Re: xen keyboards, me, Mr. Halberstadt

In-Reply-To: <948108852.886@onelist.com>
Okay, I remembered to copy the subject line this time, now I have to say

Carl Lumma, digest 491.8, said:

> Now, I know I've said that a retuned halberstadt isn't "serious".
> That's
> based on some very careful thought about what made the Halberstadt so
> good
> for 12-tone tunings in the past 1000 years. See, I believe the keyboard
> has had no small impact on music as we know it -- in fact, I believe it
> gave birth to western music. What I'm saying is, I doubt there will
> ever
> be a serious genre of music based on retuned halberstadts. If somebody
> proves me wrong on that, I certainly wouldn't complain, but...

I don't know if a genre should really be based on an interface. Although
I suppose rock music is based around the guitar. I think we already have
serious genres based around sequencers. Also, a lot of music based on
ensemble playing. An extended mapping for a 2-rank keyboard could take
it's place in the ensemble or the studio. Maybe this would only be a
temporary measure before the take-over of Bosanquet keyboards. I wouldn't
count on it. Adaptive tuning looks far more populist. And some of "what
made the Halberstadt so good" wouldn't transfer to a Bosanquet.

I see an extended keyboard mapping as taking the place of a woodwind
instrument, rather than a conventional keyboard. In both cases you need
two hands to cover a tune, and you have direct control of expression.
Although with an extended keyboard you can still play chords. Lots of
them. Real-time pitch bending is also an option, but I find it preferable
to have lots of fixed pitches, either on a keyboard or a guitar.

Do "retuned halberstadts" include 12-note octave retunings?

> Like it or not, serious keyboard music is played "live".

What a strange assertion. Is this true of some, most or all such music?

> The ability for
> one person to control a large number of resources in real time with his
> hands is not a small deal. It forces a certain understanding of music.

Fair enough, and applies to all mappings under consideration.

> Serious keyboards (ones that are up for consideration as a standard) are
> expected to do a wide variety of things -- like rehearsing a choir. You
> simply cannot rehearse a choir in JI with a halberstadt.

Hmm. "Up for consideration as a standard" suggests I wasn't taking your
"seriously" seriously enough. I wouldn't begin to suggest that a
(modified) Halberstadt with 19, 22, 24 or 29 notes to the octave should
replace the 12 note variety. It would be inconsistent to do so, because
the majority of my keyboard playing time is spent with 12 (unequal) notes
to the octave. But there are serious alternatives.

As for rehearsing a choir, I haven't a clue. If singers expected an
instrument that played the notes they were trying to sing, 12 to the
octave wouldn't be enough. But obviously expectations are colored by
experience.

> >A diminished triad contains two minor thirds. Either could be
> subminor,
> >and with the right keyboard you can try all three versions to see which
> >you want. And do that really easily.
>
> And how would the ability to [reach?] an octave prohibit this choice?

Being able to play an octave is certainly a Good Thing(tm). But only
having 12 notes within it would mean they don't include all the notes you
want -- unless you had remarkable foresight when you did the tuning.

> >Sure, if you've got one.
>
> I'm saying there are good reasons to get one! That it is worth the
> effort.
> And the expense is not prohibitive! How could anybody believe such a
> thing? Do you drive a car? Live under a roof? Use a PC?

There are good reasons to get a Bosanquet keyboard, and reasons why the
expense is too great. But even if you were to buy/build one, I wouldn't
expect it too be as playable as a Halberstadt right away. It needs time
to evolve, along with a playing style.

Now I've got a house, my next priority is to get my own PC, and then Kyma.
I'm hoping that will make it easier to produce the music I want.
Keyboards are a secondary issue. I'll probably go for that Fatar
semi-weighted job you say is so good: you'd better be right!

The MicroZone is $7500 for 810 keys. If that were cost-per-key, then the
128 keys you can actually get from MIDI would only cost $1200 by my
calculations. That would be a serious proposition. But I don't have the
time to build my own right now. And an 810 key monstrosity certainly
isn't worth getting into debt for. And no, I don't drive a car.

> What I insist upon, to be clear, is to be able to reach at
> least the interval of equivalence with a single hand. As it is, much
> beautiful music would be lost by making the halberstadt bigger so that,
> say, Oscar Peterson could reach _only_ an octave.

