Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup tuning concerning Sagittarius

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Jacob" <jbarton@r...> wrote:
> Well, if no one has any decapitated flats, I'll try some
sagittal. Questions come to
> mind:

Hi Jacob,

I'll do my best to answer them.

> 1. For notating pieces in ETs that change from section to section (like
my "Moods"
> which I am planning to notate), is sagittal a good choice?

I think so, but then I might be biased. :-) I'm hoping you will try it and
let us know. Or more to the point, I hope you will find the best way to use
Sagittal for your purposes and tell us what considerations influence your
decisions, as there will be more than one way to do it.

> This seems the exact kind
> of thing sagittal was intended for, yes?

Yes, in-as-much-as Sagittal is intended for _everything_. :-)

> The only drawback is in the low multiples of 5
> (5 and 10 in my case) which seem complicated for such limited sets of
pitches.

Take a look at the "N" notations for these i.e. SA5N, SA10N, SA15N in
Scala. The "N" stands for both "Native fifth" and "Non preferred". These
are much simpler, however the decision about whether or not to use them may
depend on many other things, such as what instrument(s) will be used, and
which other tunings it will be used with, the purpose of the score
(composition, analysis, live performance).

Will you be using pure sagittal (never more than one accidental per note,
using multishaft arrows as required) or mixed (single-shaft arrows only,
with conventional sharps and flats as required)?

I assume you know how to change this in Edit/Options... or from the command
line. Edit/Options... or

> 2. Is the Micro Lite font sufficent for notating ET's from 2 to 24?

Do you mean "Sagittal Lite"? "Micro" is Ted Mook's excellent font which
primarily contains the Sims notation for 72-ET (which is unfortunately
incompatible with Sagittal).

> I dont see any
> concave arcs...maybe I don't need them.

You don't need any concave symbols for ETs from 2 to 24, but you do need
some symbols outside the Lite set for 16-ET and 20--ET.

We're wary of putting the full sagittal font up on the website without
documentation, as it's complexity can be overwhelming and may give the
wrong impression. Most of the symbols will never be needed by most
composers. But I can email you what you need when we work out what that is.

> Also, is the best (or only, really) source for
> how to notate such ET's the latest version of Scala?

At present yes. Manuel has done a wonderful job of implementing it in
Scala, while George Secor and I are still struggling to put the
documentation together. There are some minor bugs in the Scala
implementation for some notations, but that's our fault for not taking the
time to put together a report for Manuel yet. We've been concentrating on
finishing the documentation first. But hopefully we are only weeks away
from releasing the first episode (dealing with the Lite subset).

I'm sorry about the current lack of documentation, but we made a decision
that as long as the publication of Xenharmonikon 18 is delayed (containing
our "dry" article introducing sagittal), and as long as not too many people
are clamouring for more info, we'll take advantage of the situation to try
to ensure that the first introduction to sagittal for most people is an
entertaining and educational one - The Sagittal Mythology.

In the meantime we're happy to provide specific information (if we've got
it) for anyone, like you, who wants to get started _now_.

> 3. For use in Sibelius, one can add as many accidentals as one wants but
only nine
> will attach to notes properly, replacing the normal ones. Is this
enough for any
> conscientious xenharmonist or should we rally and demand more?

Nine definitely isn't enough. Maybe after you've gained some experience
with Sagittal you can add your plea to those I've already made on the
Sibelius list.
/sibelius-list/

Finale has slightly better support for large sets of accidentals, because
you can at least use an actual intentional feature, albeit an obscure and
difficult one, whereas to use larger sets in Sibelius you're forced to use
a dirty trick that relies on an undocumented (and possibly unintentional)
feature. But microtonality aside, I feel that Sibelius has a better
user-interface in general, and better scripting capability.

> Or, is there a way around this that escapes me?

Yes. And it's hardly surprising. It would escape most people.

