The Tyranny of Twelve

IMHO ---

(RANT - sorry)

It's not academia we have to worry about, but rather the nature of the
medium in which music is written today.

Take MIDI, take the Seven-white-five-black keyboards, take modern sequencer
programs, take music notation packages.

The commercial nature of these products, and their rigidity of presentation
of twelve as *the* means of music creation, as *the only* means of music
presentation is what irks me. MIDI is the worst culprit, and everything
stems from there.

The vast majority of music today is not 'acoustic' but 'electronic'.
Software and Hardware manufacturers push electronics as *the* way of music,
from the mp3 player to the midi sequenced synthesiser rendition burned to
CD, or posted to the net. Everyone is their own 'band', composer, producer,
everything. Some even get to #1 never having moved from their bedroom.

If we are to make real progress in deposing the tyranny of twelve, we can't
just sit here and moan (like this) - but we need to show them that there is
another way.

Someone said (I paraphrase) 'at least this tuning list is strong and shows
no sign of going away'.

Welcome to the microtonality ghetto. Let's hope the
DodekaphonieStaatsPolizei don't find us.

Rant about MIDI/electronics over.

M

Mark Gould wrote:

> Take MIDI, take the Seven-white-five-black keyboards, take modern sequencer
> programs, take music notation packages.
> > The commercial nature of these products, and their rigidity of presentation
> of twelve as *the* means of music creation, as *the only* means of music
> presentation is what irks me. MIDI is the worst culprit, and everything
> stems from there.

Well, really. MIDI gets far to much blame for this. If 12 were "the only means of music presentation" why would they have added a tuning standard? The original specification may have mentioned half-steps -- I don't have a copy -- but the implementation was left pretty much open. Hence instruments like the DX7II that allowed for tuning tables.

Also, not all keyboards are seven-white-five-black, and not all sequencers and notation packages are commercial. There are packages that do work with different tunings -- Finale has support for general octave sizes that nobody seems to be using. Lime does something or other, and could probably be enhanced if anybody expressed sufficient interest. And there's a quartertone plugin for Sibelius. Cubase has some kind of tuning support that got mentioned recently. Even sequencers with no explicit microtonal support have a piano roll view, so you can avoid the tyrrany of 12.

Starr Labs make a number of MIDI input devices that don't guide you into 12 note octaves. And I've been pointed to this site that tells you how to rebuild keyboards so they aren't 7+5 any more:

http://www.balanced-keyboard.com

> The vast majority of music today is not 'acoustic' but 'electronic'.
> Software and Hardware manufacturers push electronics as *the* way of music,
> from the mp3 player to the midi sequenced synthesiser rendition burned to
> CD, or posted to the net. Everyone is their own 'band', composer, producer,
> everything. Some even get to #1 never having moved from their bedroom.

If you're counting MP3s and CDs as "electronic music" you may be right with your vast majority. But that is a strange definition. The bit about pushing MP3 players is pure fantasy. When MP3 caught on, the big manufacturers didn't push standalone players at all -- they tried to ban them.

Software manufacturers are going to push electronics because software won't work otherwise. What hardware manufacturers are pushing electronics the way you say? Yamaha still seem to market acoustic instruments.

> Rant about MIDI/electronics over.

Now why did you feel the need to do that? Electronic musicians don't fill my mailbox with rants about acoustic instruments.

Graham

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Mark Gould" <mark.gould@a...> wrote:

/tuning/topicId_42030.html#42030

> Rant about MIDI/electronics over.
>
> M

***Hello Mark,

Thank you for your comments on MIDI. I seriously doubt, though, that
MIDI can be blamed for all this. It's seems its development is more
reflective of our overall culture.

A few years ago I went into the Metropolitan Museum and enjoyed
looking at a keyboard from 500 years ago. Yes, it looked just like
our keyboard today, typical Halberstadt layout with 12 pitches. I'm
not sure what the specific tuning would have been, but probably not
too far from our *present* 12.

So, it only stands to reason that MIDI would reflect this cultural
situation. Mind you, I also wish the spec. were more flexible and
not so 12-based, but I can certainly see why it might turn out that
way...