But there's a lot of beautiful music that can't be made without reaching
inside the semitone. If I had Oscar Peterson's talent I'd be able to
demonstrate that. As it is, I can at least see the potential. The
smallest and largest intervals you can choose are both limitations. I
don't insist on anything: I make the best use of what I've got, and make
different compromises at different times.

Still, this is only personal preferences we're discussing. You can go on
dreaming of your Bosanquet while the rest of the world goes on in the firm
belief that there are only 12 notes to the octave. Then we'll all be
happy.

[Graham Breed wrote...]
>An extended mapping for a 2-rank keyboard could take it's place in the
>ensemble or the studio.

That was Partch's approach. And he certainly ripped me a new ___ with his
work. Partch wrote some two-voice bits for the Chromelodeon that deserve
to be written about 1000 years from now. Like the opening few bars to
Revelation in Courthouse Park. Right or wrong?

>And some of "what made the Halberstadt so good" wouldn't transfer to a
>Bosanquet.

True! But all of what made the halberstadt so good (far as I can tell) can
be transfered to multi-rank keyboards. In its defense, what the Bosanquet
looses is _probably_ made up for by what it gains (transpositional
invariance).

>Do "retuned halberstadts" include 12-note octave retunings?

I meant non-octave reachable retuned halberstadts there, sorry.

>> Like it or not, serious keyboard music is played "live".
>
>What a strange assertion. Is this true of some, most or all such music?

Music written for any instrument is generally considered clever in direct
proportion to how much it extracts from the instrument's resources. If you
view a N-ORRH (see previous quote) as a melodic instrument, then serious
music for it could just be a melody. But to me, turning a keyboard into a
melodic instrument is silly. Of course, N-ORRH's are capable of at least
two voices in all registers.

If the instrument in question is a sequencer hooked up to a N-ORRH, music
made on it may be clever, or not. But it's no longer keyboard music, it's
sequenced-N-ORRH music. This has its own challenges and rewards. But I
will argue that a sequenced-N-ORRH cannot replace a 4- or 5-voice capable
polyphonic keyboard for utility in a genre of music. I will even argue
that sequencing parts is not as mind-expanding as having to play them at
once, in realtime.

The choir is just one example. The use of a Bosanquet or multi-rank
keyboard could change everything. Orchestras could play Stravinsky in
15-limit JI all the time, not just under the freakish circumstances that
must have existed the day they recorded Deutsche Grammophon 437-850-2. The
influence that a keyboard can have, serving as representation of musical
materials (if its layout shares the periods of its tuning, and if what an
ensemble might play in such a tuning can be hinted at by the hands of one
person), cannot be understated.

>Hmm. "Up for consideration as a standard" suggests I wasn't taking your
>"seriously" seriously enough.

You'll have to give me some slack -- I'm trying to explain my entire
approach to music and my life here. That's not easy. I can say this: I'm
_not_ interested in making a new standard. I _am_ interested in obtaining
for myself a standard-worthy keyboard instrument. Make sense?

>There are good reasons to get a Bosanquet keyboard, and reasons why the
>expense is too great.

Such as?

>But even if you were to buy/build one, I wouldn't expect it too be as
>playable as a Halberstadt right away. It needs time to evolve, along with
>a playing style.

For sure. Also my playing in general needs some time to evolve. :)

>Now I've got a house, my next priority is to get my own PC, and then Kyma.

I'll trade you that house for my PC! Looks like we're both after Kyma.
Have you got Marcus Hobbs' CD yet?

>Keyboards are a secondary issue. I'll probably go for that Fatar
>semi-weighted job you say is so good: you'd better be right!

I didn't say it was good, I just said it was the best all-around MIDI
keyboard action out there. You should try different actions to see for
yourself. The new Kawai stage piano thingy looked soo promising, but I
don't like it.

>The MicroZone is $7500 for 810 keys. If that were cost-per-key, then the
>128 keys you can actually get from MIDI would only cost $1200 by my
>calculations. That would be a serious proposition.

