Something completely different (18-ET)

After looking at and trying demos of some DXi plugins, I decided to get a copy of Absynth 3 because of its tuning support; the whole MIDI note range is retunable, and you can set the octave to any number of notes (not just limited to 12 or 24). I've been playing around with some different tunings that I haven't tried in a while, and somehow ended up with this interesting sequence in 18-ET (never one of my favorite tunings, but it seems to have some untapped potential here). I put an mp3 of it up on my weirdly-tuned music page:

http://home.comcast.net/~teamouse/18et-sketch.mp3

It's only 29 seconds long, but there are some ideas here that I think might be worth developing into something longer... if I can figure out how 18-ET works in the first place....

Herman,

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Herman Miller <hmiller@I...> wrote:
> After looking at and trying demos of some DXi plugins, I decided to get
> a copy of Absynth 3 because of its tuning support...

I'd be curious as to just what caused you to choose that instrument
over the others. In fact, I'd be curious to know which of the other
soft instruments that support microtuning you demo'd. I'm highly in
favor of people finding the instruments and voices that suit them
best, but knowing just a bit about your music I find the choice of
Absynth a bit unusual. OTOH, it may lead in some quite interesting
areas for your pieces!

> I put an mp3 of it up on my weirdly-tuned music page:

Checking it out...

Cheers,
Jon

if I can figure out
> how 18-ET works in the first place....

How about:

5553 0 5 10 15 (0
3232332 0 3 5 8 10 13 16 (0
31331331 0 3 4 7 10 11 14 17 (0
43443 0 4 7 11 15 (0

Mark

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "microtonalist" <mark@e...> wrote:

> if I can figure out
> > how 18-ET works in the first place....
>
> How about:
>
> 5553 0 5 10 15 (0
> 3232332 0 3 5 8 10 13 16 (0
> 31331331 0 3 4 7 10 11 14 17 (0
> 43443 0 4 7 11 15 (0
>
> Mark

There are many other possibilities too, even among distributionally
even scales. Since we were just talking about Bitches Brew and the
augmented scale on MMM, just two that come to mind are:

424242 (also occurs in 9-equal) 0 4 6 10 12 16 (0
515151 0 5 6 11 12 17 (0

and of course the other mode of each of these.

One can also switch two adjacent step sizes if one wishes to avoid
the atonal sound that such symmetric scales can produce.

wallyesterpaulrus wrote:
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "microtonalist" <mark@e...> wrote:
> > >>if I can figure out >>
>>>how 18-ET works in the first place....
>>
>>How about:
>>
>>5553 0 5 10 15 (0
>>3232332 0 3 5 8 10 13 16 (0
>>31331331 0 3 4 7 10 11 14 17 (0
>>43443 0 4 7 11 15 (0
>>
>>Mark
> > > There are many other possibilities too, even among distributionally > even scales. Since we were just talking about Bitches Brew and the > augmented scale on MMM, just two that come to mind are:
> > 424242 (also occurs in 9-equal) 0 4 6 10 12 16 (0
> 515151 0 5 6 11 12 17 (0
> > and of course the other mode of each of these.
> > One can also switch two adjacent step sizes if one wishes to avoid > the atonal sound that such symmetric scales can produce.

I think the trick is going to be figuring out how chords and progressions can work out while maintaining some control over dissonance. 18-ET has some useful approximations to things like 12:14:17, but its fifths are pretty bad. On the one hand, that encourages you to be more creative by avoiding the traditional chord progressions, but I haven't yet figured out what does work harmonically.

One of the nice things is that you can always fall back on the whole-tone scale, and you could also use the 9-ET subset as a pelog approximation.

I guess I'm going to have to take a look at what I've got so far and figure out how it works (harmonically and melodically) before I can do much else with it.

Jon Szanto wrote:
> Herman,
> > --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Herman Miller <hmiller@I...> wrote:
> >>After looking at and trying demos of some DXi plugins, I decided to get >>a copy of Absynth 3 because of its tuning support...
> > > I'd be curious as to just what caused you to choose that instrument
> over the others. In fact, I'd be curious to know which of the other
> soft instruments that support microtuning you demo'd. I'm highly in
> favor of people finding the instruments and voices that suit them
> best, but knowing just a bit about your music I find the choice of
> Absynth a bit unusual. OTOH, it may lead in some quite interesting
> areas for your pieces!

So far (I'm not done looking yet), the others that I've checked out which support microtuning include FM7 and Midicode (which is a standalone app rather than a plugin). The Midicode demo is fine as far as it goes, but it doesn't take input from Cakewalk, so it's pretty useless as a demo for evaluation. The tuning capabilities of the FM7 are more limited in comparison. What impressed me about Absynth is how easy it is to put a basic sound together, especially the envelope editing; the user interface is pretty well done.

Herman Miller wrote:
> It's only 29 seconds long, but there are some ideas here that I think > might be worth developing into something longer... if I can figure out > how 18-ET works in the first place....

I wrote down the chord progression (well, typed into a text editor) to see if I could get some clues as to what's going on. First I need some way to notate this...

C C# Db D D# Eb E E# F F# Gb G G# A A# Bb B Cb C
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

In particular, I'm interested in what's going on between the end of bar 4 and the beginning of bar 5; this seems to be an especially nice effect.

1 2 3 4 5 6
| B4-------|Cb5------Bb4|---A#4---Bb4|------G#4---|G4----Gb4---|
| G4----Gb4|---F#4------|Gb4---F#4---|E4----F4----|E4-------Eb4|
| Eb4------|---E4-D#4Db4|C4----D4----|Db4---D4----|Db4---B3----|
|E#2---------|------------|D#2---Gb2---|D2----F2----|E2-E3----Gb3|

6 7 8 9
|Gb4---G4- | |GbGBCbD#-Cb-|Gb6---------
|D#4---Db4F#4|---G4-E4----|D#4---------|
|Cb4 Cb5D5-|Db5---Db4B3-|Cb4---------|
|Gb3B3----Cb4|---F3----G3-|Gb3---------|------------

One thing I noticed was that the flutish sort of sound that comes in at the end of bar 4 maintains the Db, which clashes with the D in this chord. This seems to add to the sense of resolution. Additionally, the interval Db-E is one of the few moderately good consonances in this tuning: a nearly perfect 7/6, along with E-G which is a really sharp minor third, and then Db-G, a 600-cent tritone. The end of bar 4 is a similar chord but inverted, with the 7/6 on top. Here's the rest of the melody from that point:

flute melody (bars 4-6)
[1/4] (rest) [1/2+1/16] Db4 [1/16] F4 [1/16 triplets] Bb4 Db5 F5
[1/4]. G5 [1/8] Gb5 [1/16 trpl.] G5 Gb5 Db5 [1/4] Bb4 [1/8] (rest)
[1/8 trpl.] Cb5 D#5 Gb5 [1/2]. A5