Occam's Razor

Hi list!

I don't post much because my level of understanding regarding tuning
is much lower than what I read here, in general, and most of my past
posts look horribly ignorant in retrospective comparison. That being
said, the recent volume of posts has caught my attention again to the
point where I'm now risking another, possibly ignorant, post...

---

When I graduated music school I became fascinated by this "new"
concept of microtuning (not new at all in reality, but new to me) and
I eventually stumbled onto this list, (chronologically this was right
after the switch from the mills server). Gradually, however, my
interest has waned, and it's largely due to the *incredibly* negative
responses I got from my "common-joe" audiences, which I consider to be
an Occam's Razor, of sorts, when deciding which artistic directions to
pursue, i.e. it doesn't matter what the theory is if common-joe
doesn't like how it sounds.

After reading, recently, about some of trials and tribulations of
attempting to score films using a microtonal approach, the fiery
internal battles I've had regarding tunings have been re-ignited. In
my mind, microtonality must be used *very* carefully for that
particular application of composition because the main reason for
scoring a film is to support the visual, not detract, which is very
often what a microtonal score will do to common-joes when they're
watching the movie. So how does one do microtonal film scoring, then?

My current solution-in-progress has been to abandon the pursuit of
microtonal theory and move towards synthesis as a microtonal outlet,
i.e. make it *so* microtonal that common-joe doesn't even try to
associate it with "normal" and is therefore not pissed off by it, but
instead, is attracted to it's "newness", which I find to be much more
accepted in the relatively young world of synthesis instead of the
seemingly "stodgy" world of pure composition.

---

...anyway, in the interests of brevity I'll stop here, but I'm
wondering what you all think of this and I'm hoping that discussing it
here will make things clearer and more defined in my own mind, and
maybe even change it =)

Thanks for reading,
~af~

Hi!

-animation seems more forgiving for (synthesized) microtonal composition, (also maybe non-synthesized), because of the inherent whimsy, or unreality.

-(pedant mode) don't conflate Occam's Razor with argument ad populum or argument ad ignorantiam

-I've wanted to ask Cameron Bobro how he gets away with microtones in film-scores--if he does--and if they are films other than animated films.

-I used some microtones in a score for The American Museum of Natural History--Cladogram exhibit, evolution stuff. That was because the client said he wanted something "harsh and evidentiary"--whatever that means--which was the first and only time anyone asked me to do something a little radical.

-I also used some for a walk-through exhibit called LifeTunnel, with somewhat spooky pic.

It's here, in the Scoring folder, under the name LifeTunnel.mp3

http://www.box.net/shared/m37jhti1og

http://www.box.net/shared/m37jhti1og#2:20193246

let me know if this doesn't play, or you can't find it.

But, it's definitely droney and it's microtonal Lite.

-I think it's actually a real insult, and simply incorrect, to call academics 'stodgy'--even 'seemingly'. They weren't stodgy at NEC, or Berklee, or Penn State. Everyone has her will to power, his self-interest, that colors perception and judgment. The people in the commercial world were 'stodgier'.

-I think that the typical American simply has little interest in music other than socializing and sentiment, little ability to pay attention, and has so little knowledge that they actually have fun playing air-guitar video games. We already live in the Idiocracy. In times bygone, people had, at least, pianos in their parlors, and Wagner was capable of causing controversy. No understanding without participation. Music is not a spectator sport.

On Feb 13, 2009, at 8:53 AM, Andrew Fillebrown wrote:

> Hi list!
>
> I don't post much because my level of understanding regarding tuning
> is much lower than what I read here, in general, and most of my past
> posts look horribly ignorant in retrospective comparison. That being
> said, the recent volume of posts has caught my attention again to the
> point where I'm now risking another, possibly ignorant, post...
>
> ---
>
> When I graduated music school I became fascinated by this "new"
> concept of microtuning (not new at all in reality, but new to me) and
> I eventually stumbled onto this list, (chronologically this was right
> after the switch from the mills server). Gradually, however, my
> interest has waned, and it's largely due to the *incredibly* negative
> responses I got from my "common-joe" audiences, which I consider to be
> an Occam's Razor, of sorts, when deciding which artistic directions to
> pursue, i.e. it doesn't matter what the theory is if common-joe
> doesn't like how it sounds.
>
> After reading, recently, about some of trials and tribulations of
> attempting to score films using a microtonal approach, the fiery
> internal battles I've had regarding tunings have been re-ignited. In
> my mind, microtonality must be used *very* carefully for that
> particular application of composition because the main reason for
> scoring a film is to support the visual, not detract, which is very
> often what a microtonal score will do to common-joes when they're
> watching the movie. So how does one do microtonal film scoring, then?
>
> My current solution-in-progress has been to abandon the pursuit of
> microtonal theory and move towards synthesis as a microtonal outlet,
> i.e. make it *so* microtonal that common-joe doesn't even try to
> associate it with "normal" and is therefore not pissed off by it, but
> instead, is attracted to it's "newness", which I find to be much more
> accepted in the relatively young world of synthesis instead of the
> seemingly "stodgy" world of pure composition.
>
> ---
>
> ...anyway, in the interests of brevity I'll stop here, but I'm
> wondering what you all think of this and I'm hoping that discussing it
> here will make things clearer and more defined in my own mind, and
> maybe even change it =)
>
> Thanks for reading,
> ~af~
>
>
>

--Gradually, however, my
--interest has waned, and it's largely due to the *incredibly* negative
--responses I got from my "common-joe" audiences, which I consider to --be an Occam's Razor, of sorts, when deciding which artistic directions --to pursue, i.e. it doesn't matter what the theory is if common-joe
--doesn't like how it sounds.

     True enough; you need to use scales that can be easily and instinctively figured out on-the-spot but the listeners/film-viewer.  One of the tests I try to put my new scales through is "does hearing a song played in the new tuning shock you if you hear it just after a piece made in 12TET".  97% of the time the answer is YES and I find myself having to redo scales I create many time before I can come back in few hours, listen to my scale side by side with 12TET, and think "wow...that really sounds just as
relaxed/resolved".

However, there are a chosen few tunings I think can be used without detracting from, say, a film or "forcing the listener/viewer to use almost his/her entire mind to process the music".  Here are a few of such scales I think could successfully fool audiences into thinking the scales are "normal":

http://www.elvenminstrel.com/music/tuning/horagrams/mp3/rng09-6.mp3
(MOS scale example)

http://cdbaby.com/cd/marcussatellite2/
   I am also, of course, working on a scale based on the Golden Ratio, but that one is not very well documented (yet)....especially for something as cutting-edge as film scoring. 
 
Best of luck and don't give up,
Michael

the first link gave me 'Forbidden'

and the second, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be looking at.