There's a lot of things I don't like about the MicroZone. But it's Erv's
keyboard, so I don't have to like it. There's absolutely no reason you
couldn't have somebody custom-build you a 5-octave, 48-key/octave,
multi-rank MIDI controller keyboard with reachable octaves for $5000 US.
That's about 1/5 the price of the average grand piano. If the keyboard was
mass produced, it could be available for $1500 US and still provide a nice
profit for whoever was making it.

>But there's a lot of beautiful music that can't be made without reaching
>inside the semitone.

I think we'd all agree with that.

-Carl

> [Graham Breed, TD 492.11]
> Keyboards are a secondary issue. I'll probably go for that
> Fatar semi-weighted job you say is so good: you'd better be
> right!

I saw something here about a Fatar a few weeks ago. I also
used to have one, with 88-key weighted action. It was my
primary MIDI controller and only cost me $500 used.
I loved it, and sure do miss it now.

> The MicroZone is $7500 for 810 keys. If that were
> cost-per-key, then the 128 keys you can actually get from
> MIDI would only cost $1200 by my calculations. That would
> be a serious proposition. But I don't have the time to
> build my own right now. And an 810 key monstrosity certainly
> isn't worth getting into debt for.

I spoke to Harvey Starr (builder of the MicroZone) over the
phone while I was in San Diego two weeks ago, and he told
me that he's also making a smaller version for $3000, which
IIRC has 288 keys. I'm seriously considering it. Here's
the webpage:
http://www.catalog.com/starrlab/uzone.htm
You should be able to reach Harvey at
webmaster@starrlabs.com

If my 1/600th of an 'octave' (heh heh) is worth anything,
I say leave Halberstadt for the 12-equal scale and design
new microtonal instruments for microtonal scales. One
gets used to >12-tone-scale mappings to the Halberstadt
after enough playing, but the non-match of the interval
of equivalence with the visual and, more importantly,
tactile patterns of repetition on the 12-based Halberstadt
was something I never quite got over.

-monz

Joseph L. Monzo Philadelphia monz@juno.com
http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/homepage.html
|"...I had broken thru the lattice barrier..."|
| - Erv Wilson |
--------------------------------------------------

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In-Reply-To: <948254540.30859@onelist.com>
Carl Lumma, digest 493.1, wrote:

> True! But all of what made the halberstadt so good (far as I can tell)
> can
> be transfered to multi-rank keyboards. In its defense, what the
> Bosanquet
> looses is _probably_ made up for by what it gains (transpositional
> invariance).

A Halberstadt is essentially linear, as pitch rises steadily as you go up
it, and you have a high degree of freedom perpendicular to this. A
multi-rank keyboard needn't spoil that until you use the extra ranks. But
once you do, it restricts your freedom of finger placement. This isn't a
fatal flaw, but it's something that will have to be overcome.

I'm not sure if transpositional invariance is such a big deal. Getting
more notes playable with one hand is, and anything that minimises the
complexity is good. The inherent simplicity of a linear keyboard is
something that will always count for Halberstadt. It all depends on
whether or not you want those extra notes.

> Music written for any instrument is generally considered clever in
> direct
> proportion to how much it extracts from the instrument's resources. If
> you
> view a N-ORRH (see previous quote) as a melodic instrument, then serious
> music for it could just be a melody. But to me, turning a keyboard
> into a
> melodic instrument is silly. Of course, N-ORRH's are capable of at
> least
> two voices in all registers.

Well, I don't think music should set out to be clever. As for keyboards
as melodic instruments, there are plenty of reasons: they're cheap, easily
available, easy to play and give full MIDI control.

> If the instrument in question is a sequencer hooked up to a N-ORRH,
> music
> made on it may be clever, or not. But it's no longer keyboard music,
> it's
> sequenced-N-ORRH music.

Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!! So serious keyboard music is played live
because, if it isn't live, it isn't keyboard music!

> This has its own challenges and rewards. But I
> will argue that a sequenced-N-ORRH cannot replace a 4- or 5-voice
> capable
> polyphonic keyboard for utility in a genre of music.

A non-octave reachable retuned Halberstadt won't replace the standard
article. But there's so much music -- well, most that uses synthesizers
-- that doesn't rely on polyphonic playing.

> I will even argue
> that sequencing parts is not as mind-expanding as having to play them at
> once, in realtime.

