Re: [tuning] Kurt's wishes on Johnny Reinhard's postings

In a message dated 7/19/03 8:52:24 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
kkb@breathsense.com writes:

> So I wish Johnny would stop posting in HTML format so I wouldn't
> have to see those ad's! ;) Besides, it would probably stop a.m.'s
> crashes!
>
> -Kurt
>
>

Kurt, I merely reply on my AOL e-mail. What would you rather I do? Johnny

on 7/19/03 6:10 PM, Afmmjr@aol.com <Afmmjr@aol.com> wrote:

> In a message dated 7/19/03 8:52:24 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
> kkb@breathsense.com writes:
>
>
>> So I wish Johnny would stop posting in HTML format so I wouldn't
>> have to see those ad's! ;) Besides, it would probably stop a.m.'s
>> crashes!
>>
>> -Kurt
>
> Kurt, I merely reply on my AOL e-mail. What would you rather I do? Johnny

Hmm. Maybe it doesn't give you a choice. I am reminded of how technical of
a thing this is and that in the "real world" many people are sending html
email because they know of no other choice, and many/most email programs
come with this option turnd on by default. It is possible that AOL
preferences give you a choice of whether to send email in html format, but I
don't use AOL so I have no idea at the moment how to guide you to that
choice.

In my email program (OutlookExpress) the preferences have a section called
"Compose" and this includes an option which specifies Mail Format as either
"Plain Text" or "HTML". There is also a separate option "reply to messages
in the format in which they are sent" which overrides the first option when
replying.

HTML is also sometimes called something else like "formatted text" in some
email programs. It has the advantage of allowing more flexible control over
text.

Plain Text has other advantages, and all of them are probably related to the
fact that it is a much simpler format, and also the original format for
email, such that pretty much everyone in the world who has access to email
will be able to read Plain Text messages, language problems aside. HTML
messages have been known to carry viruses (particularly to the Windows
platform) in ways that Plain Text messages can not. For this and other
reasons many people try to block HTML email messages, so that they don't
receive them. Some systems give HTML messages a higher spam score,
increasing probability of rejection. Some people have the problem that a.m.
and I apparently have with HTML messages causing crashes. Many mailing
lists either reject HTML messages automatically. Others have etiquette
policies that are biased against HTML.

More could be said, but that's probably enough for this "off" topic.

So, if you are willing to look into how to disable sending html email from
AOL (if that is possible), from my standpoint that would be a good thing,
but I am not into any kind of strict netiquette. If you want help figuring
out how to do it, I'll be glad to try to help you but this will not be so
easy since I don't have AOL myself. Making this change may have other
advantages for you or others who you exchange email with, or you may end up
not liking it.

Thanks for asking, and apologies for my indirectness in the first place.

-Kurt

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Kurt Bigler <kkb@b...> wrote:

/tuning/topicId_45697.html#45698

>>
> Plain Text has other advantages, and all of them are probably
related to the fact that it is a much simpler format,

***This is a little off-topic, but not entirely since this is an e-
mail list. I also try to use only *plain text* in general since with
Hotmail, which I generally use, when somebody replys to my HTML
message the original message disappears in their screen and they have
to copy and paste it in in order to make comments on it! However,
plain text is becoming more and more dull for such matters as press
releases, etc., which I try to "spruce up" now with color, etc.,
because everybody *else* is doing it, mostly. Someday the HTML
format will probably be all there is and it's great to have the
formatting flexibility but, in the meantime, it seems it hasn't been
entirely perfected as yet and isn't as universal...

J. Pehrson

hello all,

many of you know that i've done a lot of work
on the interpretation of Aristoxenus's descriptions
of the division of the tetrachord in ancient Greek
theory.

my two previous conclusions were:

1)
December 1999 -- that 318edo provides a very good
means of integer interval measurement to describe
the sizes of Aristoxenus's "tone", "semitone", and
"third-", "quarter-", "1/6-", "1/12-", and "1/24-tone".

this was based on a Pythagorean interpretation of
Aristoxenus's method of "tuning by concords", ignoring
the fact that the final resulting "5th" was ~680 cents
and would not sound like a "perfect 5th", which Aristoxenus
explicit states is the case.

2)
October 2000 -- that perhaps Aristoxenus could have
used arithmetically equal divisions of the 4/3 string-length
as a handy means to visualize his concept that "a 4th
contains 2 + 1/2 tones". the "4th" would thus be divided
into 5 "semitones" by having the proportion 15:16:17:18:19:20.

this interpretation did in fact yield a final "5th" in
the "tuning by concords" method which did approximate
a 3/2 ratio ... but there are other "4ths" and "5ths"
in the tuning procedure which are way off from Pythagorean.

but ignoring that ~680-cent "5th" has been bugging me
ever since 1999, and so i finally have just decided on
this conclusion:

3)
that Aristoxenus at first tuned according to perfect
4/3s and 3/2s in his "tuning by concords", *then*
tempered the resulting "ditones" (major-3rds) according
to the geometrical division of the 4/3 into 5 equal
"semitones", or (4/3)^(x/5), *then* calculated two
further 4/3s in opposite directions from those two
"ditones".

