flawed engineering? [Sagittal]

My feeling, at the moment, is that the Sagittal notation has been
engineered incorrectly, with too much emphasis on certain
theoretical concerns, like how the commas work, and too little
consideration for making the *most commonly used* microtonal
accidentals *very* distinguisable from one another...

J. Pehrson

>My feeling, at the moment, is that the Sagittal notation has been
>engineered incorrectly, with too much emphasis on certain
>theoretical concerns,

If it's engineered incorrectly, too *little* emphasis has been
placed on theoretical concerns!

>like how the commas work, and too little consideration for making
>the *most commonly used* microtonal accidentals *very* distinguisable
>from one another...

Right, we got that. It means one of three things:

(1) Dave and George didn't do an optimal job of making 600 symbols
that look very different from one another.

(2) There's no way to do it; we have to give up the idea of a master
list and use the same accidentals to mean different commas in
different tunings.

(3) We keep the master list, but reduce the number of different
accidentals needed in a score by using the appropriate number of
nominals.

-Carl

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Carl Lumma <ekin@l...> wrote:

/tuning/topicId_47537.html#47542

> >My feeling, at the moment, is that the Sagittal notation has been
> >engineered incorrectly, with too much emphasis on certain
> >theoretical concerns,
>
> If it's engineered incorrectly, too *little* emphasis has been
> placed on theoretical concerns!

***I disagree here, Carl. I think notation could be practically
*anything* as Monzo himself attests and people can learn it. The
important part, though, is that it's easily readable and
distinguishable to a sight reader in a performance situation.

HEWM is, Sims is (even though performers still complain about it),
the Reinhard cents notation is, but Sagittal is *NOT*...

>
> >like how the commas work, and too little consideration for making
> >the *most commonly used* microtonal accidentals *very*
distinguisable
> >from one another...
>
> Right, we got that. It means one of three things:
>
> (1) Dave and George didn't do an optimal job of making 600 symbols
> that look very different from one another.

***Well, what if they were to have taken it from the standpoint of
making the *most commonly used* symbols differentiated the greatest
from one another, and then filled in the options after that.

Could there be a "foolish consistency" in this notation??

To cite further: George gave a graphic on Tuning Math (yes, I was
sneaking undercover...for good reason... over there) and he showed
two versions, the *purest* version of Sagittal and the version that
used traditional accidentals with Sagittal.

The "pure" version was, of course, impossible to read, and
the "traditional" was better, partially, of course, because musicians
are accustomed to traditional accidentals (I guess I'm mostly
speaking for myself here... :)

But, here is another example where "theoretical purity" has *nothing*
to do with *legibility...* In fact there was an *inverse*
relationship!!!

>
> (2) There's no way to do it; we have to give up the idea of a master
> list and use the same accidentals to mean different commas in
> different tunings.

***How about multiple meanings for the *least* used accidentals...
So the *most used* would be greatly differentiated, and the *least*
used could even be *duplicated...*

Put that on a calculus curve (just being funny) and fill in all the
points between those two concepts...

>
> (3) We keep the master list, but reduce the number of different
> accidentals needed in a score by using the appropriate number of
> nominals.
>
***I think that could also be confusing, if "decimal" is any
indication....

JP