Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup tuning terms of endearment

>>"ET" stands for "Equal Temperament"
Yup. For all practical purposes it is regarded as an abbrevation of "tET".
Monzo sez : "the usual abbreviation for Equal Temperament."

> Right, but there's no reason it can't ALSO stand for "equal tuning" in
> cases like 15-tET or 23-TET, which aren't temperaments.
There is every reason why it should not !

Herman, you make an important point here, but this needs to be straightened
out. Bad enough that misinformation & sheer ignorance continues to persist
in the general music community with regard to xenharmonics. We've got to
make sure that we atleast have reasonably unambiguous terminology.
------
What we have so far :

1) tET (also abbreviated to "ET") - tone equal temperament
2) EDO - equal divisions of the octave, covers root of 2 tunings.
3) CET - cent equal temperament

- An EDO may or may not be a temperament.

- CET is specific to tunings built using equally spaced intervals measured
in 100ths of a 12EDO semitone.

- The word temperament has a very specific meaning, and so must be carefully
applied. Labeling of tunings like 7EDO as 7tET is wrong, since 7EDO is not
trying to emulate JI.

From the Oxford dictionary :
"temperament : an adjustment of intervals in tuning a piano, etc. so as to
fit the scale for use in all keys."

Is there a generic term for all tunings with equally spaced intervals ?
If not, I (extremely, extremely humbly) propose "ESI" for equally spaced
intervals. In which case, tETs, CETs, & EDOs would all be ESI tunings.
, as would be a whole bunch of others like 13th root of 3, 11th Root of 4/3,
24th root of 3, Stria - 9 equal divisions of a 1.618:1 (golden mean)
"octave", etc.

-------

> "ET" is good enough for my needs. That's all that I was trying to explain.
That is the reason this needs to be cleared up. It should be made clear that
the interpretation of "ET" as meaning "equal tuning" is your own personal
idiosyncratic preference. Universally, ET is taken to mean "equal
temperament" be an abbreviation of tET.

> I just don't see the need to substitute "EDO" for
> "ET". Not that there's anything wrong with "EDO", but
I certainly hope others do not have this same bright idea. I don't see what
"equal tuning" could possibly mean. It's so ambiguous it's pointless.
Granted it's your own preference, so I mean no offence. I merely hope nonone
else takes up such corruption of accepted standard terminology.

For the tunings you describe, EDO is a far far better & infinitely more
accurate term than the actually quite meaningless "ET" for equal tuning.

Gary is right to be concerned. Like I said, no offence, Herman, we're all
friends here. But there are over 300 subscribers to this list, and the
banter here eventually reaches many more ears. Xenharmonic newbies could end
up seriously confused.

Salut,
Drew

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🔗Herman Miller <hmiller@xx.xxxx>

🔗Drew Skyfyre <skyfyre2@xxxxx.xxxx>

>>What we have so far :
>>
>>1) tET (also abbreviated to "ET") - tone equal temperament
>>2) EDO - equal divisions of the octave, covers root of 2 tunings.
>>3) CET - cent equal temperament
>>
>>- An EDO may or may not be a temperament.
>>
>>- CET is specific to tunings built using equally spaced intervals measured
>> in 100ths of a 12EDO semitone.
>
> So if CET is okay, what's wrong with TET? I see no difference.

Huh ? Not sure what u mean.

Anyway, CET tunings are equal temperaments designed & calibrated in cents.
Gary's 88CET is one example. I think Wendy Carlos' Alpha is 78CET.

A tET is *any* temperament consisting of equally spaced intervals.
Not all temperaments do not consist of equally spaced intervals.

They are not interchangable terms.

Like Daniel says (BTW, you're right, 7EDO is not a good example for what I
was talking about) :

> In the end, one may not actually have a physical difference between an EDO
> and a TET, but the terms do describe quite different conceptions of the tonal
> systems.