Well, that's incidental to the discussion.

> The choir is just one example. The use of a Bosanquet or multi-rank
> keyboard could change everything. Orchestras could play Stravinsky in
> 15-limit JI all the time, not just under the freakish circumstances that
> must have existed the day they recorded Deutsche Grammophon 437-850-2.

15-limit JI is asking a lot of any two-dimensional keyboard. Adaptive
tuning could change make it possible (with either keyboard). Static
retuning should already have had some effect on performance practice, but
doesn't seem to have.

> The
> influence that a keyboard can have, serving as representation of musical
> materials (if its layout shares the periods of its tuning, and if what
> an
> ensemble might play in such a tuning can be hinted at by the hands of
> one
> person), cannot be understated.

The Wilson/Bosanquet is excellent as a way of thinking, I hope it'll work
as a solid object. It could change a lot, and it'd only take somebody
prominent to get it.

> >Hmm. "Up for consideration as a standard" suggests I wasn't taking
> your >"seriously" seriously enough.
>
> You'll have to give me some slack -- I'm trying to explain my entire
> approach to music and my life here. That's not easy. I can say this:
> I'm
> _not_ interested in making a new standard. I _am_ interested in
> obtaining
> for myself a standard-worthy keyboard instrument. Make sense?

Yes, but it sounds very serious.

> >There are good reasons to get a Bosanquet keyboard, and reasons why
> the >expense is too great.
>
> Such as?

Well, it depends what you'd use it for. I'm making sequenced music in my
spare time, and keyboards aren't really that important. Having a more
versatile one wouldn't make much, if any, difference to the music. If
you're playing live, and need the extra notes, you need the keyboard,
provided your budget stretches to it.

Exceptional expenditure may be worth it for the only keyboard I'd ever
need. But, with the standard Wilson/Bosanquet mappings, it still looks
difficult to play 11-limit music, so I'd still have to retune. And I'd
need yet another keyboard for diaschismic music, because that doesn't fit
a Bosanquet at all well.

11-limit music may be made easier by playing two notes to get a neutral
interval. But this has a number of repercussions, including the inability
to play small intervals in chords.

> >Now I've got a house, my next priority is to get my own PC, and then
> Kyma.
>
> I'll trade you that house for my PC! Looks like we're both after Kyma.
> Have you got Marcus Hobbs' CD yet?

That's a tempting offer, but without my house where would I put your PC?
As for the CD, I'm still confronted by the obstacle of not having a US
bank account.

> >Keyboards are a secondary issue. I'll probably go for that Fatar
> >semi-weighted job you say is so good: you'd better be right!
>
> I didn't say it was good, I just said it was the best all-around MIDI
> keyboard action out there. You should try different actions to see for
> yourself. The new Kawai stage piano thingy looked soo promising, but I
> don't like it.

It'll be hard enough to find one on sale, let alone a display model I can
try out. If a $3000 Bosanquet is on the horizon, maybe I should be saving
for one of those instead. It could be next year's big expenditure (Kyma
being this year's, the house last year's).

> >The MicroZone is $7500 for 810 keys. If that were cost-per-key, then
> the >128 keys you can actually get from MIDI would only cost $1200 by
> my >calculations. That would be a serious proposition.
>
> There's a lot of things I don't like about the MicroZone. But it's
> Erv's
> keyboard, so I don't have to like it. There's absolutely no reason you
> couldn't have somebody custom-build you a 5-octave, 48-key/octave,
> multi-rank MIDI controller keyboard with reachable octaves for $5000 US.
> That's about 1/5 the price of the average grand piano. If the keyboard
> was
> mass produced, it could be available for $1500 US and still provide a
> nice
> profit for whoever was making it.

Well, comparing it to the price of a grand piano is irrelevant to me, as I
can't afford one of those either. Although for a professional it would be
entirely reasonable, and for an educational establishment it should
already be essential. All we need do is convince them that the extra
notes are worthwhile. And I can play my part in that without such a
keyboard myself.

>>True! But all of what made the halberstadt so good (far as I can tell)
>>can be transfered to multi-rank keyboards. In its defense, what the
>>Bosanquet looses is _probably_ made up for by what it gains
>>(transpositional invariance).
>
>A Halberstadt is essentially linear, as pitch rises steadily as you go up
>it, and you have a high degree of freedom perpendicular to this.

