Re: Re: Response to Dave Hill on JI and European compost

"Paul or Margo wrote:

> >At the same time, he observes (like Paul Erlich here) that "tuning is
> >mainly about vertical chording and not about solo melodic lines,"

> As pointed out before those cultures which use JI (India and Persian) are not
> harmonically based cultures. Temperments is necessary for harmony. That
> western tunings have began to appear in these cultures coincides with there
> use of western harmony. Both Harrison and Leedy have expressed there interest
> in JI is its melodic resoures. Participating with them and David Doty at a
> Seminar on Intonation, this seemed to be the universal connection between us
> all.

> and
> >that "consistency of interval size ... is a feature of the best
> >western European singers."

Once again Darreg's mustache blue concerts always included Glen Prior playing
a well known simple melody with these commatic shifts using Wilson's 17 tone
tubalongs.
Wilson favorite pastime is pointing out commatic shifts in all types of western
singers on tape. Once again Boomsliter and Creel showed this in actually
measurements. Melody is dead without the ability of extended frame of
reference. Here on this list we have someone examining Turkish music noticing
shifts in melodic intonation.

>
>
> >This suggests that either Renaissance or 20th-century singers
> >approaching the 16th-century repertory may in fact be doing at least
> >some adaptive JI with tempering of melodic intervals.
>
> That's what I would suggest as a possible solution for not only 16th but
> even 17th and 18th century music on variable-pitch instruments. Though JI
> harmonies would be achieved, it runs counter to the standard JI line, which
> goes more like this:
>
> >While Ramos set a possible precedent with his monochord of 1482,
> >16th-century theorists such as Fogliano and Zarlino championed the
> >syntonic diatonic of Ptolemy with its unequal 9:8 and 10:9 whole-tones
> >as the natural intonation for unaccompanied voices.
>
> and discards consistency of interval size (and forces comma shifts/drifts)
> to uphold an abstract mathematical ideal. Meanwhile, even Zarlino became the
> first champion of a mathematically precise meantone in practice, namely
> 2/7-comma meantone.
>
> >Describing the common practice as "tempered and mixed music," and
> >basing the tuning of the first 19 notes of his instrument on usual
> >meantone (likely 1/4-comma with pure major thirds), [Vicentino] directed
> that
> >the 17 notes of his second manual should be tuned in perfect fifths
> >with those of the first manual. The result, assuming a basic 1/4-comma
> >temperament, would be sonorities with pure fifths and minor thirds, as
> >well as major thirds, if the performer can reach the appropriate keys
> >on both manuals simultaneously.
>
> This would provide all the pitches necessary for rendering most 16th-19th
> century music in the form of "adaptive JI" I've been suggesting to John
> deLaubenfels. While acheiving the same harmonic purity as strict JI, this
> scheme would reduce the size of the shifts and drifts involved by a factor
> of 4, down to an imperceptible level, without substantially increasing the
> total number of pitches required. I independently conceived this idea of
> combining vertical JI and horizontal meantone in late 1993, after attending
> my first AFMM concert and speaking with Johnny Reinhard.
>
> >While Vicentino's advice to singers to rely on his instrument for
> >finding their intervals would most obviously apply to his first tuning
> >with 31 notes arranged to divide the octave into more or less equal
> >dieses or fifthtones (the remaining 5 notes used for adaptive JI for a
> >few frequent sonorities), it could also apply to this second tuning.
> >In other words, singers might have emulated this tuning to realize a
> >kind of JI based on melodic intervals at or very close to those of
> >1/4-comma meantone
>
> So Vicentino is on record for recommending his instrument as a model for
> singers, but we don't know which instrument?
>
> >From the viewpoint of practical composition, the issue of classic
> >vs. adaptive JI for voices (or either model vs. keyboard meantone)
> >might not have much observable impact.
>
> I would disagree -- in those cases where the second degree of the major
> scale is in the upper melody and is forced to shift up by a comma because of
> a change in the harmony from subdominant to dominant, or else the overall
> pitch level is forced to shift down by a comma, classic JI is audibly a poor
> solution. When the shift occurs in an inner voice, I agree that it is hard
> to hear, though I'd still prefer the sensation of melodic "certainty" that
> occurs in meantone or Vicentino's adaptive JI.
>
> >On a personal note, I might add that while playing a keyboard in
> >classic 5-limit JI is an exacting experience, it is also a unique one,
> >and that I do not find unequal 9:8 and 10:9 whole-tones unpleasant. At
> >least for some music some of the time, this experience is not only
> >possible but most rewarding.
>
> Certainly unequal whole-tones can be an acquired taste. When there is no
> harmonic progression or modulation, they can take on a melodic certainty of
> their own. Such a situation arises in Indian music, where the "natural"
> scale is the same as the "syntonic diatonic" except with the sixth degree
> raised by a comma. I think it significant that this "alteration" (it is only
> an alteration by Eurocentric standards) creates an upper tetrachord
> identical to the lower one.
>
> >Finally, I might suggest a pragmatic study of intonation as practiced,
> >for example, by vocal groups famed for their "just" tuning of
> >16th-century music. Would we find some approximation of Zarlino's
> >syntonic diatonic, or of a Vicentino/Erlich adaptive tuning, or
> >something else?
>
> Though I doubt any vocal group would be able to control their melodic
> intonation to much better than 10 cents, the comma shifts implied by the
> "classic JI" or "syntonic diatonic" tuning would amount to 21.5 cents, and
> their presence or absence should be clearly ascertainable by such a study.
>
>

-- Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island
http://www.anaphoria.com

Kraig Grady wrote,

> As pointed out before those cultures which use JI (India and Persian) are
not
> harmonically based cultures.

So are the vast majority of cultures which do not use JI. At least Indian
music uses drones, which is why JI is relevant. As for Persian music,
Gharib's site does little to support a JI interpretation for current
practice, except in specifying convenient rules of thumb for fret placement.

>Wilson favorite pastime is pointing out commatic shifts in all types of
western
>singers on tape. Once again Boomsliter and Creel showed this in actually
>measurements.

I would like to see more evidence of this. It would certainly run counter to
what I've been saying, but as far as I'm concerned any reason to overthrow
the hegemony of 12-tET is a good thing. Hopefully it would not be to replace
it with a hegemony of strict JI. Without the puns of temperament most
Western keyboard compositions and my decatonic stuff would be out the
window.

"Paul H. Erlich" wrote:

>
> I would like to see more evidence of this.

For some reason cannot find my copy at the moment. Either someone else help me
here or i will keep looking!

> It would certainly run counter to
> what I've been saying, but as far as I'm concerned any reason to overthrow
> the hegemony of 12-tET is a good thing. Hopefully it would not be to replace
> it with a hegemony of strict JI. Without the puns of temperament most
> Western keyboard compositions and my decatonic stuff would be out the
> window.

As pointed out, a strict JI would not work for music already written. I think
as to what our ear actually does is not to underrated. . Some sort of moveable
12 seems to be an answer. My intuitive sense is in this culture, certain
procedures have been built up over the hundreds of years. The ear may change
formulas depending on the context. It may do certain things leading up to
cadences, different things in major than minor, the same note when contained
within a chord might have a different intonation of the same note when it is
used as a passing tone or a upper neighbor. All these intonations are probably
the result of centuries of cultural artistic nuance. It might someday be able
to be approached by programmed by a set of if/then situations, but the intuned
ear will know these things through intuition. As much as we all wish there was
a simple answer to these questions , I don't think there is. It seems to go
back even tens of thousands of years, bone flutes show that we had already
taken the leap into melodic steps on one level.
As someone who regularly "defends" JI on this list, it should be noted that
I do not believe that it explains all. I do believe that scales though are
rooted in acoustical phenomenon of some kind. (This why i shy away from ETs).
As an example of other acoustical qualities, difference tones appear to play an
active part in the many world musics. Bill Sethares illustrates how other
acoustical phenomenon such as timbre could/can/does have an influence on scale
making. It is quite possible that all these factors have there share on
influence as to what happens.

-- Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island
http://www.anaphoria.com