Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup tuning Re: My 19-tone keyboard

Danny, I dug this mail out of the stupid SPAM folder of my service provider.
Sorry for the late reply.

> > I concur. But the red keys fall way back now, making it plenty difficult
> > to
> > reach.
>
> They do look short on second look; I have them as one-third the length of
> white keys. That's why I need to build a non-playing octachordal model to
> get the design right. I'm leaning towards the thumb-key version.
>

Thumb-keys may pose more problems than they solve.

> > I see. But for those like me who prefer pythagorean thirds to pure
thirds,
> > it will become a nuisance after a while. What do you think about
splitting
> > E
> > and B by the belly into two portions?
>
> I didn't think about that. You mean a horizontal division of the key, so
> that the upper part plays B-natural and the lower part plays B half-flat
or
> comma-flat?
>

Right!

> I'm kind of afraid that the whole keyboard itself may have to be done from
> scratch. I'm not really a fan of generalized keyboards like Bosanquet's. I
> want something that's similar enough to ordinary Halberstadt to ease
> transition, and not something like Partch's Chromelodeon which spreads out
> an octave of notes out over more than two octaves of keys, because I'd
like
> to be able to play normal chords with the right hand and octaves with the
> left.
>

That's also an issue I prioritize with microtonal keyboards.

> > I would vote personally for the Ultratonal Piano that can individually
> > tune
> > each tone corresponsing to the 12 keys per octave in ordinary pianos.
The
> > pedals actually don't serve to tune, but to reset a scale configuration
> > designated to one of the seven keyboard regions. It is the pitch-benders
> > right beneath the thumbs that do the trick. The tuning pins ought to be
> > locked before the device is installed to prevent loss of string tension.
> > Also, the entire set of pitches need to be reduced by a semitone for
> > optimum
> > operational range. The maximum amount each key can be altered will be
> > about
> > a semitone in each direction. That allows plenty room for hundreds of
> > tuning
> > s.
>
> I'll have to look at the PDF real good. Please let me know if you ever
make
> an English translation.

Sure, I'll let you know firsthand.

>
> As long as you have a total pitch-bend of one semitone, you're in good
> shape. Somebody posted on Tuning-L a long time ago that someone else came
up > with the idea of sending an electrical current through certain strings
in
> order to heat them, slightly lowering their pitch.

I heard about such a thing, but hardly think it will work. Application of
heat to the material will weaken the fabric of the strings, and cause them
to snap in loud passages.

>
> There's an article somewhere... but you know how Yahoo! Groups archive
> search is; it's near impossible to find anything from more than a few
months
> past.
>

Yes, now I see that the new interface does not display Turkish characters!
Maybe we should move the whole thing to another platform or a neatly
organized forum with e-mail support.

> > Thank you for the compliments! Neva Ceng-i Harbi is a Mehter piece from
at
> > least 250 years ago. The Piano arrangement is that of a folk song from
> > Aegea
> > I think. The piece I intended for a piano and two kemenchas is based on
a
> > theme given to me by the legendary Turkish kemencha performer Ihsan
Ozgen.
> > I
> > have several other compositions, but I never had time to make them
> > presentable. Maybe in due course...
>
> I came across this page:
>
> http://www.goldenhorn.com/display.php4?content=records&page=ghp019.html
>
> while Googling for kemenï¿½e, and it mentions Ihsan ï¿½zgen (is the first 'I'
> dotted?). I always get the instrument confused with the Iranian kamancheh,
> which you know is quite different in shape.
>
> I'll listen to the sound samples real soon.
>
>

Ihsan Ozgen is my elder colleague whom I see often on the Istanbul Technical
University Turkish Conservatory grounds. That's where I currently pursue my
doctorate career.

Cordially,
Ozan

🔗Danny Wier <dawiertx@sbcglobal.net>

[encoding changed to UTF-8 because I mixed Turkish and Icelandic characters]

Hello Ozan. Last time we talked, it was about Halberstadt, thumb keys, split keys, 31-tone and what not.

I need to build some cheap non-playing prototypes, but I can't even do that now. I do want a three-row arrangement, and I'd like to have the main row (white keys in Halberstadt) the middle row. And naturally, the lower row would be played more by the thumbs. So I need a thumb-friendly design.

I don't like the other alternative: the third row of "short black keys", since the white keys are the "home row", and you'd have to jump up two rows.

A modified Halberstadt might be completely impractical for 31-tone. It's been done, but those keyboards are monstrosities! (You got that photo of Alois Haba's 36-tone piano; that thing looks scary.) I like Fokker's organ keyboard (http://www.xs4all.nl/~huygensf/english/instrum.html), except I prefer non-generalized. Smaller keys would also enable someone to play the kind of chords only Rachmaninov could've played. I don't like typewriter-type keyboards, like on the Archiphone.

And I shouldn't have pooh-poohed your idea of using 31-tone in some Arabic music, by the way. It would work well for Nahawand, Hijaz, Rast, Bayati, and Saba, at least. But not Kurd, Busalik or Ajam, since those really need untempered intervals. (At least according to my understanding.)

217-tone

> I heard about such a thing, but hardly think it will work. Application of
> heat to the material will weaken the fabric of the strings, and cause them
> to snap in loud passages.