On Feb 13, 2009, at 10:20 AM, djtrancendance@... wrote:

>
> --Gradually, however, my
> --interest has waned, and it's largely due to the *incredibly* > negative
> --responses I got from my "common-joe" audiences, which I consider > to --be anOccam's Razor, of sorts, when deciding which artistic > directions --to pursue, i.e. it doesn't matter what the theory is if > common-joe
> --doesn't like how it sounds.
>
> True enough; you need to use scales that can be easily and > instinctively figured out on-the-spot but the listeners/film-> viewer. One of the tests I try to put my new scales through is > "does hearing a song played in the new tuning shock you if you hear > it just after a piece made in 12TET". 97% of the time the answer is > YES and I find myself having to redo scales I create many time > before I can come back in few hours, listen to my scale side by side > with 12TET, and think "wow...that really sounds just as relaxed/> resolved".
>
> However, there are a chosen few tunings I think can be used without > detracting from, say, a film or "forcing the listener/viewer to use > almost his/her entire mind to process the music". Here are a few of > such scales I think could successfully fool audiences into thinking > the scales are "normal":
> http://www.elvenminstrel.com/music/tuning/horagrams/mp3/rng09-6.mp3 > (MOS scale example)
>
> http://cdbaby.com/cd/marcussatellite2/
> I am also, of course, working on a scale based on the Golden > Ratio, but that one is not very well documented (yet)....especially > for something as cutting-edge as film scoring.
>
> Best of luck and don't give up,
> Michael
>
>

Ugh...yahoo mail add spaces to the links.  Let me reprint them

http://www.elvenminstrel.com/music/tuning/horagrams/mp3/rng09-6.mp3

http://cdbaby.com/cd/marcussatellite2/
FOR THE SECOND LINK look on the left side of the page for the audio sample entitled "Trading Tykes The Magick Words" and press the PLAY button icon next to it to hear the song.

    Both pieces, in my mind, are easily as consonant and "relaxed" as anything I've heard in 12TET. :-)

-Michael

--- On Fri, 2/13/09, caleb morgan <calebmrgn@yahoo.com> wrote:

From: caleb morgan <calebmrgn@...>
Subject: Re: [tuning] Occam's Razor
To: tuning@yahoogroups.com
Date: Friday, February 13, 2009, 7:22 AM

the first link gave me 'Forbidden'
and the second, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be looking at.

On Feb 13, 2009, at 10:20 AM, djtrancendance@ yahoo.com wrote:

--Gradually, however, my
--interest has waned, and it's largely due to the *incredibly* negative
--responses I got from my "common-joe" audiences, which I consider to --be anOccam's Razor, of sorts, when deciding which artistic directions --to pursue, i.e. it doesn't matter what the theory is if common-joe
--doesn't like how it sounds.

     True enough; you need to use scales that can be easily and instinctively figured out on-the-spot but the listeners/film- viewer.  One of the tests I try to put my new scales through is "does hearing a song played in the new tuning shock you if you hear it just after a piece made in 12TET".  97% of the time the answer is YES and I find myself having to redo scales I create many time before I can come back in few hours, listen to my scale side by side with 12TET, and think "wow...that really sounds just as relaxed/resolved" .

However, there are a chosen few tunings I think can be used without detracting from, say, a film or "forcing the listener/viewer to use almost his/her entire mind to process the music".  Here are a few of such scales I think could successfully fool audiences into thinking the scales are "normal":
http://www.elvenmin strel.com/ music/tuning/ horagrams/ mp3/rng09- 6.mp3 (MOS scale example)http://cdbaby. com/cd/marcussat ellite2/
   I am also, of course, working on a scale based on the Golden Ratio, but that one is not very well documented (yet)....especially for something as cutting-edge as film scoring.  
  
Best of luck and don't give up,
Michael

Ugh, someone blocked the pages at
http://www.elvenminstrel.com/music/tuning/horagrams/mp3/rng09- 6.mp3
   That was an example of horagram-based MOS scales...anyone know where else to find examples of them?

BTW, the other link http://cdbaby. com/cd/marcussat ellite2/ still works, Just look on the left side of the page for the audio sample entitled
"Trading Tykes The Magick Words" and press the PLAY button icon next to
it to hear the song.

-Michael
--- On Fri, 2/13/09, Michael Sheiman <djtrancendance@...> wrote:

From: Michael Sheiman <djtrancendance@...>
Subject: Re: [tuning] Occam's Razor
To: tuning@yahoogroups.com
Date: Friday, February 13, 2009, 7:34 AM

Ugh...yahoo mail add spaces to the links.  Let me reprint them

http://www.elvenmin strel.com/ music/tuning/ horagrams/ mp3/rng09- 6.mp3

http://cdbaby. com/cd/marcussat ellite2/
FOR THE SECOND LINK look on the left side of the page for the audio sample entitled "Trading Tykes The Magick Words" and press the PLAY button icon next to it to hear the song.

    Both pieces, in my mind, are easily as consonant and "relaxed" as anything I've heard in 12TET. :-)

-Michael

--- On Fri, 2/13/09, caleb morgan <calebmrgn@yahoo. com> wrote:

From: caleb morgan <calebmrgn@yahoo. com>
Subject: Re: [tuning] Occam's Razor
To: tuning@yahoogroups. com
Date: Friday, February 13, 2009, 7:22
AM

the first link gave me 'Forbidden'
and the second, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be looking at.

On Feb 13, 2009, at 10:20 AM, djtrancendance@ yahoo.com wrote:

--Gradually, however, my
--interest has waned, and it's largely due to the *incredibly* negative
--responses I got from my "common-joe" audiences, which I consider to --be anOccam's Razor, of sorts, when deciding which artistic directions --to pursue, i.e. it doesn't matter what the theory is if common-joe
--doesn't like how it sounds.

     True enough; you need to use scales that can be easily and instinctively figured out on-the-spot but the listeners/film- viewer.  One of the tests I try to put my new scales through is "does hearing a song played in the new tuning shock you if you hear
it just after a piece made in 12TET".  97% of the time the answer is YES and I find myself having to redo scales I create many time before I can come back in few hours, listen to my scale side by side with 12TET, and think "wow...that really sounds just as relaxed/resolved" .

However, there are a chosen few tunings I think can be used without detracting from, say, a film or "forcing the listener/viewer to use almost his/her entire mind to process the music".  Here are a few of such scales I think could successfully fool audiences into thinking the scales are "normal":
http://www.elvenmin strel.com/ music/tuning/ horagrams/ mp3/rng09- 6.mp3 (MOS scale example)http://cdbaby. com/cd/marcussat ellite2/
   I am also, of course, working on a scale based on the Golden Ratio, but that one is not very well documented (yet)....especially for something as cutting-edge as film scoring.  
  
Best of luck and don't give up,
Michael

sorry, now just error messages--Safari can't find server.

