Tr : Rats on Microtones

----------
De�: Sarn Richard Ursell <thcdelta@ihug.co.nz>
� : wim.hoogewerf@fnac.net
Objet�: Rats on Microtones
Date�: Lun 20 d�c 1999 3:40

Dear Members of the alternative tuning list,

I must sincerely apologise for the delyay in responding, and writeing to you
all, but I have been having to get my lifestyle into perspective, and get
into rediment for University study at 2000.

My major is in psychology, and my minor in philosophy, and I have a veiw to
doing mathematics and some computer science.

I read in NEW SCIENTIST, about two weeks ago, that playing labratory
mice/rats, Rodents of some description from puppy hood stage into adult
hood, Mozart, actually increased their ability to run around a maze, both in
faster times for a sample population, and with fewer mistakes than a control
group.

I, (being me), wanted to do four configurations and a control group, with:

MUSIC:
| 19ET | 12ET | Super-12 |
Reverse super-12 | No music |
----------------------------------------------------------------
------------|----------|
| Sterile and boring | a | b | c | d
| i |
| | | | |
| |
UPBRINGING:|------------------------|---------------------------------------
-----------------------|
| | e | f | g | h
| j |
| Novel and intereszting | | | |
| |
----------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------|

There is good reason to suspect that the music itself will have to be time
compressed and upsampled, to fit rat perception curves, which, undoubtedly
would be in a higer frequency range and shorter length than that of humans,
and VASTLY that of elephants.

There are many factors to control, such as temperature, feed, the social
interaction of mice etc....

I also wanted to do this on plants and also insects, to acess the effect of
learning.

Some other experiments are, mice learning to push levers in certain
permutations to dispence food, and also taking two stimulus, negative (mild
electric shock), and positive (food reward), and gradually changing them
into each other, aka "morphing".

It brings to mind the question as to weather or not plants can learn,-I do
know that fruit flys have the ability to learn,-if we subject them to
negative stimulus, such as electric shock, after a red light, and iterate
this sequence of alternateing events, we will find, that after about the
20th trial, each seperated by 1 day, we will get a definite reaction from
fruit flys, as if EXPECTING an electric shock.

I wanted to do a similar experiment with plants, by subjecting them to red
light, and then "tickling" them with an electric shock, and repeating this
procedure, will this be come "learned and ingrained" into the plants memory?

Assumedly, we can breed the smarter ones, and teach them to calculate,
recall colored light sequences, play the cello etc...

:o)

For this experiment, I will be produceing music using fairly pure tones on
an Akai S2000 sampler, Cakewalk sequenceing software.

I have finished calculateing my SUperpower temperaments, and with these
tools, I will be making some microtonal techno, one day.

To Mr.Warren Burt-I will sent you information on the four ways compositional
programmeing soon, and, also, I will send you data about the superpower
temperaments.

Please tell Brian McLaren that:

THERE IS ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY, NO REASON AT ALL TO WORRY ABOUT
MICROTONALITY EVER DIEING OUT.

Should the interest in this form of wounderful musical expression ever die
down, I should think that it will be "discovered again" one day, I mean we
are running out of ideas.

If they ("they" being the media) can make a popular culture of teeny-boppers
following and trying to hard to emulate an all girl Spice Girl wannabe
lookalike from a New Zealand band of Vally Girls called "True Bliss", and
have people buy it in screeds, then gOd alone knows what can be done with
something with TRUE potentiol like Xentonality....

I have a longer term view to doing a talk about microtonal music on student
radio, called "RadioActive", and this indeed could become a cult favorite
with students.

I actually forgot to ask you people: Would you care to have yourselves
mentioned for a moment of glory, on air?

This could be way down the track, but plans are afoot.

Comments please!

Sarn.