Re: My new page at mp3.com/TIBIA

Nice piece Paul! I think our approach is similar in the sense that we both
enjoy hearing familiar-ish harmonic progressions recast/morphed with
detailed microtonal nuance.. To me, the power of these intervals is most
easily heard (initially, at least) in a context that is already rich in
meaning, like classical or jazz derived progressions. That way, what it is
that makes these intervals striking is clearly set off against the
background of the more familiar progression. Some might accuse us of
"putting new wine in old bottles" but I look at it as the best of both
worlds: mixing the old wine with the new wine to make uber-wine!

Its interesting that you're exploring 22TET and my guitar is 21TJI. We're
slicing the octave into roughly the same number of bits and I think this
similarity of "resolution" is audible, especially when heard against
traditional harmonic progressions. Does that make any sense to you? Of
course there is a qualitative difference due to the E vs. J, with E being
(to my ears) "active" and J being more "abiding"

Looking forward to hearing a guitar piece of yours on Tuning Punks soon!

dante

Dante wrote,

>Some might accuse us of
>"putting new wine in old bottles" but I look at it as the best of both
>worlds: mixing the old wine with the new wine to make uber-wine!

Well, that's the approach I happened to take for this piece (which really
wrote itself one night). I do try to make totally new wine sometimes too,
but since my ear is the strongest guiding force in composing, and my ear has
been conditioned by the culture in which I live, I seem to have more
confidence when I "give in" a bit to tradition.

>Its interesting that you're exploring 22TET and my guitar is 21TJI. We're
>slicing the octave into roughly the same number of bits and I think this
>similarity of "resolution" is audible, especially when heard against
>traditional harmonic progressions. Does that make any sense to you?

Well, I'm not exactly sure what you're saying, but there is a similarity
between the 22-tET and JI in that they both express the syntonic comma,
which is supposed to disappear in traditional harmonic progressions, and in
all the tunings (i.e. varieties of meantone) designed to support them.
However, this is not exactly a function of the number of "bits" -- for
example, 15-tET has a non-vanishing comma while 81-tET has a vanishing one.

>Of
>course there is a qualitative difference due to the E vs. J, with E being
>(to my ears) "active" and J being more "abiding"

Yes. If that was all there was to it, I'd prefer JI. But another important
qualitative difference to me is that in E, the same note can function as
different ratios. For example, I'll analyze the beginning TIBIA in JI, up
through the modulation:

5/4---6/5---7/6---8/7--10/9--16/15-81/80....63/32-15/8....
1/1---1/1---1/1---1/1---1/1---1/1-243/128...27/16--3/2....
15/8---9/5---7/4--12/7---5/3---8/5-243/160...45/32-45/32...
1/1---8/5---***--10/7--16/9---4/3--27/16.....9/8---3/2....

In 22-tET 12/7 and 27/16 are represented by the same pitch, as are 10/7 and
45/32, 7/4 and 16/9, 8/7 and 9/8, and even 1/1 and 63/32(63/64). The *** can
be interpreted as either 4/3 or 21/16. On your JI guitar, you're kind of
limited with regard to which ratios you can imply, though the harmonic
variety is enough to keep things interesting.