On Feb 13, 2009, at 10:34 AM, Michael Sheiman wrote:

>
> Ugh...yahoo mail add spaces to the links. Let me reprint them
>
> http://www.elvenminstrel.com/music/tuning/horagrams/mp3/rng09-6.mp3
>
> http://cdbaby.com/cd/marcussatellite2/
> FOR THE SECOND LINK look on the left side of the page for the audio > sample entitled "Trading Tykes The Magick Words" and press the PLAY > button icon next to it to hear the song.
>
> Both pieces, in my mind, are easily as consonant and "relaxed" > as anything I've heard in 12TET. :-)
>
> -Michael
>
>
> --- On Fri, 2/13/09, caleb morgan <calebmrgn@...> wrote:
>
> From: caleb morgan <calebmrgn@...>
> Subject: Re: [tuning] Occam's Razor
> To: tuning@yahoogroups.com
> Date: Friday, February 13, 2009, 7:22 AM
>
>
> the first link gave me 'Forbidden'
>
> and the second, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be looking at.
>
>
>
> On Feb 13, 2009, at 10:20 AM, djtrancendance@ yahoo.com wrote:
>
>>
>> --Gradually, however, my
>> --interest has waned, and it's largely due to the *incredibly* >> negative
>> --responses I got from my "common-joe" audiences, which I consider >> to --be anOccam's Razor, of sorts, when deciding which artistic >> directions --to pursue, i.e. it doesn't matter what the theory is >> if common-joe
>> --doesn't like how it sounds.
>>
>> True enough; you need to use scales that can be easily and >> instinctively figured out on-the-spot but the listeners/film- >> viewer. One of the tests I try to put my new scales through is >> "does hearing a song played in the new tuning shock you if you hear >> it just after a piece made in 12TET". 97% of the time the answer >> is YES and I find myself having to redo scales I create many time >> before I can come back in few hours, listen to my scale side by >> side with 12TET, and think "wow...that really sounds just as >> relaxed/resolved" .
>>
>> However, there are a chosen few tunings I think can be used without >> detracting from, say, a film or "forcing the listener/viewer to use >> almost his/her entire mind to process the music". Here are a few >> of such scales I think could successfully fool audiences into >> thinking the scales are "normal":
>> http://www.elvenmin strel.com/ music/tuning/ horagrams/ mp3/rng09- >> 6.mp3 (MOS scale example)
>>
>> http://cdbaby. com/cd/marcussat ellite2/
>> I am also, of course, working on a scale based on the Golden >> Ratio, but that one is not very well documented (yet)....especially >> for something as cutting-edge as film scoring.
>>
>> Best of luck and don't give up,
>> Michael
>>
>
>
>

Ok, I heard tykes. cool.

sort of B aeolian to B mixolydian. How far from 12ET is this?--I'm thinking no more than 20 cents deviation?

Nice energy.

The client would complain that the lead melody at the beginning is too sassy, synthy, buzzy, and in-your-face--
unless that's what she was looking for--but she'd bop around and buy it.

On Feb 13, 2009, at 10:39 AM, Michael Sheiman wrote:

>
> Ugh, someone blocked the pages at
> http://www.elvenminstrel.com/music/tuning/horagrams/mp3/rng09- 6.mp3
> That was an example of horagram-based MOS scales...anyone know > where else to find examples of them?
>
> BTW, the other link http://cdbaby. com/cd/marcussat ellite2/ still > works, Just look on the left side of the page for the audio sample > entitled "Trading Tykes The Magick Words" and press the PLAY button > icon next to it to hear the song.
>
>
> -Michael
> --- On Fri, 2/13/09, Michael Sheiman <djtrancendance@...>wrote:
>
> From: Michael Sheiman <djtrancendance@...>
> Subject: Re: [tuning] Occam's Razor
> To: tuning@yahoogroups.com
> Date: Friday, February 13, 2009, 7:34 AM
>
>
> Ugh...yahoo mail add spaces to the links. Let me reprint them
>
> http://www.elvenmin strel.com/ music/tuning/ horagrams/ mp3/rng09- > 6.mp3
>
> http://cdbaby. com/cd/marcussat ellite2/
> FOR THE SECOND LINK look on the left side of the page for the audio > sample entitled "Trading Tykes The Magick Words" and press the PLAY > button icon next to it to hear the song.
>
> Both pieces, in my mind, are easily as consonant and "relaxed" > as anything I've heard in 12TET. :-)
>
> -Michael
>
>
> --- On Fri, 2/13/09, caleb morgan <calebmrgn@yahoo. com> wrote:
>
> From: caleb morgan <calebmrgn@yahoo. com>
> Subject: Re: [tuning] Occam's Razor
> To: tuning@yahoogroups. com
> Date: Friday, February 13, 2009, 7:22 AM
>
>
> the first link gave me 'Forbidden'
>
> and the second, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be looking at.
>
>
>
> On Feb 13, 2009, at 10:20 AM, djtrancendance@ yahoo.com wrote:
>
>>
>> --Gradually, however, my
>> --interest has waned, and it's largely due to the *incredibly* >> negative
>> --responses I got from my "common-joe" audiences, which I consider >> to --be anOccam's Razor, of sorts, when deciding which artistic >> directions --to pursue, i.e. it doesn't matter what the theory is >> if common-joe
>> --doesn't like how it sounds.
>>
>> True enough; you need to use scales that can be easily and >> instinctively figured out on-the-spot but the listeners/film- >> viewer. One of the tests I try to put my new scales through is >> "does hearing a song played in the new tuning shock you if you hear >> it just after a piece made in 12TET". 97% of the time the answer >> is YES and I find myself having to redo scales I create many time >> before I can come back in few hours, listen to my scale side by >> side with 12TET, and think "wow...that really sounds just as >> relaxed/resolved" .
>>
>> However, there are a chosen few tunings I think can be used without >> detracting from, say, a film or "forcing the listener/viewer to use >> almost his/her entire mind to process the music". Here are a few >> of such scales I think could successfully fool audiences into >> thinking the scales are "normal":
>> http://www.elvenmin strel.com/ music/tuning/ horagrams/ mp3/rng09- >> 6.mp3 (MOS scale example)
>>
>> http://cdbaby. com/cd/marcussat ellite2/
>> I am also, of course, working on a scale based on the Golden >> Ratio, but that one is not very well documented (yet)....especially >> for something as cutting-edge as film scoring.
>>
>> Best of luck and don't give up,
>> Michael
>>
>
>
>
>

--sort of B aeolian to B mixolydian.  How far from 12ET is this?--I'm --thinking no more than 20 cents deviation?
  Has to be fairly far from 12TET...I swear he's using a 6-note scale since the scale name is "six hexanies". 

    The song itself, I agree, has no place in a film score...but the point is; the scale system used could easily fool many people into thinking it's normal even though it's fully micro-tonal.  Using the same scale in a film score would likely also fool people. :-D

   The tuning is called "Six Hexanies" by Erv Wilson.  Erv, if you are reading this message please do the rest of us a favor and post the tuning/SCALA file info for this fantastic sounding scale. :-)

-Michael

--- On Fri, 2/13/09, caleb morgan <calebmrgn@...> wrote:

From: caleb morgan <calebmrgn@...>
Subject: Re: [tuning] Occam's Razor
To: tuning@yahoogroups.com
Date: Friday, February 13, 2009, 7:51 AM

Ok, I heard tykes.  cool.
sort of B aeolian to B mixolydian.  How far from 12ET is this?--I'm thinking no more than 20 cents deviation?
Nice energy.  
The client would complain that the lead melody at the beginning is too sassy, synthy, buzzy, and in-your-face- -unless that's what she was looking for--but she'd bop around and buy it.