You mean you can move your hands closer to or farther from your body as you
play? That's a keen observation -- it is one of the fatal flaws (IMO) of
Erv's honeycomb design.

>A multi-rank keyboard needn't spoil that until you use the extra ranks.
>But once you do, it restricts your freedom of finger placement. This isn't
>a fatal flaw, but it's something that will have to be overcome.

I'm sorry, I don't follow. Multi-rank keyboards with rectangular keys can
preserve as much or as little perpendicular freedom as you'd like.

>I'm not sure if transpositional invariance is such a big deal.

Agreed.

>Getting more notes playable with one hand is, and anything that minimises
>the complexity is good.

Agreed.

>The inherent simplicity of a linear keyboard is something that will always
>count for Halberstadt. It all depends on whether or not you want those
>extra notes.

I don't follow the linear thing. Multirank keyboards can still map pitch
in a "linear" way, just in 2-D instead of 1-D.

The big choice you have with any keyboard is that between transpositional
invariance and what I will call modal invariance. You can't satisfy both
at once, by definition (unless your basic scale is equal-step, in which
case it doesn't really have modes). The halberstadt has M.I. Both major
and minor thirds are thirds, on balance the same width. This is probably
the way to go for generalized-diatonic scales -- you can play the basic
chords without having to think. You just get them "under the fingers".
But, you do have to bother to learn to play in all keys...

>Well, I don't think music should set out to be clever.

That's a good point, and I agree. But it isn't always bad thing, either.

>As for keyboards as melodic instruments, there are plenty of reasons:
>they're cheap, easily available, easy to play and give full MIDI control.

You can do some cool stuff with a bend wheel and a monophonic patch, to be
sure. But I'd much rather use (and listen to) a wind controller.

>>If the instrument in question is a sequencer hooked up to a N-ORRH,
>>music made on it may be clever, or not. But it's no longer keyboard
>>music, it's sequenced-N-ORRH music.
>
>Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!! So serious keyboard music is played live
>because, if it isn't live, it isn't keyboard music!

That's right. [If live means "in realtime".]

>A non-octave reachable retuned Halberstadt won't replace the standard
>article. But there's so much music -- well, most that uses synthesizers
>-- that doesn't rely on polyphonic playing.

Ick.

>>The choir is just one example. The use of a Bosanquet or multi-rank
>>keyboard could change everything. Orchestras could play Stravinsky in
>>15-limit JI all the time, not just under the freakish circumstances that
>>must have existed the day they recorded Deutsche Grammophon 437-850-2.
>
>15-limit JI is asking a lot of any two-dimensional keyboard.

Tell that to Erv Wilson! [Even a plain diamond works quite well -- even
those who don't like Norman Henry's music seldom complain about his skill
at the diamond keyboard.]

>Well, it depends what you'd use it for. I'm making sequenced music in my
>spare time, and keyboards aren't really that important. Having a more
>versatile one wouldn't make much, if any, difference to the music. If
>you're playing live, and need the extra notes, you need the keyboard,
>provided your budget stretches to it.

Just to be sure, I'd like to say again that none of my remarks are meant to
discourage anyone from making sequenced music! I can't stress that enough!

>That's a tempting offer, but without my house where would I put your PC?
>As for the CD, I'm still confronted by the obstacle of not having a US
>bank account.

Graham, write me off list. You send pounds, I send disc.

-Carl

In-Reply-To: <948367555.24346@onelist.com>
Right, what is there still to say about this?

Carl Lumma, digest 496, wrote:

In article <948367555.24346@onelist.com>, tuning@onelist.com () wrote:

> >A Halberstadt is essentially linear, as pitch rises steadily as you go
> up >it, and you have a high degree of freedom perpendicular to this.
>
> You mean you can move your hands closer to or farther from your body as
> you
> play? That's a keen observation -- it is one of the fatal flaws (IMO)
> of
> Erv's honeycomb design.

That's it, yes.