- Drew

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🔗Paul H. Erlich <PErlich@xxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxxx>

🔗Herman Miller <hmiller@xx.xxxx>

On Mon, 27 Dec 1999 22:31:18 +0000, "Drew Skyfyre" <skyfyre2@yahoo.com>
wrote:

>> So if CET is okay, what's wrong with TET? I see no difference.
>
>Huh ? Not sure what u mean.

What I mean is that if it's okay to call a tuning with equal steps
calibrated in cents a "temperament", why is it not okay to call a tuning
with a specified number of equally spaced notes per octave a "temperament"?
Actually, I think Owen Jorgenson even called his "5 and 7" scale a
"temperament". William Sethares uses "10-tet" and "11-tet" in his book. And
looking at the liner notes for "Tales of Heaven and Hell", Wendy Carlos
refers to "15 note Equal Temperament".

But for those who don't like the implications of "temperament" being
applied to scales like 10-tet and 11-tet (which mean no more or less than
10-EDO and 11-EDO), I suggested the phrase "equal tuning", which is what I
actually use when I'm not using abbreviations. As Paul Erlich pointed out,
this is the terminology Easley Blackwood uses, so that's probably where I
picked it up (I heard his CD of microtonal etudes before I joined the
tuning list).
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🔗Drew Skyfyre <skyfyre2@xxxxx.xxxx>

> Drew, I don't know what your problem is, or what you think "accepted
> standard terminology" is. Referring to "equal tunings" is quite standard, as
> in Blackwood's _Structure of Recognizable Diatonic Tunings_ or the track
> descriptions on the back of his _Microtonal_ CD.
>
>>Xenharmonic newbies could end
>>up seriously confused.
>
> This sudden proliferation of terminology is far more confusing that sticking
> to a single (etymologically questionable) term which served us just fine on
> this list for years.

Paul, chill, we can have a discussion without anyone thinking differently
being seen as having a "problem". Bloody weird given what we're all doing
here.

As far as "equal tuning" being standard terminology, I don't know if it is.
And what I was talking about in particular is using "ET" as an abbreviation
for "equal tuning", since it is most commonly used as an abbreviation of
"tET". I looked through all the entire Tuning List archives, and the only
person who consistently uses the term "equal tuning" is you. Blackwood using
it doesn't make it standard. But, yes, it could be used to refer to all
tunings with equally spaced intervals, but a big problem arises when it's
abbreviated to "ET". Maybe if we just use "equal". No abbreviation.

Thanks to increased communication, freedom, & a greater confidence in
challenging authority & convention, the rigid rules & rites of conventional
music theory as espoused by academia (primarily western) are increasingly
invalid. And while this list has been around for about 5 years, that is a
very short time and there's just about 350 or so subscribers to the tuning
list. A fraction of the musicians actually practicing the free use of pitch.

A lot more terminology will be invented and evolve as time goes by.

> The work microtonal has worked well for decades now and no amount of logic
> will change this fact. That people now have different understandings of the
> term "microtonal" is an interesting development, considering how little it
> was heard when most of the "authority" books were being written.

Johnny, much respect, but I do believe that in a short time the word
"microtonal" will not hold the same position it does now. You say it has
worked for decades, but this is primarily within particular circles,
essentially promoted by the "classical" music establishment, the same dolts
who still say Well Temperament is 12EDO.

It is not a matter of logic, merely of being accurate.

Anyone who looks up "microtone" in an ordinary dictionary will see it
defined as an interval smaller than a 12EDO semitone. In "Twentieth Century
Music : an introduction", Eric Salzman, in a passage about Partch defines
microtonalism as " the division of the octave into more than the
conventional twelve tempered chromatic steps". The same definition is given
in Daniel Politoske's "Music", as does David Cope's New Directions in Music.
So, it appears that the correct definition (yes it does exist for this term,
since it has somewhat distinct origins) has been properly presented for a
long time.

As you say, people now have different understandings of what microtonal is.
Part of what is being realised is that pitch & tunings can be used &
conjured up freely, with total disregard for conventional 12EDO-centric
music theory as preached by the likes of, say, Britain's Associated Board of
the Royal Schools of Music. As this realisation gets wider & deeper, and
draws in more musicians, the use of "microtonal" will change. Part of the
reason "microtonal" is bandied about is that there is no other term widely
known, the only other I know of being xenharmonics.