On Feb 13, 2009, at 10:39 AM, Michael Sheiman wrote:

Ugh, someone blocked the pages at
http://www.elvenmin strel.com/ music/tuning/ horagrams/ mp3/rng09- 6.mp3
   That was an example of horagram-based MOS scales...anyone know where else to find examples of them?

BTW, the other link http://cdbaby. com/cd/marcussat ellite2/ still works, Just look on the left side of the page for the audio sample entitled "Trading Tykes The Magick Words" and press the PLAY button icon next to it to hear the song.

-Michael
--- On Fri, 2/13/09, Michael Sheiman <djtrancendance@ yahoo.com>wrote:

From: Michael Sheiman <djtrancendance@ yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [tuning] Occam's Razor
To: tuning@yahoogroups. com
Date: Friday, February 13, 2009, 7:34 AM

Ugh...yahoo mail add spaces to the links.  Let me reprint them

http://www.elvenmin strel.com/ music/tuning/ horagrams/ mp3/rng09- 6.mp3

http://cdbaby. com/cd/marcussat ellite2/
FOR THE SECOND LINK look on the left side of the page for the audio sample entitled "Trading Tykes The Magick Words" and press the PLAY button icon next to it to hear the song.

    Both pieces, in my mind, are easily as consonant and "relaxed" as anything I've heard in 12TET. :-)

-Michael

--- On Fri, 2/13/09, caleb morgan <calebmrgn@yahoo. com> wrote:

From: caleb morgan <calebmrgn@yahoo. com>
Subject: Re: [tuning] Occam's Razor
To: tuning@yahoogroups. com
Date: Friday, February 13, 2009, 7:22 AM

the first link gave me 'Forbidden'
and the second, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be looking at.

On Feb 13, 2009, at 10:20 AM, djtrancendance@ yahoo.com wrote:

--Gradually, however, my
--interest has waned, and it's largely due to the *incredibly* negative
--responses I got from my "common-joe" audiences, which I consider to --be anOccam's Razor, of sorts, when deciding which artistic directions --to pursue, i.e. it doesn't matter what the theory is if common-joe
--doesn't like how it sounds.

     True enough; you need to use scales that can be easily and instinctively figured out on-the-spot but the listeners/film- viewer.  One of the tests I try to put my new scales through is "does hearing a song played in the new tuning shock you if you hear it just after a piece made in 12TET".  97% of the time the answer is YES and I find myself having to redo scales I create many time before I can come back in few hours, listen to my scale side by side with 12TET, and think "wow...that really sounds just as relaxed/resolved" .

However, there are a chosen few tunings I think can be used without detracting from, say, a film or "forcing the listener/viewer to use almost his/her entire mind to process the music".  Here are a few of such scales I think could successfully fool audiences into thinking the scales are "normal":
http://www.elvenmin strel.com/ music/tuning/ horagrams/ mp3/rng09- 6.mp3 (MOS scale example)http://cdbaby. com/cd/marcussat ellite2/
   I am also, of course, working on a scale based on the Golden Ratio, but that one is not very well documented (yet)....especially for something as cutting-edge as film scoring.  
  
Best of luck and don't give up,
Michael

Ok, I heard tykes. cool.

sort of B aeolian to B mixolydian. How far from 12ET is this?--I'm thinking no more than 20 cents deviation?

Nice energy.

The client might complain that the lead melody (like a squre wave) at the beginning is too sassy, synthy, buzzy, and in-your-face--
unless that's what she was looking for--but she'd bop around and buy it.

She wouldn't notice microtones, except perhaps as a slightly puckish quality.

On Feb 13, 2009, at 10:39 AM, Michael Sheiman wrote:

>
> Ugh, someone blocked the pages at
> http://www.elvenminstrel.com/music/tuning/horagrams/mp3/rng09- 6.mp3
> That was an example of horagram-based MOS scales...anyone know > where else to find examples of them?
>
> BTW, the other link http://cdbaby. com/cd/marcussat ellite2/ still > works, Just look on the left side of the page for the audio sample > entitled "Trading Tykes The Magick Words" and press the PLAY button > icon next to it to hear the song.
>
>
> -Michael
> --- On Fri, 2/13/09, Michael Sheiman <djtrancendance@...>wrote:
>
> From: Michael Sheiman <djtrancendance@...>
> Subject: Re: [tuning] Occam's Razor
> To: tuning@yahoogroups.com
> Date: Friday, February 13, 2009, 7:34 AM
>
>
> Ugh...yahoo mail add spaces to the links. Let me reprint them
>
> http://www.elvenmin strel.com/ music/tuning/ horagrams/ mp3/rng09- > 6.mp3
>
> http://cdbaby. com/cd/marcussat ellite2/
> FOR THE SECOND LINK look on the left side of the page for the audio > sample entitled "Trading Tykes The Magick Words" and press the PLAY > button icon next to it to hear the song.
>
> Both pieces, in my mind, are easily as consonant and "relaxed" > as anything I've heard in 12TET. :-)
>
> -Michael
>
>
> --- On Fri, 2/13/09, caleb morgan <calebmrgn@yahoo. com> wrote:
>
> From: caleb morgan <calebmrgn@yahoo. com>
> Subject: Re: [tuning] Occam's Razor
> To: tuning@yahoogroups. com
> Date: Friday, February 13, 2009, 7:22 AM
>
>
> the first link gave me 'Forbidden'
>
> and the second, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be looking at.
>
>
>
> On Feb 13, 2009, at 10:20 AM, djtrancendance@ yahoo.com wrote:
>
>>
>> --Gradually, however, my
>> --interest has waned, and it's largely due to the *incredibly* >> negative
>> --responses I got from my "common-joe" audiences, which I consider >> to --be anOccam's Razor, of sorts, when deciding which artistic >> directions --to pursue, i.e. it doesn't matter what the theory is >> if common-joe
>> --doesn't like how it sounds.
>>
>> True enough; you need to use scales that can be easily and >> instinctively figured out on-the-spot but the listeners/film- >> viewer. One of the tests I try to put my new scales through is >> "does hearing a song played in the new tuning shock you if you hear >> it just after a piece made in 12TET". 97% of the time the answer >> is YES and I find myself having to redo scales I create many time >> before I can come back in few hours, listen to my scale side by >> side with 12TET, and think "wow...that really sounds just as >> relaxed/resolved" .
>>
>> However, there are a chosen few tunings I think can be used without >> detracting from, say, a film or "forcing the listener/viewer to use >> almost his/her entire mind to process the music". Here are a few >> of such scales I think could successfully fool audiences into >> thinking the scales are "normal":
>> http://www.elvenmin strel.com/ music/tuning/ horagrams/ mp3/rng09- >> 6.mp3 (MOS scale example)
>>
>> http://cdbaby. com/cd/marcussat ellite2/
>> I am also, of course, working on a scale based on the Golden >> Ratio, but that one is not very well documented (yet)....especially >> for something as cutting-edge as film scoring.
>>
>> Best of luck and don't give up,
>> Michael
>>
>
>
>
>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, caleb morgan <calebmrgn@...> wrote:

> -animation seems more forgiving for (synthesized) microtonal
> composition, (also maybe non-synthesized), because of the inherent
> whimsy, or unreality.

