AW.: Pelog (was: RE: Re: salendro: nothing equal about it!)

In einer Nachricht vom 11/22/99 10:42:58 PM (MEZ) Mitteleurop�ische
Zeitschreibt PErlich@Acadian-Asset.com:

<<
9-tET gives a much closer approximation of some actual pelog tunings: it's
"like" a major scale with a "whole step" of 133 cents and a "half step" of
267 cents, giving a scale of
0, 133, 267, 533, 667, 800, 933;
and a typical scale drawn from this tuning is "like" the pentatonic scale
drawn from the major scale:
0, 133, 267, 667, 800
which can be found in three transpostions in the scale above. It is no
wonder that Western texts (from guitar magazines to Persichetti's _Twentieth
Century Harmony_) often give the "pelog" scale as C Db Eb G Ab, but that is
of course a great distortion. >>

It depends upon whether you're talking about a single, five-toned pelog
pathet or a pelog system which is tempered to accomodate more than one
pathet. It has not been established that a characterisation like C Db Eb G Ab
will not be adequate to describe the former case; for Campur Sari groups --
where electric 12tet instruments play together with pelog instruments -- it
seems to be adequate, for Karawitan, classical Javanese music, it probably
would not be. Interestingly, von Zant's measurements of Sundanese kechapi
tunings also show that a 12tet representation is probably adequate for pelog,
melog and degung, but not for salendro. I find this remarkable because one
would expect some preference for just intervals with stringed instruments
that is simply not to be found.

My article _Speculum Pelogi_, in Xenharmonikon XI (1989) discusses some of
this, especially the mapping of three pathet onto 7 tones out of 9 equal, a
model considered theoretically in Sunda, but it is in need of some serious
updating, especially concerning the possibility of making _seleh_ intervals
more _pleng_ (beatless) than others.