Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup tuning Pelog and von Hornbostel's temperament

Curiouser and curiouser!

I was listening to the CD _Music of the Gambuh Theater_ (Vital Records 501)
last night, and noticed that it sounded strangely familiar. This is music
performed with an ensemble of huge bamboo flutes, not the metallophones
typically associated with Balinese music. I was curious about the tuning,
so I started tuning the strings of my "melody harp" (one of those toy
zither sort of things with 15 metal strings on a wooden frame), and
eventually realized that the flutes were playing modes of a 9-note scale,
not the usual 7-note pelog! After trying to match the tuning for a while, I
realized that it's an unequal 9-note scale; certain notes were played
consistently sharper or flatter than 9-ET. And although the pitch varied
from one register of the flutes to another, it seemed to be fairly
consistent with a scale having a pattern of small and large steps,
sLsLLsLsL. This is the same pattern as the scale of "beep-9", and is
consistent with von Hornbostel's "primitive pelog type b" scale from the
Scala archive. (His "type a" scale is based on a flattened fifth --
essentially what we're calling "pelogic" temperament.)

Now, it doesn't seem clear how the tempering of 27/25 can have anything to
do with the pelog scale. This is just an example of a particular kind of
"distributionally even" scale that has some interesting properties,
independent from its relationship to the harmonic lattice. So I'm going
back to my original opinion that the 27/25 comma is probably of not much
interest in itself, even though I uncovered some interesting stuff in the
process of investigating it.

In any case, this might suggest some appropriate uses for the modes of what
I should probably start calling "von Hornbostel's pelog temperament", to
distinguish it from "beep" (which implies tempering out 27;25), even though
the structure of the scale is the same. The first three tracks on the CD
are in the selisir mode, and use mainly pitches 0, 2, 4, 5, and 8 of the
9-note scale (arbitrarily starting the numbering on a pitch near "C"). The
fourth track, in the sunaren mode, uses mainly 0, 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6, the
next three tracks, in the baro mode, use 0, 1, 2, 5, and 6, and the final
track, in the lebeng mode, uses 1, 2, 3, 6, and 7.

So using the naming convention of naming the notes by the number of
generators it takes to produce them, here are the modes:

vHpelog-9 2 7 3 8 4 0 5 1 6
vHpelog-7 2 7 3 4 0 5 1
tetekep selisir 2 3 4 0 6
tetekep sunaren 2 7 8 4 0 5
tetekep baro 2 7 3 0 5
tetekep lebeng 7 3 8 5 1

Note that the meaning of mode names like "selisir" and "sunaren" varies
from one ensemble to another, so these may not be the best names to give
these modes. Also, it's not clear which note is considered the first note
of the scale in any of these modes, but the mode called "baro" here sounds
pretty much like the typical 5-note pelog, starting on the note "2". It
seems likely that the sunaren mode starts on "4", and lebeng on "7". I'm
not sure about the "selisir" mode, but the CD booklet shows it as starting
one step lower than "baro", so it makes sense for it to start on the note
"6". The CD booklet also lists a "tetekep tembung", but since it's given in
terms of the 7-note scale, it's not clear which notes of the 9-note scale
would be used for it.

--
see my music page ---> ---<http://www.io.com/~hmiller/music/index.html>--
hmiller (Herman Miller) "If all Printers were determin'd not to print any
@io.com email password: thing till they were sure it would offend no body,
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🔗Dave Keenan <d.keenan@bigpond.net.au>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Herman Miller <hmiller@I...> wrote:
> Now, it doesn't seem clear how the tempering of 27/25 can have
anything to
> do with the pelog scale. This is just an example of a particular kind of
> "distributionally even" scale that has some interesting properties,
> independent from its relationship to the harmonic lattice. So I'm going
> back to my original opinion that the 27/25 comma is probably of not much
> interest in itself, even though I uncovered some interesting stuff
in the
> process of investigating it.
>
> In any case, this might suggest some appropriate uses for the modes
of what
> I should probably start calling "von Hornbostel's pelog temperament", to
> distinguish it from "beep" (which implies tempering out 27;25), even
though
> the structure of the scale is the same.

Or perhaps "von Hornbostel's pelog linear tuning".

🔗Herman Miller <hmiller@IO.COM>

On Sun, 11 Jan 2004 22:17:29 -0000, "Dave Keenan" <d.keenan@bigpond.net.au>
wrote:

>> In any case, this might suggest some appropriate uses for the modes
>of what
>> I should probably start calling "von Hornbostel's pelog temperament", to
>> distinguish it from "beep" (which implies tempering out 27;25), even
>though
>> the structure of the scale is the same.
>
>Or perhaps "von Hornbostel's pelog linear tuning".

Too verbose. I'll just stick with "von Hornbostel's pelog", or "vHpelog"
for short.

Interestingly, I just noticed that the generator of this scale is half a
pelogic generator. Every other note of vHpelog-14 is a note of pelogic-7,
so you can get two interlocking pelogic scales by playing whole-tone scales
if you've got your keyboard tuned that way! You can see this by looking at
the scale structure:

0 5 A 1 6 B 2 7 C 3 8 D 4 9 0 (vhPelog generators)
vHpelog-14 L L s L L s L L s L L s L s
pelogic-7 L s s L s s s
0 5 3 1 6 4 2 0 (pelogic generators)
(D E F G A B C D) (my 16-ET notation)

In fact, the better major and minor thirds of this tuning (when extended
beyond 8 steps) are the pelogic thirds. This suggests that the best tuning
for this scale might be half the top pelogic generator (260.76 cents),
instead of the top beep generator, with a period of 1206.55 cents (which
should result in a more authentic sound for the unequal pelog modes). This
is starting to look like a really interesting scale.

🔗wallyesterpaulrus <paul@stretch-music.com>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Herman Miller <hmiller@I...> wrote:

> This is the same pattern as the scale of "beep-9", and is
> consistent with von Hornbostel's "primitive pelog type b" scale
from the
> Scala archive. (His "type a" scale is based on a flattened fifth --
> essentially what we're calling "pelogic" temperament.)

Glad you found type a too.

> In any case, this might suggest some appropriate uses for the modes
of what
> I should probably start calling "von Hornbostel's pelog
temperament",

In light of the above, how could you justify that? Don't you need to
specify "type b"?

🔗Herman Miller <hmiller@IO.COM>

On Sun, 11 Jan 2004 18:47:17 -0600, Herman Miller <hmiller@IO.COM> wrote:

>In fact, the better major and minor thirds of this tuning (when extended
>beyond 8 steps) are the pelogic thirds. This suggests that the best tuning
>for this scale might be half the top pelogic generator (260.76 cents),
>instead of the top beep generator, with a period of 1206.55 cents (which
>should result in a more authentic sound for the unequal pelog modes). This
>is starting to look like a really interesting scale.

As it turns out, using the top pelogic generator and period does make a
better tuning. While the top beep generator has a better 3:1 at (-1,12),
this "superpelog" tuning doesn't have a better 3:1 until you get to
(10,-39). The "beep" 3:1 (3,-3) isn't really usable in "superpelog" tuning,
since it's 51 cents sharp. So really the only mapping that makes sense is:

[(1, 0), (2, -2), (1, 6), (3, -1), (3, 2)]

I added a superpelog retuning of _Egress_ to the music page.

http://www.io.com/~hmiller/midi/egress-superpelog.mid

Compare with the version using the "top beep" generator, and the 14-ET
original.

http://www.io.com/~hmiller/midi/egress-vh14.mid

http://www.io.com/~hmiller/midi/egress.mid