Agreed!

> -(pedant mode) don't conflate Occam's Razor with argument ad populum
> or argument ad ignorantiam

...I don't know what that means, but I've heard similar things before
in regards to using "Occam's Razor" like that. What would be a better
way to put it?

> -I've wanted to ask Cameron Bobro how he gets away with microtones in
> film-scores--if he does--and if they are films other than animated
> films.
>
> -I used some microtones in a score for The American Museum of Natural
> History--Cladogram exhibit, evolution stuff. That was because the
> client said he wanted something "harsh and evidentiary"--whatever that
> means--which was the first and only time anyone asked me to do
> something a little radical.
>
> -I also used some for a walk-through exhibit called LifeTunnel, with
> somewhat spooky pic.
>
> It's here, in the Scoring folder, under the name LifeTunnel.mp3
>
> http://www.box.net/shared/m37jhti1og
>
> http://www.box.net/shared/m37jhti1og#2:20193246
>
> let me know if this doesn't play, or you can't find it.
>
> But, it's definitely droney and it's microtonal Lite.

I think most of "Life Tunnel" would be fine for common-joe *except*
for the instrument that comes in around mid-way (plucked string sound,
similar to a harp). To my common-joe ears, it simply sounded out of
tune, like a mistake had been made that, for some reason, made it all
the way into the production version.

> -I think it's actually a real insult, and simply incorrect, to call
> academics 'stodgy'--even 'seemingly'.

My apologies to the non-stodgy academics, then :( in my defense,
though, I did preface the post with (rephrasing...) "I'm not very
smart, which is why I don't usually post here". :)

> They weren't stodgy at NEC, or
> Berklee, or Penn State. Everyone has her will to power, his self-
> interest, that colors perception and judgment. The people in the
> commercial world were 'stodgier'.

Yes, my intended target for the "stodgy" accusation was vague, but I
will not hone it because it's something I shouldn't have said anyway =)

> -I think that the typical American simply has little interest in music
> other than socializing and sentiment, little ability to pay attention,
> and has so little knowledge that they actually have fun playing air-
> guitar video games. We already live in the Idiocracy. In times
> bygone, people had, at least, pianos in their parlors, and Wagner was
> capable of causing controversy. No understanding without
> participation. Music is not a spectator sport.

THIS is what I'm getting at! Especially since I consider myself to be
in the "idiot" group when compared to the amount of brain-power here.

I'm not prepared to layout judgement on the composer-to-common-joe
gap, but I feel like common-joe has been, and continues to be, thrown
to the curb and disregarded when it comes to 'serious' composition,
and I suspect the next major composer in history will sound good to
both academics *and* common-joes. Maybe not for the same reasons, but
genius to both types none-the-less. Of course, I may be way off or
maybe it already happened and I'm unaware, but that's how I feel.

One exciting thing about this, to me anyway, is that there is now a
huge opportunity to edify common-joe aurally, if it is decided they
are worth the effort, and my question is... "how can microtonality
contribute to this effort?". My current answer is "Through free
microtonality and 'synthesis' instead of what I consider 'traditional,
rule-based composition' that just sounds out of tune."

I mean, if you're gonna go the microtonal route and concede the fact
that common-joe won't understand it, why not go farther and just go
waaaay off the deep end when it comes to originality in the hopes that
common-joe will like it despite not being able to understand it? Why
lock yourself into a specific "out-of" tuning for a piece at all?

---

...so, anyway, I'm not sure if my point is coming through clearly as
my communication skills are somewhat lacking (I blame the 10 years of
writing code for that :)... but that's where I'm at right now as far
as I can tell.

Consider this an opportunity to edify *this* common-joe, I guess,
because I just don't understand why a lot of microtonal music sounds
horrible to me, or why anybody would have written it with the
knowledge that the majority of people on the planet will think it
sounds horrible, too. I mean, you guys aren't stupid, that's for
sure. You could all write music for common-joe pretty easily, but you
choose not to. To me, that comes across as selfish (which must be an
incorrect suspicion, right? ...because you all here don't seem like
the selfish types to me).

---

Regards,
~af~

p.s. I'm already re-reading this post and saying to myself "What an
idiot this andy (me) guy is." ...which means I'll soon be telling
myself not to post here anymore. So if you're gonna say something to
get a response from me, it should be done soon, before my desire to
not embarrass myself overcomes my desire to communicate, lol :)

Hi Andrew!

> I don't post much because my level of understanding regarding
> tuning is much lower than what I read here, in general, and
> most of my past posts look horribly ignorant in retrospective
> comparison.

I don't have that impression.

> Gradually, however, my
> interest has waned, and it's largely due to the *incredibly*
> negative responses I got from my "common-joe" audiences,

Really? Any of those pieces available for us to hear?

I think JI and near-JI temperaments can make fully acceptable
music. Barbershop is one example, check out the samples here:

/tuning/topicId_81089.html#81089

Michael Sheiman recently posted a link to Marcus Satellite
on cdbaby -- which I think would be acceptable to any
electronica fan:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/marcussatellite5
http://cdbaby.com/cd/marcussatellite10

> So how does one do microtonal film scoring, then?

I dunno, but Stephen James Taylor seems to manage. He's
even put microtonal stuff into the music for ABC afterschool
specials!

> My current solution-in-progress has been to abandon the pursuit
> of microtonal theory and move towards synthesis as a microtonal
> outlet, i.e. make it *so* microtonal that common-joe doesn't
> even try to associate it with "normal" and is therefore not
> pissed off by it, but instead, is attracted to it's "newness",
> which I find to be much more accepted in the relatively young
> world of synthesis instead of the seemingly "stodgy" world of
> pure composition.

Sounds like a fine approach to me. I think one of the worst
mistakes a microtonal musician can make is by making a point
to tell the audience the music is "microtonal".

-Carl

Thx for the links, Michael. I haven't got the 1st one up, yet, but
the 2nd one is very normal sounding with the tuning just adding a bit
of brightness. I like it.

Generally, though, I'm looking for sounds and ideas that are more
"in-your-face" microtonal because I *want* common-joe to know he's
listening to a breech of 12tet, with the caveat that he enjoys
listening to it, too, and will want to know more about it. I'm having
a hard time knowing where to draw the line between music and
sound-effect in my attempts, though, because a lot of times the stuff
I compose/draw/sculpt gets so off the wall that common-joe doesn't
even hear it as music anymore and starts describing it in sound-effect
terms, i.e. "that one sounded like a blast of wind...", or "that
sounds something like a thousand police sirens...", etc, etc, which is
not what I'm going for.