this yields a final "5th" is his "tuning by concords"
method which is ~697.2629988 cents, which would sound
close enough to a 3/2 to be able to serve as a
consonant _diapente_ (perfect-5th). in fact, it
makes a pretty good meantone-like "5th".

with this calculation, the "tone" = (4/3)^(2/5)
= ~199.2179997 cents, and the "semitone" = (4/3)^(1/5)
= ~99.60899983 cents.

this method of approximation may easily be extrapolated
so that the 4/3 ratio is divided into 60 geometrically
equal parts, (4/3)^(x/60), in order to calculate all
the small divisions used by Aristoxenus. in fact, this
is the interpretation accepted by Boethius (c. 505 AD),
which he probably adapted from Cleonides's summary of
Aristoxenus (c. 100 AD).

taking note of the cents-values of the "tone" and
"semitone" in the (4/3^(x/5) tempering, and seeing how
closely they resemble 12edo, it is easy to see that
(4/3)^(x/60) would be well approximated by 144edo.

... and that was exactly the statement which started me
on this whole project back in 1999!

see the new final section (before the references) of
http://sonic-arts.org/monzo/aristoxenus/318tet.htm

note that i cover the mathematics of this interpretation
a few sections above the new one, in my "Appendix 2",
discussing Cleonides.

-monz

an addendum on Aristoxenus ...

> From: monz@attglobal.net [mailto:monz@attglobal.net]
> Sent: Sunday, July 20, 2003 4:25 PM
> To: tuning@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [tuning] 144edo: hopefully, my final interpretation of
> Aristoxenus
>
>
> <snip>
>
> taking note of the cents-values of the "tone" and
> "semitone" in the (4/3^(x/5) tempering, and seeing how
> closely they resemble 12edo, it is easy to see that
> (4/3)^(x/60) would be well approximated by 144edo.
>
> ... and that was exactly the statement which started me
> on this whole project back in 1999!
>
>
>
> see the new final section (before the references) of
> http://sonic-arts.org/monzo/aristoxenus/318tet.htm

here is a tabulation of all the notes necessary for
all six of the genera described by Aristoxenus, with
the fractions indicating EDO degrees taken from subsets
of 144edo, using the lowest-possible-cardinality EDO
(listed from the top down, one 8ve only; the notes are
in my 144edo HEWM notation) :

http://sonic-arts.org/dict/144edo.htm

(use "Expand Messages" mode to view properly on Yahoo website)

enharmonic: 24edo

A 24/24
F 16/24
Fv 15/24
E 14/24
D 10/24
C 6/24
Cv 5/24
B 4/24
Bb 2/24
Bbv 1/24
A A 0/24 0/24

relaxed chromatic: 36edo

A 36/36
F> 25/36
F< 23/36
E 21/36
D 15/36
C> 10/36
C< 8/36
B 6/36
Bb> 4/36
Bb< 2/36
A A 0/36 0/36

hemiolic chromatic: 48edo

A 48/48
F^ 34/48
F~< 31/48
E 28/48
D 20/48
C^ 14/48
C~< 11/48
B 8/48
Bv 6/48
Bb~< 3/48
A A 0/48 0/48

tonic chromatic: 12edo

A 12/12
F# 9/12
F 8/12
E 7/12
D 5/12
C# 4/12
C 3/12
B B 2/12 2/12
Bb 1/12
A A 0/12 0/12

relaxed diatonic: 24edo

A 24/24
Gv 19/24
F 16/24
E 14/24
D 10/24
Dv 9/24
C 6/24
Cv 5/24
B 4/24
Bb 2/24
A A 0/24 0/24

tense diatonic: 12edo

A 12/12
G 10/12
F 8/12
E 7/12
D D 5/12 5/12
C C 3/12 3/12
B 2/12
Bb 1/12
A A 0/12 0/12

hello all,

i've added more to the end of my Aristoxenus page ...

> From: monz@attglobal.net [mailto:monz@attglobal.net]
> Sent: Sunday, July 20, 2003 7:42 PM
> To: tuning@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: RE: [tuning] 144edo: hopefully, my final interpretation of
> Aristoxenus
>
>
> an addendum on Aristoxenus ...
>
>
> > From: monz@attglobal.net [mailto:monz@attglobal.net]
> > Sent: Sunday, July 20, 2003 4:25 PM
> > To: tuning@yahoogroups.com
> > Subject: [tuning] 144edo: hopefully, my final interpretation of
> > Aristoxenus
> >
> >
> > <snip>
> >
> > taking note of the cents-values of the "tone" and
> > "semitone" in the (4/3^(x/5) tempering, and seeing how
> > closely they resemble 12edo, it is easy to see that
> > (4/3)^(x/60) would be well approximated by 144edo.
> >
> > ... and that was exactly the statement which started me
> > on this whole project back in 1999!
> >
> >
> >
> > see the new final section (before the references) of
> > http://sonic-arts.org/monzo/aristoxenus/318tet.htm

included with the tabulation of 144edo subsets for all
of Aristoxenus's genera, the webpage now has a notation
of each genus (one each for both Greater Perfect and
Lesser Perfect systems), and when you click on the
musical example it will open a MIDI-file of that genus,
played on the closest sound i could find to a kithara.

-monz