The trick is to write scripts (which can be activated from a menu or with a
keystroke) to set the "accidental" attribute of the selected note to
integer values outside the normal range of -2 to +2. I think you can use
from -64 to 64. The ordinary values of -2, -1, 0, 1, 2 correspond to
double-flat, flat, natural, sharp, double-sharp. When you look at the full
symbol palette under "Edit/Symbols..." you'll see that these symbols are
two symbols apart. If, for example, you set the value 3 you will find you
have, as an accidental, the symbol that is two positions past the
double-sharp and so on for every second symbol for some distance before and
after the standard accidental symbols.

You will need to decide which of those symbols you can do without, e.g.
alternate noteheads, percusssion symbols etc., and redefine them to be the
symbols you need from the Sagittal font.

This is one of those jobs I just haven't had time to do (write such scripts
and standardise the assignment of accidental numbers to Sagittal symbols).
It would be wonderful if you can do this, or at least make a start on it.
Joseph Pehrson very helpfully went through the existing Sibelius symbols
for me and suggested which were least needed. Joseph, if you still have
that email could you resend it to both me and Jacob. I can't find it since
my hard disk crash.

🔗Jacob <jbarton@rice.edu>

> Take a look at the "N" notations for these i.e. SA5N, SA10N, SA15N in
> Scala. The "N" stands for both "Native fifth" and "Non preferred". These
> are much simpler, however the decision about whether or not to use them may
> depend on many other things, such as what instrument(s) will be used, and
> which other tunings it will be used with, the purpose of the score
> (composition, analysis, live performance).

Currently I'm planning pairs of pages, like in piano duos, with the "transposed" part in
traditional on one side and the "sounding" part on the other. Since there will only be one
tuning going on at any one time, the simplest-looking systems will probably do fine.

> Will you be using pure sagittal (never more than one accidental per note,
> using multishaft arrows as required) or mixed (single-shaft arrows only,
> with conventional sharps and flats as required)?

I'm guessing I'll go with pure...I like the conciseness.

>
> Do you mean "Sagittal Lite"? "Micro" is Ted Mook's excellent font which
> primarily contains the Sims notation for 72-ET (which is unfortunately
> incompatible with Sagittal).

Ooh, yeah, I meant Sagittal Lite. Quite the pretty font!

> We're wary of putting the full sagittal font up on the website without
> documentation, as it's complexity can be overwhelming and may give the
> wrong impression. Most of the symbols will never be needed by most
> composers. But I can email you what you need when we work out what that is.

I'm curious about the full version; I'm glad that you're working on thorough
documentation, and I can wait because I don't have need for 16/oct or 20/oct yet.
However, if you felt like emailing me the full version I certainly wouldn't get the wrong
impression!

> I'm sorry about the current lack of documentation, but we made a decision
> that as long as the publication of Xenharmonikon 18 is delayed (containing
> our "dry" article introducing sagittal), and as long as not too many people
> are clamouring for more info, we'll take advantage of the situation to try
> to ensure that the first introduction to sagittal for most people is an
> entertaining and educational one - The Sagittal Mythology.

Sounds good to me. What is Xenharmonikon waiting for these days?

>
> > Or, is there a way around this that escapes me?
>
> Yes. And it's hardly surprising. It would escape most people. <snippity>
>
I tried out the method you mentioned, and it sure is silly that it skips every other symbol
and only goes to 64; if it were unlimited one could use the user-defined symbols and not
have to override things. But it works...

> This is one of those jobs I just haven't had time to do (write such scripts
> and standardise the assignment of accidental numbers to Sagittal symbols).
> It would be wonderful if you can do this, or at least make a start on it.
> Joseph Pehrson very helpfully went through the existing Sibelius symbols
> for me and suggested which were least needed. Joseph, if you still have
> that email could you resend it to both me and Jacob. I can't find it since
> my hard disk crash.

I could definitely do this. If Joseph had a list that would be cool.

Thanks,
Jacob

🔗Dave Keenan <d.keenan@bigpond.net.au>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Jacob" <jbarton@r...> wrote:
> Currently I'm planning pairs of pages, like in piano duos, with the "transposed" part in
> traditional on one side and the "sounding" part on the other.