So now I find myself turning back to the questions I never answered
for myself on my first foray through the tuning list in early 2000, in
hopes that I can "get-it" this time and that maybe it will lead to
some kind of personal enlightenment that gets me over the "hump" with
common-joe while at the same time being interesting to the more
academic types... and since God is leading me towards the tuning list
again, I'm sure the answer is in here somewhere and I'm simply missing
it. Of course, it may be another 10 years before my brain is ready
for the answer, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Regards,
~af~

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, djtrancendance@... wrote:
>
> --Gradually, however, my
> --interest has waned, and it's largely due to the *incredibly* negative
> --responses I got from my "common-joe" audiences, which I consider
to --be an Occam's Razor, of sorts, when deciding which artistic
directions --to pursue, i.e. it doesn't matter what the theory is if
common-joe
> --doesn't like how it sounds.
>
> ���� True enough; you need to use scales that can be easily and
instinctively figured out on-the-spot but the listeners/film-viewer.�
One of the tests I try to put my new scales through is "does hearing a
song played in the new tuning shock you if you hear it just after a
piece made in 12TET".� 97% of the time the answer is YES and I find
myself having to redo scales I create many time before I can come back
in few hours, listen to my scale side by side with 12TET, and think
"wow...that really sounds just as
> relaxed/resolved".
>
> However, there are a chosen few tunings I think can be used without
detracting from, say, a film or "forcing the listener/viewer to use
almost his/her entire mind to process the music".� Here are a few of
such scales I think could successfully fool audiences into thinking
the scales are "normal":
>
>
>
>
> http://www.elvenminstrel.com/music/tuning/horagrams/mp3/rng09-6.mp3
> (MOS scale example)
>
> http://cdbaby.com/cd/marcussatellite2/
> �� I am also, of course, working on a scale based on the Golden
Ratio, but that one is not very well documented (yet)....especially
for something as cutting-edge as film scoring.�
> �
> Best of luck and don't give up,
> Michael
>

Andrew~
It seems best just to pursue what music you think sounds good.
No one has any idea of what the common common Joe likes. all that
market research had led to less music sold to a smaller segment of the public.
And why worry about the masses. The idea of converting them might be doing music you don't like yourself.

I for one have never found myself limited to perform what i do to anyone or anywhere.
The common joe is greatly underrated at times. Sincerity means more than anything to people.
There is all the danger to talk down and people pick up on that or when they are being "manipulated".
Sure allot of trash gets by, but it no longer has the staying power it once had.
the new thing quickly moves to being the dated kitch in 3 months.

I have watched people "try and change things" for the last 30 years.
These are the ones that have ended up doing the less, if they kept doing music at all.

I will agree that writing music to just illustrate "microtonality" seems a bit empty.
It is merely something there if ones musical taste requires/desires it.
And not everyones does.

I love the sound, how certain scales will actually "feed" what i am doing it.
It is a completely hedonistic/sensual thing.
--

/^_,',',',_ //^ /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/>

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

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <carl@...> wrote:
>
> Hi Andrew!
>
> > I don't post much because my level of understanding regarding
> > tuning is much lower than what I read here, in general, and
> > most of my past posts look horribly ignorant in retrospective
> > comparison.
>
> I don't have that impression.
>
> > Gradually, however, my
> > interest has waned, and it's largely due to the *incredibly*
> > negative responses I got from my "common-joe" audiences,
>
> Really? Any of those pieces available for us to hear?
>
> I think JI and near-JI temperaments can make fully acceptable
> music. Barbershop is one example, check out the samples here:
>
> /tuning/topicId_81089.html#81089
>
> Michael Sheiman recently posted a link to Marcus Satellite
> on cdbaby -- which I think would be acceptable to any
> electronica fan:
>
> http://cdbaby.com/cd/marcussatellite5
> http://cdbaby.com/cd/marcussatellite10
>
> > So how does one do microtonal film scoring, then?
>
> I dunno, but Stephen James Taylor seems to manage. He's
> even put microtonal stuff into the music for ABC afterschool
> specials!
>
> > My current solution-in-progress has been to abandon the pursuit
> > of microtonal theory and move towards synthesis as a microtonal
> > outlet, i.e. make it *so* microtonal that common-joe doesn't
> > even try to associate it with "normal" and is therefore not
> > pissed off by it, but instead, is attracted to it's "newness",
> > which I find to be much more accepted in the relatively young
> > world of synthesis instead of the seemingly "stodgy" world of
> > pure composition.
>
> Sounds like a fine approach to me. I think one of the worst
> mistakes a microtonal musician can make is by making a point
> to tell the audience the music is "microtonal".
>
> -Carl

>Nononora sounds great to me Carl, especially the ending. Is there
anything microtonal in it cause it sounds pretty normal to me?

-Rick

This topic interests me. I choose to respond in general--not line by line. I speak for myself.
I'm going for relative pith, and there's no particular order here.

-Don't be embarrassed. Also, you're far from the average Joe.

-I like to joke that I'm 'elitist' because the shoe fits in one way: music.

-I'm an elitist only because I'm interested in music that I think is well-made, well-conceived,
well-heard, and because I wish to learn from my betters. I'm less interested in music that
seems shoddy or brutish or imitative. I'm less interested in teaching others, except in the
rare cases when they want to learn from me. I'm not interested in general outreach.

-There's amazing things to be heard in almost all styles of music, with the possible
exception of: disco. The Sex Pistols.

-I can't afford to be too exclusive in my tastes, nor do I want to be. I'm far from the most
talented musician in the world. Heck, I'm not even the most talented musician on my block,
probably. (There's a guy who I hear whistling from time to time...damn.)

-The 'elitism' that we should perhaps condemn is economic, or racial, or concerned
with status. That's the kind of elitism that says that rich people deserve to be rich because
they're better, and they should rule, and we should admire them, for instance.
There are other kinds of elitism, too, that I don't believe in.

-I'm an elitist in the sense that I'd rather listen to Coltrane than Kenny G., even though
Kenny G. probably sells more records.

-I completely reject "lifestyle" elitism--the kind of thing you see in advertisements, in which
wealth is associated with expensive consumption, which is associated with a fine palate or
a good eye for expensive duds. Wine-tasting elitism. Country-club elitism.

-I did lowly science-documentary scoring for a living in the 90's. It was mainly a marathon
making the best music I could as quickly as possible with synthesizers, because
there wasn't time or budget for live players. It was mainly about trying to please producers.
It was an exercise in alienation, because I couldn't really use my own ears or my own taste.
I learned, by trial-and-error, what "worked." Within that, I often had a lot of fun, but I almost
never wrote something I thought had lasting value. Some of it was funny, some of it worked.

-Film/TV production is hierarchical. Exec producer on top, producer, host, editor, production
assistant. Composer is not even part of hierarchy. No power whatsoever. Composer is at
end of production cycle, which means things are always insanely rushed.

-A musically ignorant man like executive producer John Angier could smirk about a major figure
in my estimation: Wendy Carlos. He could smirk because he didn't have a clue what she has
accomplished. And, because he felt accustomed to being in charge. He could afford to "hire
the best", without having a truly informed opinion about what that meant. He and others like
him are examples of elitism as arrogance, of vanity from power.

-The TV world didn't respect the teachers at Berklee or NEC, and the music world didn't respect
the TV world.

-I respond viscerally: Music sounds good or it doesn't. It takes a while to learn to hear
microtones like it does anything else. Once you hear whatever it is you hear, you can't really
go back to the way you heard before. You can't renounce your own tastes. Or, to do so
is an exercise in ascetic self-overcoming, like sleeping on a bed of nails.

