Decent notation for 29-tone equal-temperament?

Is there a good one available?

It would be nice if:

1. It was listable in ASCII (so I can write programs
to print it)
2. It was appropriate for a "neo-gothic" style. I.e.
those lovely medieval cadences.

***From: Christopher Bailey******************

http://music.columbia.edu/~chris

**********************************************

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Christopher Bailey <cb202@c...> wrote:
> Is there a good one available?
>
> It would be nice if:
>
> 1. It was listable in ASCII (so I can write programs
> to print it)
> 2. It was appropriate for a "neo-gothic" style. I.e.
> those lovely medieval cadences.

that's an easy one: just treat it as pythagorean! 17 steps is a
perfect fifth, so you get major seconds of 5 degrees and minor seconds
of 2 degrees. then all the progressions end up being notated exactly
as margo would notate them.

00 C
01 B#
02 Db
03 C#
04 Ebb or B##
05 D
06 C## or Fbb
07 Eb
08 D#
09 Fb
10 E
11 D## or Gbb
12 F
13 E#
14 Gb
15 F#
16 E## or Abb
17 G
18 F##
19 Ab
20 G#
21 Bbb
22 A
23 G## or Cbb
24 Bb
25 A#
26 Cb
27 B
28 A## or Dbb
(29 C)

another option is to replace the double-sharps and double-flats with
some kind of half-accidental symbol.

i'm pretty sure scala implements one or both of these . . .

Christopher Bailey wrote:
> Is there a good one available?

Conventional notation, triple sharps and flats and circle of fifths & all that. Actually i wouldn't want to use it, but it is possible.

I once played it (the only et i ever felt comfortable handling) and thought along interval chunks of 12/17 and multiples of 5. 12 and 17 are fourths and fifths, and the multiples of five are a whole tone scale. Of these latter (0, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 1; down 0, 24, 19, 14, 9, 4) i only went up to the pythagorean tritone 15 (729/512) and thought of the larger ones as compounds (12, 17, 22, 27; 17, 12, 7, 2). For the notes inbetween (extrapolating between the pythagorean-based scales i had actually learned), i used the numbers +/- 1, 2, 3 as accidentals.

> > It would be nice if:
> > 1. It was listable in ASCII (so I can write programs
> to print it)

Ignoring octave positions it is possible to play off the tone numbers. Actually, starting numbering with 0 makes it not a tone, but an interval notation, so octaves are not an issue.

> 2. It was appropriate for a "neo-gothic" style. I.e.
> those lovely medieval cadences.

You can spot a difference of 12 between numbers immediately, and 17 is not difficult to practise. On note paper, fifths have like number accidentals.

Caveat: this should, no, does work for non-musicians like me when the instrument used has fourths and fifths (or whole tones - but try to bend the notes in between on a cimbalom!) somehow built in. My experience with recorder players is that they like a fingering chart for each and every note and refer to the staff notation only for the rhythm.

klaus

>i'm pretty sure scala implements one or both of these . . .

Yes, both. One can use "set notation E29" or P41.
For P41, also do "set tolerance 1/2".
Here's a table: http://www.xs4all.nl/~huygensf/scala/data/29.html

Manuel

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Manuel Op de Coul"
<manuel.op.de.coul@e...> wrote:
> >i'm pretty sure scala implements one or both of these . . .
>
> Yes, both. One can use "set notation E29" or P41.
> For P41, also do "set tolerance 1/2".
> Here's a table: http://www.xs4all.nl/~huygensf/scala/data/29.html
>
> Manuel

Dave Keenan and I agree that this is definitely the way to notate 29-
ET. Our sagittal notation simply replaces the / and \ symbols with
half-arrows: /| |\

--George

George and Dave,

You might try to track down Siemen Terpstra's notation
for 29-ET. He has created notations for each equal
division of the octave up to 128-ET, and others for
152-ET, 171-ET, 289-ET, 441-ET and 612-ET. I may have
them buried somewhere at home.

By the way, I once showed him a chart I had made which
represented an ET of over 2 billion tones per octave.
He laughed out loud and said, "Try to make a notation
for it!"

--Mark Rankin

--- gdsecor <gdsecor@yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Manuel Op de Coul"
> <manuel.op.de.coul@e...> wrote:
> > >i'm pretty sure scala implements one or both of
> these . . .
> >
> > Yes, both. One can use "set notation E29" or P41.
> > For P41, also do "set tolerance 1/2".
> > Here's a table:
> http://www.xs4all.nl/~huygensf/scala/data/29.html
> >
> > Manuel
>
> Dave Keenan and I agree that this is definitely the
> way to notate 29-
> ET. Our sagittal notation simply replaces the / and
> \ symbols with
> half-arrows: /| |\
>
> --George
>
>
>
>

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