response to Jac Dudon (was[tuning] 13)

HiYa Jac!
You are on the same "address" as an e-magazine I write for:

http://boheme.magazine.free.fr/

I love the sound of your AquaVina BTW... ever made a long tube-zither?

In a message dated 2003:05:07 06:08:26 AM, aeh@free.fr writes:

>Sounds like a good idea to invert a Japanese scale into a Pelog - is that
>what you do ?

That's one way I work with scales and modes/modal scales. In some ways it
keeps things simple and "human-scaled." In other ways, it is it a creative
strategy of mine to exercise _otstraneniye_ * - "making the familiar [or
vaguely familiar or overlooked/taken-for-granted] _Strange"...

* Russian word... sorta like the German _Verfremdungseffekt_
or the Japanese _datsuzoku_

>and how is it going in JI ratios ?

I actually decided not to limit myself too much (or be too complicated
either) on this project and to go all the way with a "basic, full scale" for
my long tube-zither TamburDrone (for playing drones and textural,
heterodyning melodies - striking with fingers or stick(s), plectrum-plucking-
biwa-styled, bowing - viola d'amore style, sliding marble egg, etc. - on 5
strings tuned rather closely together - i.e., a multi-coursed-monochord ...(&
some other strings will be "prepared" & conjoined... and a long coilspring
inside the tube - the tube being sorta logdrum/boo-like with the string
bridge and tuning block on the "tongue"). [Now I hafta figure out how to go
about having this made on a budget that makes me "an Endangered Species of
One"...]

Below are 2 different ruff-drafts of what I call the LuciferinNebula
Scale Tuning:

LuciferinNebula Tuning-Scale
21-tone " _wabi__" JI (_wabi_, Japanese high cultural aesthetic term
concerning "newness, 'perfect imperfection', asymmetry")

Ratio: Cents Name (if any)
1/1 0 tonic @ F#1
78/77 22 comma (2 x 3 x 13:7 x 11)
22/21 81 hard 1/2-step
49/44 186 neutral whole tone
7/6 267 septimal minor 3rd
13/11 289 neutral minor 3rd
12544/9801 427 major 3rd close to Golden Mean, Entropy Pt.
21/16 471 septimal 4th
4/3 498 perfect 4th
11/8 551 undecimal tritone (11th har.)
1024/729 588 low Pythagorean tritone, wolf 5th
17/12 603 "blue" 17-prime tritone
3/2 702 perfect 5th
14/9 765 septimal minor 6th
11/7 782 Aug. 5th
13/8 841 overtone sixth (13th har.)
7/4 969 septimal minor 7th
11/6 1049 undecimal "median" 7th
13/7 1072 neutral 7th
63/32 1173 63rd harmonic
2/1 1200 octave @ F#2

Luciferin Nebula Scale. rough 14-tone Xeno-Gothic JI scale

Ratio: Cents Name (if any)
1/1 0 tonic @ F#1
22/21 81 hard 1/2-step
9/8 204 major whole-tone
7/6 267 septimal minor 3rd
21/16 471 septimal 4th
4/3 498 perfect 4th
11/8 551 undecimal tritone (11th har.)
17/12 603 "cobalt blue" tritone
3/2 702 perfect 5th
14/9 765 septimal minor 6th
13/8 841 overtone sixth (13th har.)
7/4 969 septimal minor 7th
11/6 1049 undecimal "median" 7th
2/1 1200 octave @ F#2

>What are "Gothic" scales supposed to be ? I am curious -

Medieval tunings ... _ars nova_ ... there are many varieties and I find
that entirely fascinating that not all were Pythagorean, 5-limit JI, 12-tones
to the octave, etc.. There was a lotta variety of tuning theories _AND_
practices going on. Some the scales are especially full of intensely
beautiful contrasts - tone, tone-colour, even texture and timbre depending on
the instrumentation.
Check the Tuning archives or Google... Margo Schulter is one of the
Gothic scale specialists and she has made several "Neo-Gothic" and
"Xeno-Gothic" scale-tunings. So use those as keywords if you Google.

>> tuning and non-octave odd-prime 13-limit tuning) around these "nuclear"
>> pitches to make it much more chromatic and enharmonic, more "stellated",
>> "bifurcated." Tentatively, I am calling it the WabiSabi /Luciferinnebula
>> Scale.
>
>With two sides probably, like 7 and 225 ? - or 39 and 625 ?? Tell us some
>more ! -

And what.. let you lurkers in on my secrets in my Musical Mad Scientist
lab 0_o??? }}8P~~~* }}8}

(all jokin' aside, see above)

---
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

NADA BRAHMA - Sanskrit, "sound [is the] Godhead"
LILA - Sanskrit, "divine play/sport/whimsy" - "the universe is what happens
when God wants to play" - "joyous exercise of spontaneity involved in the art
of creation"

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