I didn't like the idea from the get-go. Metal weakens when it's heated and cooled repeatedly. I also don't like the idea of a piano or harspichord you have to plug in for some reason.

(I also worry the player might get electrocuted or something, but I'm just weird.)

> Yes, now I see that the new interface does not display Turkish characters!
> Maybe we should move the whole thing to another platform or a neatly
> organized forum with e-mail support.

It's not Unicode-friendly? Or can you at least substitute Ð/ð for Ğ/ğ, Þ/þ for Ş/ş, Ý for İ and ý for ı? (At least we're not communicating in Arabic or Russian.)

~Danny~

🔗Graham Breed <gbreed@gmail.com>

🔗Danny Wier <dawiertx@sbcglobal.net>

🔗Yahya Abdal-Aziz <yahya@melbpc.org.au>

Graham wrote:
________________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2005 11:30:32 +0800
From: Graham Breed <gbreed@...>

Danny Wier wrote:

> It's not Unicode-friendly? Or can you at least substitute Ð/ð for Ğ/ğ, Þ/þ
> for Ş/ş, Ý for İ and ý for ı? (At least we're not communicating in Arabic or
> Russian.)

The web interface doesn't declare a charset, so you'll see the
characters in whatever you set as the default. Change it to UTF-8 and
all is well.
________________________________________________________________________

[YA] A similar comment applies to most mail readers. In Microsoft Outlook,
where I'm reading the daily digest, I changed the encoding to UTF-8, as
follows:
From the menu, select Format, Encoding, More, Unicode (UTF-8).

(The default encoding was Western European (Windows) - just one of a long
list.)

The appearance of Danny's message changed _radically_.

--
Internal Virus Database is out-of-date.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.308 / Virus Database: 266.9.15 - Release Date: 16/4/05

🔗Ozan Yarman <ozanyarman@superonline.com>

Hello Danny,

It is surprising that you also concluded that the thumbs should be the fingers by which microtones are sounded. In my Ultratonal Piano (tm) design, a 3 times 12-row set of pitch-benders corresponding to the Halberstadt keys per octave are controlled by the thumb as the pianist plays on. This way, each tone of an acoustic piano can be bent a semitone up or down just as it is done with MIDI pitch-benders today.

The Haba 36-tone piano built by August Förster is truly a monstrous machine, which I would love to get my paws on, but unfortunately lack the means to. Is there anyway I can get close to this model?

The Fokker keyboard design is also very interesting. But I'm a fan of Halberstadt and have little difficulty playing such chords as C-G-Bb-C-E since I have quite large hands.

On second thought, I conclude that 31tET is not the best of choices for Maqam Music. How about 29tET?

I was pretty amused at the thought of an electrocuted musician, which is not very cute at all!

Maybe everything digital should just be upgraded to unicode as you say, and then we should be done with all the encoding nonsense.

Cordially,
Ozan

----- Original Message -----
From: Danny Wier
To: tuning@yahoogroups.com
Sent: 22 Nisan 2005 Cuma 6:12
Subject: Re: [tuning] Re: My 19-tone keyboard

[encoding changed to UTF-8 because I mixed Turkish and Icelandic characters]

Hello Ozan. Last time we talked, it was about Halberstadt, thumb keys, split
keys, 31-tone and what not.

I need to build some cheap non-playing prototypes, but I can't even do that
now. I do want a three-row arrangement, and I'd like to have the main row
(white keys in Halberstadt) the middle row. And naturally, the lower row
would be played more by the thumbs. So I need a thumb-friendly design.

I don't like the other alternative: the third row of "short black keys",
since the white keys are the "home row", and you'd have to jump up two rows.

A modified Halberstadt might be completely impractical for 31-tone. It's
been done, but those keyboards are monstrosities! (You got that photo of
Alois Haba's 36-tone piano; that thing looks scary.) I like Fokker's organ
keyboard (http://www.xs4all.nl/~huygensf/english/instrum.html), except I
prefer non-generalized. Smaller keys would also enable someone to play the
kind of chords only Rachmaninov could've played. I don't like
typewriter-type keyboards, like on the Archiphone.

And I shouldn't have pooh-poohed your idea of using 31-tone in some Arabic
music, by the way. It would work well for Nahawand, Hijaz, Rast, Bayati, and
Saba, at least. But not Kurd, Busalik or Ajam, since those really need
untempered intervals. (At least according to my understanding.)

217-tone

> I heard about such a thing, but hardly think it will work. Application of
> heat to the material will weaken the fabric of the strings, and cause them
> to snap in loud passages.

I didn't like the idea from the get-go. Metal weakens when it's heated and
cooled repeatedly. I also don't like the idea of a piano or harspichord you
have to plug in for some reason.

(I also worry the player might get electrocuted or something, but I'm just
weird.)

> Yes, now I see that the new interface does not display Turkish characters!
> Maybe we should move the whole thing to another platform or a neatly
> organized forum with e-mail support.

It's not Unicode-friendly? Or can you at least substitute Ð/ð for Ğ/ğ, Þ/þ
for Ş/ş, Ý for İ and ý for ı? (At least we're not communicating in Arabic or
Russian.)

~Danny~