Joseph Pehrson

hi Mark,

> From: "Mark Gould" <mark.gould@argonet.co.uk>
> To: <tuning@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Friday, January 31, 2003 12:20 AM
> Subject: [tuning] The Tyranny of Twelve
>
>
> It's not academia we have to worry about, but
> rather the nature of the medium in which music
> is written today.
>
> Take MIDI, take the Seven-white-five-black
> keyboards, take modern sequencer programs, take
> music notation packages.
>
> The commercial nature of these products, and
> their rigidity of presentation of twelve as *the*
> means of music creation, as *the only* means of
> music presentation is what irks me. MIDI is the
> worst culprit, and everything stems from there.

very good point.

i do nearly all of my microtonal music electronically,
via MIDI, and it's a real pain having to work around
MIDI's tuning limitations, which stem mainly from the
fact that MIDI quantizes the pitch universe into
12edo and forces you to deal with it that way.

> Welcome to the microtonality ghetto. Let's hope the
> DodekaphonieStaatsPolizei don't find us.

HA HA!!! have you been in touch with Brian McLaren?
there's a hilarious advertisement graphic he made for
his "microtonality bookshelf" CD series, which is a
digitally-altered reproduction of an old shot of Hitler
making a speech to the masses, in which the giant
swastikas on the placards mounted on the columns at
the front of the stage have been transformed into "12"s.

(apologies to those offended by mention of Hitler,
but i thought Brian's picture was really funny, and
Mark's comment certainly fit right into that scenario.)

-monz

hi Graham,

> From: "Graham Breed" <graham@microtonal.co.uk>
> To: <tuning@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Friday, January 31, 2003 4:45 AM
> Subject: [tuning] Re: The Tyranny of Twelve
>
>
> <snip>
>
> ... I've been pointed to this site that tells you how
> to rebuild keyboards so they aren't 7+5 any more:
>
> http://www.balanced-keyboard.com

thanks for that link.

it says there that "The balanced keyboard was invented
by me (Bart Willemse)" ... i wonder if Bart is aware
that Janko actually invented this over 100 years ago?

-monz

> From: "monz" <monz@attglobal.net>
> To: <tuning@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Friday, January 31, 2003 7:40 AM
> Subject: Re: [tuning] The Tyranny of Twelve
>
>
> (apologies to those offended by mention of Hitler,
> but i thought Brian's picture was really funny, and
> Mark's comment certainly fit right into that scenario.)

i guess i should also have apologized for mentioning
Brian McLaren? ;-)

-monz

monz wrote:

> it says there that "The balanced keyboard was invented
> by me (Bart Willemse)" ... i wonder if Bart is aware
> that Janko actually invented this over 100 years ago?

I think he does mention Janko. But if you've got something more specific get in touch with him.

Graham

> it says there that "The balanced keyboard was invented
> by me (Bart Willemse)" ... i wonder if Bart is aware
> that Janko actually invented this over 100 years ago?

They aren't quite the same; the Janko design is far superior.

-Carl

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "monz" <monz@a...> wrote:
>
> i do nearly all of my microtonal music electronically,
> via MIDI, and it's a real pain having to work around
> MIDI's tuning limitations, which stem mainly from the
> fact that MIDI quantizes the pitch universe into
> 12edo and forces you to deal with it that way.

I don't understand what you and Mark are ranting about. MIDI note
data is simply numbers 0-127 on some channel 1-16, I don't see any
pitches here. The limitations are in the instruments receiving this
data. It's the instrument that interprets this numerical data as
12edo pitches.

Kalle

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Kalle Aho <kalleaho@m...>"
<kalleaho@m...> wrote:
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "monz" <monz@a...> wrote:
> >
> > i do nearly all of my microtonal music electronically,
> > via MIDI, and it's a real pain having to work around
> > MIDI's tuning limitations, which stem mainly from the
> > fact that MIDI quantizes the pitch universe into
> > 12edo and forces you to deal with it that way.
>
> I don't understand what you and Mark are ranting about. MIDI note
> data is simply numbers 0-127 on some channel 1-16, I don't see any
> pitches here. The limitations are in the instruments receiving this
> data. It's the instrument that interprets this numerical data as
> 12edo pitches.
>
> Kalle

or doesn't, in the case of my ensoniq for example . . .