Questions from a tyro

I am new both to this group and to the whole idea of mucking about with
tuning and I have some questions.

What I have is an iBook running Mac OS X 10.2.6 and SoundSticks, and I'm
connected to the internet via high-speed cable.

For starters what I want to do is to examine Equal Temperament based on the
Perfect Fifth and be able to compare it with conventional ET based on the
octave. I'm an afficionado of the baroque, so perhaps beginning with
Telemann's Trio Sonata in Bflat as listed by Michael J. Starke on MidiWorld.

Questions:

1. I can play this piece, but can I download it in a useful way.

2. Having downloaded it, can I deconstruct it. That is, dissemble the
musical lines, remove the instrumental harmonics, &c. and then stretch it to
my recipe.

3. Is there software that will do all of this rather transparently.

What I know:

I am reasonably computer savvy to the point that I can hack simple code if
it is in a recognizeable language, and being a geophysicist I know all about
waves. I also know enough about instruments to understand that simple
harmonic theory is not the law that they understand.

What I don't know:

Anything about "just" or "mean", although I marvel at those that do.

For the moment

Cheers

fidopythy

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, francis muir <francis@s...> wrote:

> For starters what I want to do is to examine Equal Temperament
based on the
> Perfect Fifth and be able to compare it with conventional ET based
on the
> octave. I'm an afficionado of the baroque, so perhaps beginning with
> Telemann's Trio Sonata in Bflat as listed by Michael J. Starke on
>MidiWorld.

welcome! sorry to veer off your intended topic, but truly neither
tuning system would be quite appropriate for telemann. hopefully
you'll be able to make sense out of the following:

http://www.xs4all.nl/%7Ehuygensf/doc/telemann.html

especially the "comment" that begins about three-quarters of the way
down the page.

yes, it's a meantone tuning that telemann intended, and if you stick
around this list long enough, you'll become quite knowledgeable about
such things.

> I also know enough about instruments to understand that simple
> harmonic theory is not the law that they understand.

if you mean having true integer frequencty multiples for overtones,
then it depends on which instruments. please read:

http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/~jw/harmonics.html

though pipes and strings do not have perfectly harmonic modes of
resonance, the tones they produce when excited by a sustained
periodic vibration (for example when bowed or blown) are indeed
perfectly harmonic in spectrum. it's when they are excited or struck
by a single impulse that the inharmonic resonance spectrum translates
into an inharmonic tonal spectrum.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "wallyesterpaulrus" <
wallyesterpaulrus@y...> wrote:
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, francis muir <francis@s...> wrote:
>
> > For starters what I want to do is to examine Equal
> > Temperament based on the Perfect Fifth and be
> > able to compare it with conventional ET based on
> > the octave. I'm an afficionado of the baroque, so
> > perhaps beginning with Telemann's Trio Sonata in
> > Bflat as listed by Michael J. Starke on MidiWorld.
>
> welcome! sorry to veer off your intended topic, but truly
> neither tuning system would be quite appropriate for
> Telemann. hopefully you'll be able to make sense out
> of the following:
>
> http://www.xs4all.nl/%7Ehuygensf/doc/telemann.html

All quite beside my point. I'm not interested in Telemann's
musical theory but in a particular example of his music as
a trial horse for my own experiments.

fidopythy.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "fidopythy" <francis@s...> wrote:

> All quite beside my point. I'm not interested in Telemann's
> musical theory but in a particular example of his music as
> a trial horse for my own experiments.

Am I understanding your proposal correctly--are you suggesting
stretching the octave to (3/2)^(12/7), at 1203.35 cents? Personally,
I'd recommend flattening it by that amount instead, but you can easily
make retuned midi files with these tunings.