> --- In tuning@y..., Carl Lumma <carl@l...> wrote:
>
> Not
> > any fault of his -- his style is clean and efficient -- and the
> part I
> > do understand is totally cool!
>
> Part of a good style is to be aware of one's audience, and since I
> had Joseph in mind I perhaps should have explained certain matters.
> Could mean I'm dense. :)

***That's great, Gene. "Dumb it down" if you don't mind... :)

You're always coming up with great stuff, so I'd like to understand
it, if I can. I would also take Johnny Reinhard's suggestion very
seriously to get some music to him. You have the math background to
*really* plow into some new terrain!!!!!

Joseph

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