Hi Jacob,

I assume by "transposed" part here you mean scordatura, i.e. indicating which keys to press by notating the pitch that would normally be produced by those keys. This is as opposed to tablature which would indicate directly which key to press (e.g. on a representation of the keyboard) without the intervening false pitch information.

> Since there will only be one
> tuning going on at any one time, the simplest-looking systems will probably do fine.
>

OK. Well there are also native-fifth systems for 7, 14 and 21-ET.

We list as preferred, the notation of 5 and 10-ET as subsets of 50-ET (which is a meantone) and the notation of 15-ET as a subset of 60-ET (which is a multiple of 12-ET). Neither 50 or 60 are notatable with the Lite subset. 50-ET needs the /|) and (|\ symbols while 60-ET needs (| |\ /|| )||~. We recognise there are situations where it is preferable to use a simpler native-fifth notation even though the harmonic meaning of the note names is then severely stretched. The native-fifth notations for these use 3/5 oct as the notational fifth and are limited to using 5 of the 7 nominals or staff-positions per octave (only C G D A E). Note that Scala currently has a bug in this regard, as it sometimes uses F for E and B for C in the SA10N and SA15N notations.

Similarly we prefer 7 and 14-ET to be notated as subsets of 56-ET, and for 21-ET to be notated as a subset of 63-ET. Both 56 and 63 are notatable with the Lite subset. But we also have SA7N, SA14N and SA21N. 7 and 14-ET are native-fifth-notatable using the Lite subset, but native 21-ET notation needs the |\ symbol. The notational fifth for these is of course 4/7 oct. Native 7-ET notation is of course just the 7 nominals.

> Sounds good to me. What is Xenharmonikon waiting for these days?

I don't know, but if any one is reading this and still hasn't got their article finished and sent to John Chalmers, please do.

> I tried out the method you mentioned, and it sure is silly that it skips every other symbol

I think it's because quartertones were an afterthought. The makers of Sibelius have confirmed that there is no way to access the quartertone attribute from scripts.

> and only goes to 64;
> if it were unlimited one could use the user-defined symbols and not
> have to override things. But it works...

Have you checked -63 to +64? I forget how it actually goes. It may go further, but eventually it wraps around.

> I could definitely do this. If Joseph had a list that would be cool.

That would be wonderful! Thanks. I think we'll have to wait for Joseph to return from his Russia trip to get the list, but you could make a start without it. Use your own judgement. Just make sure it's easy to change the mapping from Sagittal character code to accidental number in all the scripts. Don't bother trying to make the mapping regular in any way. Just aim to make the most commonly used Sagittal symbols (i.e. the single shaft symbols in the Lite set) replace the least commonly used Sibelius symbols. I'd start by replacing alternative noteheads (except the common unpitched "x" heads) since people sometimes use these as a substitute for microtonal accidentals anyway. Don't replace any of the 9 standard quartertone-series accidentals. Just use accidental numbers outside the range -2 to +2.

When you get it working with the Lite symbols please send me a copy of the scripts and we'll look at putting them up on the sagittal website, with acknowledgement of course.

One can get Sibelius to _notate_ using the Sagittal symbols OK, but it seems there's no easy way to get it to correctly _play_ them, except in the case of monophonic parts. With monophonic parts you can write a script to run through the part and insert the correct MIDI pitch bends for the tuning. Note that the same Sagittal symbol (and nominal) will correspond to different pitch bends depending on the tuning. You need to indicate the intended tuning in words on the score, since the Sagittal symbols alone will not tell you this.

And by the way there's no way for Sibelius scripts to read in a text file either, in case you were thinking what other people have thought, that it would be nice to have a script read a Scala .scl file or something similar. You could however write an external program that would read a .scl file and generate a Sibelius script.

-- Dave Keenan

concerning Sagittarius

🔗Jacob <jbarton@rice.edu>

🔗Dave Keenan <d.keenan@bigpond.net.au>

🔗Jacob <jbarton@rice.edu>

🔗Dave Keenan <d.keenan@bigpond.net.au>

🔗Manuel Op de Coul <manuel.op.de.coul@eon-benelux.com>