re: sourness of meantone Bach

> > > > Whatever the sourness of meantone Bach is caused by (and I'd
> > > > like to know), it doesn't seem to bother Gene.
> >
> > It's caused by enharmonically misspelled notes, as I've explained
> with
> > considerable detail in at least two papers:
> > It wasn't caused by that in this case, since I was ignoring the
> spelling. These weren't trascriptions to extended meantone, of the kind
> I've just done for BWB 542, but retunings with the meantone gamut moved
> so as to correspond with the key.
> > Sour notes could occur in those because of a failure for the piece to
> exactly fit inside the shifted gamut, a mistake on my part, or other
> possibile reasons.

"Failure for the piece to exactly fit inside the shifted gamut" *is* enharmonically misspelled notes.

Like, for instance, the way the B minor fugue subject (WTC 1) all by itself in its first statement already uses 13 different notes. The piece *cannot* work in any 12-note meantone set, since either the B# or the C natural will be misspelled according to the selected "gamut" (as you've put it).

Another fun one is the C major organ fugue of BWV 547. It goes along for a couple of pages, staying nicely inside Eb-Bb-...-C#-G#, and then suddenly we get a rackful of notes that aren't. Like a party joke piece to show how badly and how suddenly meantone can fall on its hiney.

Brad Lehman

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Brad Lehman <bpl@...> wrote:

> "Failure for the piece to exactly fit inside the shifted gamut" *is*
> enharmonically misspelled notes.

This is a bizarre definition, as it makes no reference to spelling at
all. By "failure" I don't mean a matter of notation but actual dubious
intervals in the music such as a diminished octave instead of a major
seventh.

> Another fun one is the C major organ fugue of BWV 547. It goes along
> for a couple of pages, staying nicely inside Eb-Bb-...-C#-G#, and
then
> suddenly we get a rackful of notes that aren't. Like a party joke
piece
> to show how badly and how suddenly meantone can fall on its hiney.

I'm thinking of putting together a set of Bach organ pieces in 31
equal, so this piece, among those I had my eye on already, is a good
choice. What else would you suggest as an example of meantone falling
on its hiney?

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Gene Ward Smith" <genewardsmith@...>
wrote:
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Brad Lehman <bpl@> wrote:
>
> > "Failure for the piece to exactly fit inside the shifted gamut" *is*
> > enharmonically misspelled notes.
>
> This is a bizarre definition, as it makes no reference to spelling at
> all. By "failure" I don't mean a matter of notation but actual dubious
> intervals in the music such as a diminished octave instead of a major
> seventh.

Perhaps there is a more basic failure of communication here. What Brad
calls 'meantone' is a tuning with exactly 12 notes, which has no
enharmonic pairs. (The 'gamut' must have precisely 12 notes per
octave?) Gene's has as many pitches as necessary to give each note in
the score its proper harmonic function.

What Brad means by 'meantone sourness' is using the wrong enharmonic
for the note's harmonic function. However, if a piece has been
correctly coded in an extended meantone scale, this should never occur
(unless some special kind of enharmonic modulation takes place). If
extended meantone also sounds 'sour' in whatever sense, then the
reason must be sought elsewhere.

> > Another fun one is the C major organ fugue of BWV 547. It goes along
> > for a couple of pages, staying nicely inside Eb-Bb-...-C#-G#, and
> then
> > suddenly we get a rackful of notes that aren't. Like a party joke
> piece
> > to show how badly and how suddenly meantone can fall on its hiney.

I believe there are no enharmonic modulations, and if one happened to
have an organ with the right number of keys per octave, there would be
no musical problem.

> I'm thinking of putting together a set of Bach organ pieces in 31
> equal, so this piece, among those I had my eye on already, is a good
> choice. What else would you suggest as an example of meantone falling
> on its hiney?

Tricky question, if applied to extended meantone. Barring mistakes in
coding, only the apocryphal 'Harmonic Labyrinth' and BWV 542 Fantasia
come to mind.

In quarter-comma I find diminished chords tend to sound a bit odd,
maybe due to the dim5 being the opposite side of 10:7 from what I am
used to. 2/9 comma or 74-equal would get round this... but I guess
let's not dismiss 31-equal before we've tried it!

~~~T~~~

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

> Perhaps there is a more basic failure of communication here. What
Brad
> calls 'meantone' is a tuning with exactly 12 notes, which has no
> enharmonic pairs. (The 'gamut' must have precisely 12 notes per
> octave?) Gene's has as many pitches as necessary to give each note
in
> the score its proper harmonic function.

Actually, in these examples I restricted myself to twelve notes, it's
jsut that it wasn't the usual gamut of meantone notes. That may be
why Carl found some of the resulting harmony objectionable, but
people find the septimal sounds I like in extended meantone
objectionable sometimes also.

> What Brad means by 'meantone sourness' is using the wrong enharmonic
> for the note's harmonic function. However, if a piece has been
> correctly coded in an extended meantone scale, this should never
occur
> (unless some special kind of enharmonic modulation takes place). If
> extended meantone also sounds 'sour' in whatever sense, then the
> reason must be sought elsewhere.

When putting things written for a circulating temperament into
extended meantone, you often (depending on the style) will end up
with augmented seconds, diminished fourths, augmented fifths, or
augmented sixths. These are septimal consonances, but people may
object to their presence anyway.

> In quarter-comma I find diminished chords tend to sound a bit odd,
> maybe due to the dim5 being the opposite side of 10:7 from what I am
> used to. 2/9 comma or 74-equal would get round this... but I guess
> let's not dismiss 31-equal before we've tried it!

I like the sound of 31, myself, for most examples. I've found to my
ears some things work better in one meantone and some in another. The
narrower fifths of 31 certainly bring out the septimal flavoring of
the above mentioned intervals more strongly, and also distinguish
them from 5-limit sounds more strongly, as those are a bit sweeter
than the corresponding sound in something like 74. However, I *like*
that sound most of the time. It's less like what people expected, but
arguably more consonant sounding. It certainly has more vwriety; the
closer your extended meantone gets to fifths of 700 cents, the more
it will sound like 12-et, which is about the blandest meantone sound
ever concieved of.