Retuning methods

I think there HAS been significant misunderstanding about what my
retuning methods are and are not. I'm sure this is at least partly my
fault. Let me try to clarify.

I am operating on General MIDI sequences, almost exclusively piano so
far; I can't yet retune sequences having multiple voices in them.

I have chosen past works of great composers to experiment with. I
choose these works NOT because they "need help"; they stand on their own
as pinnacles of achievement in composition. They don't need
"improvement". They just happen to be available, and they exercise
(and challenge) my methods better than anything else I currently have in
hand. They are also lovely, retuned or not (IMHO).

In the long-term, after MANY refinements dreamed-of and not yet
dreamed-of, it is my guess, and my hope, that there will be retunings
truly worthy of the original pieces. What I have to offer today is but
a bare beginning, and far short of that ideal. It is absolutely fair
for any member of this list to receive my guess and hope for the future
with complete skepticism. I ask for no more than to hold the question
open.

One list member spoke of "one size fits all". This seems a bit unjust:
one algorithm, one procedure or set of procedures, "fits all" the
sequences retuned by a given version of the program, but each sequence
retains all the uniqueness of expression it had before retuning, and the
procedure considers and weights all the factors within its sphere of
knowledge which are unique to that sequence.

The analogy of colorization also was put forth. In the program's
present form, this is probably apt and just. There is a sharp edge
between tunings much like the sharp color edges of colorization, and
the "color" is applied with only imperfect sense.

The program is primitive enough that any member of this list, given a
sequence and a set of tools to retune it by ear, and given enough time
(a LONG time) could probably do a better job than the program now does.
I have no doubt whatever that some members of this list could do a FAR
better job.

The retunings, because they factor in only a subset of the
considerations we can easily see to be relevant, stand the chance, and
perhaps the certainty, of upsetting some aspect(s) of artistic balance
present in the original pieces.

What these tunings DO offer is a preliminary glimpse into what is
possible. The merest hint, perhaps, accessible only to those with a
fevered (or some other word...) imagination.

Yet, even in this terribly primitive state, there might be an
interesting new light cast upon some moments of familiar music. Or,
failing that, some understanding of a better way to proceed. At the
very least, these would be an object lesson in pitfall(s) to avoid.

JdL

http://www.idcomm.com/personal/jadl/