> >A multi-rank keyboard needn't spoil that until you use the extra
> ranks.
> >But once you do, it restricts your freedom of finger placement. This
> isn't
> >a fatal flaw, but it's something that will have to be overcome.
>
> I'm sorry, I don't follow. Multi-rank keyboards with rectangular keys
> can
> preserve as much or as little perpendicular freedom as you'd like.

How so? You can get the second rank to overlap both the first and third,
but the first and third can't overlap each other. Otherwise you have the
same restriction as a linear keyboard in terms of the number of notes per
octave. If you play a chord that covers more than two ranks, then your
freedom gets restricted. The limiting case is that rectangular keys an do
the same simple scales as a fixed-pitch Halberstadt, but with mutliple
transpositons. The honeycomb design seems to give the biggest range of
weird chords, not all of them playable with one hand. Some compromise
will have to be worked out, according to what composers and performers
find they want.

> >The inherent simplicity of a linear keyboard is something that will
> always
> >count for Halberstadt. It all depends on whether or not you want those
> >extra notes.
>
> I don't follow the linear thing. Multirank keyboards can still map
> pitch
> in a "linear" way, just in 2-D instead of 1-D.

If it's two-dimensional, it isn't a line, is it?

> The big choice you have with any keyboard is that between
> transpositional
> invariance and what I will call modal invariance. You can't satisfy
> both
> at once, by definition (unless your basic scale is equal-step, in which
> case it doesn't really have modes). The halberstadt has M.I. Both
> major
> and minor thirds are thirds, on balance the same width. This is
> probably
> the way to go for generalized-diatonic scales -- you can play the basic
> chords without having to think. You just get them "under the fingers".
> But, you do have to bother to learn to play in all keys...

Hmm, I hadn't really thought about it that way. Staff notation, and
variations thereof, always hav modal invariance. Although they're also
good ways of writing for generalized keyboards.

I think the biggest choice is between melody and harmony. Linear pitch
ordering favours melody. So do the "traditional" Bosanquet mappings,
although having two dimensions helps as well. Mouth organs, and I believe
accordions, have harmonic mappings, where three consecutive notes are a
triad. The diamond marimba is another example. A Wilson/Bosanquet
keyboard could be mapped harmonically, and could be useful as such for
complex, two-handed harmony, or as a dedicated left-hand keyboard.
Guitars are an interesting compromise. You have melody in one direction,
and harmony in another. (And those Ztars look *smart*.)

> >As for keyboards as melodic instruments, there are plenty of reasons:
> >they're cheap, easily available, easy to play and give full MIDI
> control.
>
> You can do some cool stuff with a bend wheel and a monophonic patch, to
> be
> sure. But I'd much rather use (and listen to) a wind controller.

Now we have an argument as to whether or not a wind controller qualifies
as a keyboard.

That aside, I don't know much about them. I fact, I don't recall ever
having seen one. Looks like they're not as easily available as keyboards.
They look like very useful MIDI input devices, but don't have enough keys
for the kind of microtonality we're talking about. How would one compare
to a keyboard with breath control? Assuming a player with no previous
experience.

Incidentally, while on my travels, I found this site:

http://www.yamahasynth.com/

which has electronic copies of Yamaha manuals. I think somebody said
recently that they don't have the manual for their TX81Z. If that person
is on this list, I hope you find that link useful.

Now I have a DX21 manual, I see this warning:

"Do not open the cabinet or attempt to make your own repairs or
modifications to any part of the instrument. Such actions may not only
result in electrical shock or damage, but will also void the product
warranty. Refer all servicing to a qualified Yamaha service center."

So, looks like I was dicing with death when I reconfigured that keyboard!

> >15-limit JI is asking a lot of any two-dimensional keyboard.
>
> Tell that to Erv Wilson! [Even a plain diamond works quite well -- even
> those who don't like Norman Henry's music seldom complain about his
> skill
> at the diamond keyboard.]

Well, I might do ...

Trying out the fingerings in the Xenharmonikon diagrams, it looks like
11-limit chords could be played, but only with both hands. So it's
useful, but I don't think it's a panacea for 15-limit harmony. Although
you certainly could play 15-limit chords easily, they may not be the ones
the choir should be singing.

A diamond would do better (8x8?) provided it's tuned to the right 1/1.

Who's Norman Henry?