270-edo, etc.

Erv Wilson and I compiled tables of tunings at UCSD from 1965 to 1968,
when I finally finished my PhD and moved to Seattle to take a
post-doctoral fellowship at the Genetics Department. In addition to
tabulating all the ET's with 5 to 120 tones, we also analysed all the
tunings up to 1200 tones in terms of how well they expressed the
harmonic series intervals up too, IIRC, 41/32. We also looked a few
divisions of the 3/1 and compiled large tables of just intervals.

I'm not sure of the exact year the Erv decided that 270 and 612 were
exceptional temperaments, but I would guess about 1966. He would know.
The 612-edo was known much earlier, of course.

I was interested in Gene Ward Smith's statement that his brother
computed tuning tables at UC, Berkeley in 1968. I moved to the
Department of Genetics at Berkeley in early 1971 to study mitochondrial
genetics. I also wanted to continue my tuning studies and went to the
music department to try to convince them to get me some time on the
mainframe. They turned me down, saying that such studies had already
been done; I presume it was by Gene's brother.

William Stoney at Duke and North Carolina universities studied all the
EDO's up to 144 tones and reported this in a book "The Computer and
Music," edited by Harry B. Lincoln in 1970 and published by Cornell
University Press.

Erv and I presented some of our results in a paper at the ICMC in
Denton, TX in 1981.

Donald Hall at Sacramento State University (?) published some papers in
the 70', IIRC, which discussed EDO's like 494, etc. I think he published
these in JASA, but I don't remember this AM.

--john

--- In tuning@y..., John Chalmers <JHCHALMERS@U...> wrote:

> I was interested in Gene Ward Smith's statement that his brother
> computed tuning tables at UC, Berkeley in 1968. I moved to the
> Department of Genetics at Berkeley in early 1971 to study mitochondrial
> genetics. I also wanted to continue my tuning studies and went to the
> music department to try to convince them to get me some time on the
> mainframe. They turned me down, saying that such studies had already
> been done; I presume it was by Gene's brother.

I doubt they even knew about it. My brother was one of the first CS majors at Berkekey, and simply submitted a deck of cards for the CDC to run an extremely simple program with a comp time less than a second. I then spent a long time in careful study of the output. By the way, did you two notice 311? I would think it would have jumped out at you; it did with me and I only went up to 31.

--- In tuning@y..., John Chalmers <JHCHALMERS@U...> wrote:

> I'm not sure of the exact year the Erv decided that 270 and 612 were
> exceptional temperaments, but I would guess about 1966.

Ennealimmal rules! What about 171 or 441, though?

--- In tuning@y..., "Gene Ward Smith" <genewardsmith@j...> wrote:
> --- In tuning@y..., John Chalmers <JHCHALMERS@U...> wrote:
>

> I doubt they even knew about it.

Come to think of it, perhaps it did sink in over there more than I suspected; it seemed at the time no one there was interested.