Fwd: Re: Music of Georgia.

--- In MicroMadeEasy@yahoogroups.com, "John H. Chalmers"
<JHCHALMERS@...> wrote:

Robert et al: 144-tet fits the description of the Georgian scale
minus
the stretched octave, though one could simply go 2 or 3 degrees
farther
of 144 and come close to the 20 cent stretch. 144 is one of the
theoretical divisions implied, but AFAIK, never implemented by any
Greek
mathematician. The Greek mathematicians, especially in the
Hellenistic
or Roman periods would have had no problem computing string lengths
for
equal temperaments whose cardinalities are composites of 2 and 3 as
algorithms and constructions of for square and cube roots had long
been
known to the Greeks and the Babylonians before them.

Base-60 arithmetic and notation is, of course, also of Sumero-
Babylonian
origin. I think it influenced the late Greek music theorists as it
suggested that Aristoxenos's, or rather Cleonides's, "parts" could be
interpreted as parts of a real string of 120 units with 30 to the
lower
fourth and 20 to the upper. However, this interpretation greatly
distorts the intervals of some of Aristo's genera. This was a
fundamental error and makes me think that if the Greeks had been
thinking in terms of equal temperaments of 12, 24, 36, 72 or 144
parts,
they would have said so and computed decent approximations of the
intervals.

The Georgian scale also approximates 7-equal and some Islamic scales
where the fifth, not the fourth is divided as a unit. The upper
tetrachord resembles Ptolemy's Even diatonic (12/11 x 11/10 x 10/9) or
my own theoretical genus 11/10 x 11/10 x 400/363, a virtually equal
division of the 4/3 in the spirit of the reduplicated genera of al-
Farabi.

--John

--- End forwarded message ---

I still have this sample up from the last time this subject came up. At that time there was evidence, at least in thought of fifths being more important than octaves.
http://anaphoria.com/georgia.PDF
JVC put out 4 volumes of music from this area. The first i heard was an old UNESCO recording on Vinyl which i still have. Le Chant du Monde has some good recordings also
--

/^_,',',',_ //^ /Kraig Grady_ ^_,',',',_
Mesotonal Music from:
_'''''''_ ^North/Western Hemisphere: North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>

_'''''''_ ^South/Eastern Hemisphere:
Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria <http://anaphoriasouth.blogspot.com/>

',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',',

Can't find my old cassette tape of Georgian singing but there are no
octaves as such. The interval of repetition/equivalence/whatever is
the pure fifth, so you might even say that 9:4 is the "octave".

Conjunct pentachords. The "sharp octave" is just the third tone of
the second pentachord.

An important concept of tetrachordal, pentachordal and
hemioctachordal constructions is that the octave, pure or otherwise,
is more or less a byproduct, and not necessarily a fundamental
interval.

I believe that this is one reason why it is possible to float things
like, say, a 670 cent "fifth" in a triadic harmony without anyone
even realizing: when this interval is, in the genes, a small major
second above the 4/3 and not actually a "fifth" at all, and the music
is tetrachordal in the soul, it will work. The other reason is that
you can stack pretty much any damn kinds of different thirds or
sixths and get a good chord in isolation- then the easily digestible
logic of tetrachord or pentachord-anchored melodic movement holds the
chords together in a perceptible way.

-Cameron Bobro

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "robert thomas
martin" <robertthomasmartin@...> wrote:
>
> --- In MicroMadeEasy@yahoogroups.com, "John H. Chalmers"
> <JHCHALMERS@> wrote:
>
> Robert et al: 144-tet fits the description of the Georgian scale
> minus
> the stretched octave, though one could simply go 2 or 3 degrees
> farther
> of 144 and come close to the 20 cent stretch. 144 is one of the
> theoretical divisions implied, but AFAIK, never implemented by any
> Greek
> mathematician. The Greek mathematicians, especially in the
> Hellenistic
> or Roman periods would have had no problem computing string lengths
> for
> equal temperaments whose cardinalities are composites of 2 and 3 as
> algorithms and constructions of for square and cube roots had long
> been
> known to the Greeks and the Babylonians before them.
>
> Base-60 arithmetic and notation is, of course, also of Sumero-
> Babylonian
> origin. I think it influenced the late Greek music theorists as it
> suggested that Aristoxenos's, or rather Cleonides's, "parts" could
be
> interpreted as parts of a real string of 120 units with 30 to the
> lower
> fourth and 20 to the upper. However, this interpretation greatly
> distorts the intervals of some of Aristo's genera. This was a
> fundamental error and makes me think that if the Greeks had been
> thinking in terms of equal temperaments of 12, 24, 36, 72 or 144
> parts,
> they would have said so and computed decent approximations of the
> intervals.
>
> The Georgian scale also approximates 7-equal and some Islamic
scales
> where the fifth, not the fourth is divided as a unit. The upper
> tetrachord resembles Ptolemy's Even diatonic (12/11 x 11/10 x 10/9)
or
> my own theoretical genus 11/10 x 11/10 x 400/363, a virtually equal
> division of the 4/3 in the spirit of the reduplicated genera of al-
> Farabi.
>
> --John
>
> --- End forwarded message ---
>