re: Wendy Carlos' Beauty in the Beast

Anybody know if the ALL the tunings on this album are Just?

I'm particularly curious if the "Bali" piece is just-tuned, or if it's
tuned from analysis of actual gamelan tunings.

>Anybody know if the ALL the tunings on this album are Just?

They aren't. "Beauty in the Beast" uses Alpha and Beta, which are
equal divisions (4th root of 6/5 and 8th root of 4/3)

The notes don't say whether "Bali" uses a just pelog and slendro
or not.

Manuel

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Manuel Op de Coul"
<manuel.op.de.coul@e...> wrote:

> The notes don't say whether "Bali" uses a just pelog and slendro
> or not.

i'm sure they're not just, rather they're "measured" regional
tunings, and the partials of the "instruments" are adjusted to match
the tunings.

In a message dated 2003:05:07 09:11:17 AM, manuel.op.de.coul@eon-benelux.com
writes:

>>Anybody know if the ALL the tunings on this album are Just?
>
>They aren't. "Beauty in the Beast" uses Alpha and Beta, which are
>equal divisions (4th root of 6/5 and 8th root of 4/3)
>
>The notes don't say whether "Bali" uses a just pelog and slendro
>or not.

In a message dated 2003:05:07 10:35:34 AM, wallyesterpaulie@yahoo.com writes:

>i'm sure they're not just, rather they're "measured" regional
>tunings, and the partials of the "instruments" are adjusted to match
>the tunings.

I had some suspicions a while back while listening to that CD so I got a
notoriously paranoid-but-musically-talented friend - who naturally got all
hyper and intrigued - to spectrum analyze the CD output.
From what we could determine using the spectrum analyzer is that Ms.
Carlos is using some kind of extremely ultra-high n-ET to approximate Just
Intonation and Pelog and Slendro. Either that or my friend's spectrum
analyzer sux or Ms. Carlos' equipment has certain technological limitions
[that are not _exactly_ stated in the notes, the expanded media on the CD or
her website].
Or all our equipment sux.

"Never totally trust anything connected to a plug... The plug can be
pulled."

::shrug&sheepy-grinnie:: yeah whatever...

But _Beauty in the Beast_ is a _very_ good album nonetheless. Not a
wasted "cut" on the whole damn thing... no "filler" of "fluff"...

---
Hanuman Zhang, the "Yves Klein Bleu Aardvark"

"The wonderousness of the human mind is too great to be transferred into
music only by 7 or 12
elements of tone steps in one octave." - shakuhachi master Masayuki Koga

What strange risk of hearing can bring sound to music - a hearing whose
obligation awakens a sensibility so new that it is forever a unique,
new-born, anti-death surprise, created now and now and now. .. a hearing
whose moment in time is always daybreak. - Lucia Dlugoszewski