Tuning knowledge

Interesting how little folks know about tuning...that's no big news here, I guess, but I did a couple of seminars in the last few months, one at Berklee and one at Metro State here in Denver, and when I asked the question "Why do we have 12 equally spaced notes in the Western system," absolutely nobody knew. Yeah, at each class one person ventured that it has something to do with the harmonics, but it was a guess, not a statement. And, when you think about it, that's pretty sad...here we are, millions of folks playing instruments, and virtually no one has a clue why we use the tuning we do. Of course, I think we on the forum would like to see that change, but boy, it's an uphill climb, that's for sure. I think music would be so much richer if the 12 tone conspiracy was overturned. If I was designing classes for high schools/universities, or whatever format, the study of tuning would be the first thing we talked about, to give all musicians a basic understanding of why we have a 12 tone tempered system, how we arrived at it, and the incredible variety of other tuning possibilities available. Especially these days, with tunable keyboards, and the low cost of getting guitars refretted, as well as easy access to music from all over the world, it's a good time for people to become aware of the vastness of the world of tuning. Music would be much the better if we were able to hear a multiplicity of tunings...here's to that happening, and I'm grateful for the efforts of all the folks here for trying to help that happen...best...Hstick
www.microstick.net

Hear! Hear! Time to add more stars to the EU and USA flags. Bravo Neil, I concur with you entirely...

Cordially,
Ozan

----- Original Message -----
From: Neil Haverstick
To: tuning@yahoogroups.com
Sent: 20 Nisan 2005 Çarşamba 20:36
Subject: [tuning] Tuning knowledge

Interesting how little folks know about tuning...that's no big news here,
I guess, but I did a couple of seminars in the last few months, one at
Berklee and one at Metro State here in Denver, and when I asked the question
"Why do we have 12 equally spaced notes in the Western system," absolutely
nobody knew. Yeah, at each class one person ventured that it has something
to do with the harmonics, but it was a guess, not a statement. And, when you
think about it, that's pretty sad...here we are, millions of folks playing
instruments, and virtually no one has a clue why we use the tuning we do. Of
course, I think we on the forum would like to see that change, but boy, it's
an uphill climb, that's for sure. I think music would be so much richer if
the 12 tone conspiracy was overturned. If I was designing classes for high
schools/universities, or whatever format, the study of tuning would be the
first thing we talked about, to give all musicians a basic understanding of
why we have a 12 tone tempered system, how we arrived at it, and the
incredible variety of other tuning possibilities available. Especially these
days, with tunable keyboards, and the low cost of getting guitars refretted,
as well as easy access to music from all over the world, it's a good time
for people to become aware of the vastness of the world of tuning. Music
would be much the better if we were able to hear a multiplicity of
tunings...here's to that happening, and I'm grateful for the efforts of all
the folks here for trying to help that happen...best...Hstick
www.microstick.net

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Neil Haverstick" <microstick@m...>
wrote:
> Interesting how little folks know about tuning...that's no big
news here,
> I guess, but I did a couple of seminars in the last few months, one
at
> Berklee and one at Metro State here in Denver, and when I asked the
question
> "Why do we have 12 equally spaced notes in the Western system,"
absolutely
> nobody knew.

This is an extremely difficult question to answer without preparation
and in under 2 minutes. What answer would *you* give? (Imagine that
you are in a seminar audience and do not wish to start giving a
lecture of your own.)

> I think music would be so much richer if
> the 12 tone conspiracy was overturned.

'Conspiracy'? It's hardly as if people meet in secret to plot
stratagems which ensure the continued use of equal temperament and
suppress others. Can we avoid the attitude of being an oppressed
minority?

> If I was designing classes for high
> schools/universities, or whatever format, the study of tuning would
be the
> first thing we talked about, to give all musicians a basic
understanding of
> why we have a 12 tone tempered system, how we arrived at it, and
the
> incredible variety of other tuning possibilities available.

What does 'tempered' mean here? if we interpret it to mean that some
intervals are not just ratios, then there are still an incredible
variety of ways of tuning the 12 chromatic notes.

Also, every time there is a musical composition performed with string
or wind instruments or voices, they use a unique *free* tuning which
does not correspond to equal temperament and where any given note can
sound at different pitches. For example singers produce perfect 5ths
in tune ... I don't think anyone can force them to sing in equal
temperament. Now of course they may better appreciate what they are
doing if taught about unequal temperaments, but I think good string
players, singers etc. are able to judge by ear without many theory
lessons.

I haven't seen much discussion here about free (continuously
variable) tuning where the essential aspect is that the same note can
take slightly different pitches: are you all tied to keyboards and
fretted strings?