-Most people's taste for new musical experience shuts down around age 30, which is
the end of our protracted adolescence. I think it requires training and effort to stay open
to new things.

-There are maybe a dozen people here who I'm already sure know a lot more than me
about tuning, and I want to learn from them.

-My experience is mostly with hands-on extended JI.

-Jargon: It may seem elitist, but jargon is often necessary short-hand, tech-talk that would
be laborious to state in other ways. Sometimes used to puff things up, but not necessarily.

-So, here: once I understand what a 3-d tuning is, what Orwell, or magic, or any of these
other terms that seem so mysterious, I will have learned what I came here to learn. Also,
there's basic understanding, but then there's a deeper understanding that comes from
using these scales, these concepts. Applying them.

-I try to compose what sounds good to me, but that includes what is challenging, new and
therefore exciting. New tunings are new flavors, but they are also new structural situations.

-I've got decent relative pitch, and very weak absolute pitch, so already, I'd probably fail
the entrance exam at Juilliard. So how elitist can I really afford to be?

Caleb

On Feb 13, 2009, at 12:26 PM, Andrew Fillebrown wrote:

> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, caleb morgan <calebmrgn@...> wrote:
>
> > -animation seems more forgiving for (synthesized) microtonal
> > composition, (also maybe non-synthesized), because of the inherent
> > whimsy, or unreality.
>
> Agreed!
>
> > -(pedant mode) don't conflate Occam's Razor with argument ad populum
> > or argument ad ignorantiam
>
> ...I don't know what that means, but I've heard similar things before
> in regards to using "Occam's Razor" like that. What would be a better
> way to put it?
>
> > -I've wanted to ask Cameron Bobro how he gets away with microtones > in
> > film-scores--if he does--and if they are films other than animated
> > films.
> >
> > -I used some microtones in a score for The American Museum of > Natural
> > History--Cladogram exhibit, evolution stuff. That was because the
> > client said he wanted something "harsh and evidentiary"--whatever > that
> > means--which was the first and only time anyone asked me to do
> > something a little radical.
> >
> > -I also used some for a walk-through exhibit called LifeTunnel, with
> > somewhat spooky pic.
> >
> > It's here, in the Scoring folder, under the name LifeTunnel.mp3
> >
> > http://www.box.net/shared/m37jhti1og
> >
> > http://www.box.net/shared/m37jhti1og#2:20193246
> >
> > let me know if this doesn't play, or you can't find it.
> >
> > But, it's definitely droney and it's microtonal Lite.
>
> I think most of "Life Tunnel" would be fine for common-joe *except*
> for the instrument that comes in around mid-way (plucked string sound,
> similar to a harp). To my common-joe ears, it simply sounded out of
> tune, like a mistake had been made that, for some reason, made it all
> the way into the production version.
>
> > -I think it's actually a real insult, and simply incorrect, to call
> > academics 'stodgy'--even 'seemingly'.
>
> My apologies to the non-stodgy academics, then :( in my defense,
> though, I did preface the post with (rephrasing...) "I'm not very
> smart, which is why I don't usually post here". :)
>
> > They weren't stodgy at NEC, or
> > Berklee, or Penn State. Everyone has her will to power, his self-
> > interest, that colors perception and judgment. The people in the
> > commercial world were 'stodgier'.
>
> Yes, my intended target for the "stodgy" accusation was vague, but I
> will not hone it because it's something I shouldn't have said anyway > =)
>
> > -I think that the typical American simply has little interest in > music
> > other than socializing and sentiment, little ability to pay > attention,
> > and has so little knowledge that they actually have fun playing air-
> > guitar video games. We already live in the Idiocracy. In times
> > bygone, people had, at least, pianos in their parlors, and Wagner > was
> > capable of causing controversy. No understanding without
> > participation. Music is not a spectator sport.
>
> THIS is what I'm getting at! Especially since I consider myself to be
> in the "idiot" group when compared to the amount of brain-power here.
>
> I'm not prepared to layout judgement on the composer-to-common-joe
> gap, but I feel like common-joe has been, and continues to be, thrown
> to the curb and disregarded when it comes to 'serious' composition,
> and I suspect the next major composer in history will sound good to
> both academics *and* common-joes. Maybe not for the same reasons, but
> genius to both types none-the-less. Of course, I may be way off or
> maybe it already happened and I'm unaware, but that's how I feel.
>
> One exciting thing about this, to me anyway, is that there is now a
> huge opportunity to edify common-joe aurally, if it is decided they
> are worth the effort, and my question is... "how can microtonality
> contribute to this effort?". My current answer is "Through free
> microtonality and 'synthesis' instead of what I consider 'traditional,
> rule-based composition' that just sounds out of tune."
>
> I mean, if you're gonna go the microtonal route and concede the fact
> that common-joe won't understand it, why not go farther and just go
> waaaay off the deep end when it comes to originality in the hopes that
> common-joe will like it despite not being able to understand it? Why
> lock yourself into a specific "out-of" tuning for a piece at all?
>
> ---
>
> ...so, anyway, I'm not sure if my point is coming through clearly as
> my communication skills are somewhat lacking (I blame the 10 years of
> writing code for that :)... but that's where I'm at right now as far
> as I can tell.
>
> Consider this an opportunity to edify *this* common-joe, I guess,
> because I just don't understand why a lot of microtonal music sounds
> horrible to me, or why anybody would have written it with the
> knowledge that the majority of people on the planet will think it
> sounds horrible, too. I mean, you guys aren't stupid, that's for
> sure. You could all write music for common-joe pretty easily, but you
> choose not to. To me, that comes across as selfish (which must be an
> incorrect suspicion, right? ...because you all here don't seem like
> the selfish types to me).
>
> ---
>
> Regards,
> ~af~
>
> p.s. I'm already re-reading this post and saying to myself "What an
> idiot this andy (me) guy is." ...which means I'll soon be telling
> myself not to post here anymore. So if you're gonna say something to
> get a response from me, it should be done soon, before my desire to
> not embarrass myself overcomes my desire to communicate, lol :)
>
>
>

-Most people's taste for new musical experience shuts down around age 30, which is the end of our protracted adolescence.

   This is an interesting perception.  I read somewhat (I believe in a forum on Traxinspace.com) that a Swedish newspaper reported on a study that says the ear changes what it can except at age 28.  Being 28 myself, I can already tell.  Frequencies around 10khz really bug me...and certain types of distortion (IE loud distortion beyond a certain volume on electric guitars), loud cymbals and the high "click" around 6000hz in dance music are beginning to "pound my aging and feeble senses".  Especially the types of music that introduce high frequencies at high speed and in repetition get to my hearing in ways they didn't used to (repetition ensures the exact same hairs on the ear keep being stressed more often, when you think about it).
    What I do...is EQ everything on my stereo systems very carefully and/or lower the volume a decent amount.
*******************************
   But far as learning new genres...I can't say I believe at a certain age people stop being open to new things (with the exception of those that are very harsh on said-above frequencies).  I can say there is a temptation to go to softer music as my lifestyle becomes a tad less athletic and more serious to match it...but rather I stay generally more into things like Goa Trance (very fast) as a way to encourage myself to keep a fast, fit lifestyle while enjoying slower music "on my breaks".