> When I can play a different fingering for a pitch that is not
> conventional then it is as microtonally distant from a conventional pitch as
> anything smaller than a semitone is from the tonic.

But why have a reference "conventional" pitch ? In JI for example, there is
absolutely no reason to regard any pitch as a deviation from any other.

I do see a use for "microtone" other than the etymological meaning. That
would to refer to additional pitches used for color within a piece of music
that is primarily in one particular tuning with X number of notes. This is
what you too refer to above (perhaps) ? This is not me being arrogant,
I see this type of use of the term very frequently, for example in
descriptions of Bartok's Violin Concerto, or, as in Cope's book,
Penderecki's Capriccio for Violin and Orchestra. Perhaps this is what the
common use of "microtone" will evolve to.

> It's unfortunate that _xenos_ is translated as "strange", as that leads to
> other associations in English (some of which may have well, however, been
> usefully applied to Ivor Darreg's music). Other, more accurate,
> possibilities would be "alien" or "foreign", but again, this leads to some
> negative associations. I prefer the term "unfamiliar", because it has the
> additional advantage of allowing one to consider the _xenharmonic_ to be a
> temporary classification. I trust that all of us are trying to make these
> tunings more familiar rather than less, and eventually one may usefully focus
> on a more (small c) catholic art of _harmonics_, or just plain _tuning_,
> absent the _xen_.

Daniel, thank you ! I could not agree more. This is what I'm aiming for when
I argue against labelling all tunings as "microtonal". I too am
uncomfortable with the _xen_ bit's negative connotations.

Eventually there will just be _music_ .

- Drew

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🔗Afmmjr@xxx.xxx

Dew wrote:
Eventually there will be _music_.

S'funny thing, but I have been saying this for years. Of course, the music
is developing quite well right now. When I started producing concert there
was not that much repertoire, nor players to play new intervals.

Whether I am tied to a convention or you are tied to a convention, and to
what degree, is hard to determine on this list. However, my "Microtonal
Bach" show is popular on the radio and yet, by the Salzman definition of
"microtonalism," my show is misnamed. Perhaps you might contact the radio
station at WKCR, classical department. :)

Drew, you have thought long and hard on this. Others have, too. It may be
that the people who wrote so long ago giving limited definitions to what is
microtonal, knew little of what they wrote. Harvard? Salzman? Cope?
These people did not work with the material, at least to the extent of many
on this present list. And that is understandable.

What is not understandable to me, is how a neutral third is not a microtonal
interval? What else would you call it? Would you really care to segregate
it from other "smaller" intervals?

Also, we have had numerous board meetings at the AFMM to try to substitute
the word microtonal. Nothing works better than success.

Johnny Reinhard
AFMM

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🔗Carl Lumma <clumma@xxx.xxxx>

>But for those who don't like the implications of "temperament" being
>applied to scales like 10-tet and 11-tet (which mean no more or less than
>10-EDO and 11-EDO), I suggested the phrase "equal tuning", which is what I
>actually use when I'm not using abbreviations.

What definition of temperament are you guys using? Temperament is simply a
purposeful and calculated mistuning of a just interval. 99% of the time, a
slightly stronger version also applies, in which the purpose is allowing
the interval to serve more than one function with respect to JI. In either
case, the word can apply to almost any scale, including 7, 10, 11, and
15-tone equal tunings, depending on how it is used. Even ratios can
rightfully be called tempered intervals, depending on their usage.

>It looks like a lot of you need to look up "temperament" in the Harvard
>Dictionary of Music. The definition there is the final word on this
>subject.

It would the first time that particular dictionary ever gave a final word
on a tuning-related subject.

>I don't feel like summarizing it now. Just whup out the Good Book and your
>questions will be answered.

Did it occur to you that not everyone has easy access to this reference?

-Carl