I suppose the only theory lesson that should be compulsory is that
the piano does not give intervals perfectly in tune!

~~~Thomas~~~

Hi Thomas,

>I haven't seen much discussion here about free (continuously
>variable) tuning where the essential aspect is that the same note can
>take slightly different pitches:

There has been a lot of discussion about this. You could try
searching for "adaptive tuning". One of us (John deLaubenfels,
who might not be reading the list right now) even wrote some
software that retunes MIDI files in various types of free tuning...

http://personalpages.bellsouth.net/j/d/jdelaub/jstudio.htm

>are you all tied to keyboards and fretted strings?

Fixed tunings provide are convenient theoretical devices, as
well as being useful on keyboards and fretted strings. They
can be taken as archetypes that inform free tuning.

-Carl

Tom Dent wrote:
> I haven't seen much discussion here about free (continuously > variable) tuning where the essential aspect is that the same note can > take slightly different pitches: are you all tied to keyboards and > fretted strings? There was some discussion about "adaptive JI" here a few years back; John deLaubenfels had written a program that retuned MIDI files, which would tune each note as appropriate for the context (relative to adjacent and currently playing notes), and William Sethares' book had some discussion of real-time adaptive tuning. The Tonalsoft web site has an article on adaptive JI (http://tonalsoft.com/enc/adaptive-ji.htm), which has some examples of some of the things that have been discussed here in past years. But I guess there hasn't been much recent discussion here for some reason.

Tom Dent wrote:

>>I think music would be so much richer if >>the 12 tone conspiracy was overturned. >> >>
>
>'Conspiracy'? It's hardly as if people meet in secret to plot >stratagems which ensure the continued use of equal temperament and >suppress others. Can we avoid the attitude of being an oppressed >minority?
>
Or sounding like we're clinically paranoid and in need of treatment?

--
* David Beardsley
* microtonal guitar
* http://biink.com/db

>Can we avoid the attitude of being an oppressed
>minority?

This is an important point for me... I had this
feeling when I joined this group in 1997, but have
come to believe it is one of the most counter-
productive attitudes around here.

This is not to weaken Neil's point -- the level of
ignorance among musicians about musical tuning is
egregious.

-Carl

I thought 12 equally spaced tones per octaves are generally taken for granted everywhere music is tought and practiced.

Cordially,
Ozan
----- Original Message -----
From: Carl Lumma
To: tuning@yahoogroups.com
Sent: 21 Nisan 2005 Perşembe 2:28
Subject: Re: [tuning] Re: Tuning knowledge

>Can we avoid the attitude of being an oppressed
>minority?

This is an important point for me... I had this
feeling when I joined this group in 1997, but have
come to believe it is one of the most counter-
productive attitudes around here.

This is not to weaken Neil's point -- the level of
ignorance among musicians about musical tuning is
egregious.

-Carl

Paul, `everywhere` was meant to be `everywhere in the West and/or
Westernized locations`. Sorry for not having made that clear. As I said, you
have a tendency to take things too literally.

As for the meantone stuff, I haven't found the time to get to it, but will
do so once I take care of a few things first.

Cordially,
Ozan

P.S. I forward this message to the tuning list to clear any further
complications on my part concerning the 12-tone issue.

----- Original Message -----
From: "wallyesterpaulrus" <wallyesterpaulrus@yahoo.com>
To: "Ozan Yarman" <ozanyarman@superonline.com>
Sent: 21 Nisan 2005 Per�embe 3:07
Subject: Re: Tuning knowledge

Hi Ozan,

I hope you are making good progress, and learning a lot, from the
simple meantone exercises I gave you. Let me know if you need any
help.

I just wanted to say, this post of yours (below) came as quite a
shock to me. Surely this is not the case in Turkey, right? And of
course, the teaching and practice of countless musical cultures, from
Thailand to Indonesia to Africa, etc., have nothing whatsover to do
with 12 equally spaced tones per octave. I'm pretty baffled as to how
a knowledgeable and worldly musician such as yourself could have come
up with a statement like the one below.

Best,
Paul

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Tom Dent" <tdent@a...> wrote:

> > "Why do we have 12 equally spaced notes in the Western system,"
> absolutely
> > nobody knew.
>
> This is an extremely difficult question to answer without preparation
> and in under 2 minutes. What answer would *you* give? (Imagine that
> you are in a seminar audience and do not wish to start giving a
> lecture of your own.)

My one-sentence answer is that 12 is the smallest number which gives
usable major and minor triads.

hi Gene and Tom,

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com,
"Gene Ward Smith" <gwsmith@s...>
wrote:
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com,
> "Tom Dent" <tdent@a...> wrote:
>
> > > "Why do we have 12 equally
> > > spaced notes in the Western
> > > system," absolutely nobody
> > > knew.
> >
> > This is an extremely difficult
> > question to answer without
> > preparation and in under 2
> > minutes. What answer would
> > *you* give? (Imagine that you
> > are in a seminar audience and
> > do not wish to start giving a
> > lecture of your own.)
>
> My one-sentence answer is that 12 is the smallest number which gives
> usable major and minor triads.

and in addition, 12 is the smallest number (cardinality,
to be specific) which gives a reasonable representation of
the patterns of L/s (in the form of tone and semitone) in
the diatonic scales.

for example, all diatonic major scales require approximately
the pattern t:t:s:t:t:t:s. for the case where t=2s, the sum
t+t+s+t+t+t+s = 6t = 12s, which is 12-edo.

-monz

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Gene Ward Smith" <gwsmith@s...> wrote:
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Tom Dent" <tdent@a...> wrote:
>
> > > "Why do we have 12 equally spaced notes in the Western system,"
> > > absolutely nobody knew.
> >
> > (...) What answer would *you* give? (Imagine that
> > you are in a seminar audience and do not wish to start giving a
> > lecture of your own.)
>
> My one-sentence answer is that 12 is the smallest number which gives
> usable major and minor triads.

Sure, that's true *if* you assume equally spaced. What's the one-
sentence explanation for that assumption?

~~~T~~~

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Tom Dent" <tdent@a...> wrote:

> Sure, that's true *if* you assume equally spaced. What's the one-
> sentence explanation for that assumption?

It's the easiest and most regular way to produce a circulating
temperament, which is the only way to play in all keys.