Decaphonic Guitars

John Chalmers called my attention to the fact that somebody on the list recently made a 10TET guitar.

Just FWIW, my first explorations of microtonality were back in 1977, and they involved (yes indeedie) building a 10TET guitar and bass guitar, as a science fair project in high school. That was before I knew of anybody doing anything microtonal in nature, other than having a conceptual notion of the idea of quartertones. The following year I designed 10TET flutes, and that science fair project got me to the international level of competition. Then again, I didn't win anything at the international level, granted, but it happened to be in Orange County CA, where Ivor Darreg, Erv Wilson, and Glen Prior were living at the time). John Chalmers and I were both living in Houston at the time.

I also, later on, got a 10TET fingerboard for my interchangeable fingerboard guitar.

Nevertheless, I haven't done much with "Decimal Music" as I called it, since then. I'm glad to see that somebody is though. As I recall, I found it a little difficult to escape the 5x2 syndrome, not that it's at all difficult to come up with other modes, of course.

Hi Gary,

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Gary Morrison <mr88cet@...> wrote:
>
> John Chalmers called my attention to the fact that somebody on the >
list recently made a 10TET guitar.
>
> Just FWIW, my first explorations of microtonality were back in 1977,
and they involved (yes indeedie) building a 10TET guitar and bass
guitar, ... The following year I designed 10TET flutes ... I also,
later on, got a 10TET fingerboard for my interchangeable fingerboard
guitar.

Groovy! Do you have a sample of decimal music you'd like to share
with us? Or, for that matter, (from your email address) any 88c ET
music?

Regards,
Yahya

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Gary Morrison <mr88cet@...> wrote:
>
> John Chalmers called my attention to the fact that somebody on the
> list recently made a 10TET guitar.
>
> Just FWIW, my first explorations of microtonality were back in 1977,
> and they involved (yes indeedie) building a 10TET guitar and bass
> guitar, as a science fair project in high school. That was before I
> knew of anybody doing anything microtonal in nature, ...

Hi Gary,

Nice to hear from you again -- considering that there aren't very many
around here from the "old days".

--George Secor

> Groovy! Do you have a sample of decimal music you'd like to share
> with us?

Nothing I'm particularly proud of! :-)

> Or, for that matter, (from your email address) any 88c ET
> music?

Do you have Neil Haverstick's Tuning-List CD?

> Nice to hear from you again -- considering that there aren't very many
> around here from the "old days".
> --George Secor

It's great to hear your ... voice? ... too, George!

Is your Scalatron still running?

Hi Gary,

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Gary Morrison wrote:
>
> > Groovy! Do you have a sample of decimal music you'd like to
share with us?
>
> Nothing I'm particularly proud of! :-)
>
> > Or, for that matter, (from your email address) any 88c ET music?
>
> Do you have Neil Haverstick's Tuning-List CD?

No, tho I have heard of it a couple of times in the last year or
so. Perhaps Neil still has it available?

Regards,
Yahya

> No, tho I have heard of it a couple of times in the last year or
> so. Perhaps Neil still has it available?

I have a few copies left. If you're interested, feel free to Email me directly.

For some weird reason, this message took two days to get posted, so the context got lost. I'm referring to the tuning-list CD.

On Aug 5, 2006, at 10:52 AM, Gary Morrison wrote:

>> No, tho I have heard of it a couple of times in the last year or
>> so. Perhaps Neil still has it available?
>
> I have a few copies left. If you're interested, feel free to Email
> me directly.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Gary Morrison <mr88cet@...> wrote:
>
> > Nice to hear from you again -- considering that there aren't very
many
> > around here from the "old days".
> > --George Secor
>
> It's great to hear your ... voice? ... too, George!
>
> Is your Scalatron still running?

Sort of; it works well enough to explore tunings, but not to perform
anything. There are a number of things that are in need of repair,
mostly intermittent problems that I suspect can be fixed by remelting
solder joints (something I can do myself, but only when I have fewer
things competing for my discretionary time).

The instrument is 31 years old, so it's a small miracle that it works
at all.

--George

Hi Gary,

Boy, to see a name from the tuning list OLD days! Hope all is well
with you.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Gary Morrison <mr88cet@...> wrote:
> I have a few copies left. If you're interested, feel free to Email
> me directly.

Don't know how much you've kept up with the list(s), but over at MMM
(a Making Microtonal Music list started about 5 years ago) there was
recently a project to do a MMM Day 2006, and quite a few pieces were
collected. Prent Rodgers, being a Modern Guy, did them up as a
two-part podcast. I think you'd enjoy a lot of the music if you
haven't heard it. You can check it out at:

http://podcast1024.libsyn.com/

Cheers,
Jon

On Aug 7, 2006, at 9:13 AM, George D. Secor wrote:

> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Gary Morrison <mr88cet@...> wrote:
>>
>> Is your Scalatron still running?
>
> The instrument is 31 years old, so it's a small miracle that it works
> at all.

Yip, that's all very understandable!

On Aug 7, 2006, at 12:44 PM, Jon Szanto wrote:

> Boy, to see a name from the tuning list OLD days! Hope all is well
> with you.

Generally just great. I confess that I haven't been doing much microtonal music recently, because I've been learning Chinese in preparation for my fiancee from China arriving in October or so, assuming that she doesn't have any problems getting the visa.

>
>
> Don't know how much you've kept up with the list(s), but over at MMM
> (a Making Microtonal Music list started about 5 years ago) there was
> recently a project to do a MMM Day 2006...

I'll have to look into it. Thanks for the tip!

Speaking of the old days, I'm glad to see that the tuning list itself has changed. I got rather disenchanted when I suggested an adjunct list like what apparently this MMM turned out to be, and some people replied, "I only do raw-ASCII Email and have to pay for every downloaded KB, and I'd be annoyed if other conversations were happening on a list that I wouldn't subscribe to."

Gary Morrison wrote:

> Speaking of the old days, I'm glad to see that the tuning list itself > has changed. I got rather disenchanted when I suggested an adjunct > list like what apparently this MMM turned out to be, and some people > replied, "I only do raw-ASCII Email and have to pay for every > downloaded KB, and I'd be annoyed if other conversations were > happening on a list that I wouldn't subscribe to."

I objected then and I object now. Don't change the tuning list -- or MMM. Get an email client that supports hyperlinks.

Graham