Re: A JI realisation of Messiaen's octatonic

Pretty much what I was thinking, though it never sank into my head that 1-17-19-5-11-3-13-7 are the first seven primes (*duh*) - I suppose that makes it even more attractive. Interestingly, on the cello I found a sequence of harmonic nodes, 3/4-3/5-3/7-3/8-3/10-3/11-3/13-3/14-3/16-3/17-3/19-3/20-3/22 (-3/23-3/25 etc.), which gives a nice octatonic almost-scale (8-10-11-13-14-16-17-19-20). I haven't found a sequence that gives the 3rd mode yet!
Interesting you mention Messiaen et al., I commented to Paul privately that Messiaen equated the 12ET tritone with 11.
BTW last year I attended a talk by Tenney, his theme basically was how the impasse in 20th-c. music resulted from the harmonic saturation of the Scriabinists vs. the tempered scale (the music, though wonderful, was a dead end because 1. the higher identities aren't adequately represented 2. the 12ET scale keeps being continually exhausted 3. when every harmony has 5-8+ pitches they wind up all being literally the same). A real pleasure when you actually hear someone saying out loud what you've been thinking half your life, doesn't happen to me that often.
I've been very slow giving this more thought (apologies to all), but at least I've started a thread! :)
Chris

Message: 2
Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2005 19:36:03 +0100
From: Daniel Wolf <djwolf@snafu.de>
Subject: Re: A JI realisation of Messiaen's octatonic (was: Schoenberg,
serliasim, 12-edo

James Tenney may have been the first to recommend tuning the complete
octatonic up to a harmonic series segment implying octave multiples of
the first seven primes: 1, 17, 19, 5, 11, 3, 13, 7. While the accuracy
and acceptabilty of this as a substitute for the tempered octatonic is
debatable, this strikes me as especially resonant with the
Skryiabiniste
tradition (microtonalists know Wyschnegradsky, but Lourie, Obuchov, and
- yes - Messiaen ought also be included in this grouping),

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