   "Elitism", I'd say...is generally what happens when someone is either too proud or too tired to learn more.  And I agree...most record company execs and producers are 'elitist' and the composer is indeed at the 'bottom of the food chain'.

  Composing is a labor of love, though I try very hard to participate in 'outreach' of compositional ideas because slowly, as the internet age heats up, I believe people are starting to realize a lot of record execs are just 'old minded bums' and we independent composers who release mp3s on independent sites are actually often MUCH better than our major label equivalents in many ways.

-Michael

--- On Sat, 2/14/09, caleb morgan <calebmrgn@...> wrote:

From: caleb morgan <calebmrgn@...>
Subject: Re: [tuning] Andy/Common Joe/Elitism/Microtones
To: tuning@yahoogroups.com
Date: Saturday, February 14, 2009, 4:52 AM

This topic interests me.  I choose to respond in general--not line by line.  I speak for myself.I'm going for relative pith, and there's no particular order here.
-Don't be embarrassed.  Also, you're far from the average Joe.
-I like to joke that I'm 'elitist' because the shoe fits in one way:  music.
-I'm an elitist only because I'm interested in music that I think is well-made, well-conceived,well-heard, and because I wish to learn from my betters.  I'm less interested in music that seems shoddy or brutish or imitative.  I'm less interested in teaching others, except in therare cases when they want to learn from me.  I'm not interested in general outreach.
-There's amazing things to be heard in almost all styles of music, with the possibleexception of:  disco.  The Sex Pistols.
-I can't afford to be too exclusive in my tastes, nor do I want to be.  I'm far from the most talented musician in the world.  Heck, I'm not even the most talented musician on my block,probably.  (There's a guy who I hear whistling from time to time...damn.)
-The 'elitism' that we should perhaps condemn is economic, or racial, or concernedwith status.  That's the kind of elitism that says that rich people deserve to be rich becausethey're better, and they should rule, and we should admire them, for instance.There are other kinds of elitism, too, that I don't believe in.
-I'm an elitist in the sense that I'd rather listen to Coltrane than Kenny G., even thoughKenny G.  probably sells more records.
-I completely reject "lifestyle" elitism--the kind of thing you see in advertisements, in whichwealth is associated with expensive consumption, which is associated with a fine palate ora good eye for expensive duds.  Wine-tasting elitism. Country-club elitism.
-I did lowly science-documentary scoring for a living in the 90's.  It was mainly a marathonmaking the best music I could as quickly as possible with synthesizers, because there wasn't time or budget for live players.  It was mainly about trying to please producers.It was an exercise in alienation, because I couldn't really use my own ears or my own taste.I learned, by trial-and-error, what "worked."   Within that, I often had a lot of fun, but I almostnever wrote something I thought had lasting value.  Some of it was funny, some of it worked.
-Film/TV production is hierarchical.  Exec producer on top, producer, host, editor, productionassistant.  Composer is not even part of hierarchy.  No power whatsoever.  Composer is atend of production cycle, which means things are always insanely rushed.
-A musically ignorant man like executive producer John Angier could smirk about a major figure in my estimation: Wendy Carlos.  He could smirk because he didn't have a clue what she has accomplished.  And, because he felt accustomed to being in charge.  He could afford to "hirethe best", without having a truly informed opinion about what that meant.  He and others likehim are examples of elitism as arrogance, of vanity from power.
-The TV world didn't respect the teachers at Berklee or NEC, and the music world didn't respectthe TV world.  
-I respond viscerally:  Music sounds good or it doesn't.  It takes a while to learn to hearmicrotones like it does anything else.   Once you hear whatever it is you hear, you can't reallygo back to the way you heard before.  You can't renounce your own tastes.  Or, to do sois an exercise in ascetic self-overcoming, like sleeping on a bed of nails.
-Most people's taste for new musical experience shuts down around age 30, which is the end of our protracted adolescence.  I think it requires training and effort to stay opento new things.
-There are maybe a dozen people here who I'm already sure know a lot more than meabout tuning, and I want to learn from them.
-My experience is mostly with hands-on extended JI.
-Jargon:  It may seem elitist, but jargon is often necessary short-hand, tech-talk that wouldbe laborious to state in other ways.   Sometimes used to puff things up, but not necessarily.
-So, here:  once I understand what a 3-d tuning is, what Orwell, or magic, or any of theseother terms that seem so mysterious, I will have learned what I came here to learn. Also,there's basic understanding, but then there's a deeper understanding that comes fromusing these scales, these concepts.  Applying them.
-I try to compose what sounds good to me, but that includes what is challenging, new andtherefore exciting.  New tunings are new flavors, but they are also new structural situations.
-I've got decent relative pitch, and very weak absolute pitch, so already, I'd probably failthe entrance exam at Juilliard.  So how elitist can I really afford to be?
Caleb

On Feb 13, 2009, at 12:26 PM, Andrew Fillebrown wrote:
--- In tuning@yahoogroups. com, caleb morgan <calebmrgn@. ..> wrote:

> -animation seems more forgiving for (synthesized) microtonal 
> composition, (also maybe non-synthesized) , because of the inherent 
> whimsy, or unreality.

Agreed!

> -(pedant mode) don't conflate Occam's Razor with argument ad populum 
> or argument ad ignorantiam

...I don't know what that means, but I've heard similar things before
in regards to using "Occam's Razor" like that. What would be a better
way to put it?

> -I've wanted to ask Cameron Bobro how he gets away with microtones in 
> film-scores- -if he does--and if they are films other than animated 
> films.
> 
> -I used some microtones in a score for The American Museum of Natural 
> History--Cladogram exhibit, evolution stuff. That was because the 
> client said he wanted something "harsh and evidentiary" --whatever that 
> means--which was the first and only time anyone asked me to do 
> something a little radical.
> 
> -I also used some for a walk-through exhibit called LifeTunnel, with 
> somewhat spooky pic.
> 
> It's here, in the Scoring folder, under the name LifeTunnel.mp3
> 
> http://www.box. net/shared/ m37jhti1og
> 
> http://www.box. net/shared/ m37jhti1og# 2:20193246
> 
> let me know if this doesn't play, or you can't find it.
> 
> But, it's definitely droney and it's microtonal Lite.

I think most of "Life Tunnel" would be fine for common-joe *except*
for the instrument that comes in around mid-way (plucked string sound,
similar to a harp). To my common-joe ears, it simply sounded out of
tune, like a mistake had been made that, for some reason, made it all
the way into the production version.

> -I think it's actually a real insult, and simply incorrect, to call 
> academics 'stodgy'--even 'seemingly'.

My apologies to the non-stodgy academics, then :( in my defense,
though, I did preface the post with (rephrasing. ..) "I'm not very
smart, which is why I don't usually post here". :)

> They weren't stodgy at NEC, or 
> Berklee, or Penn State. Everyone has her will to power, his self- 
> interest, that colors perception and judgment. The people in the 
> commercial world were 'stodgier'.

Yes, my intended target for the "stodgy" accusation was vague, but I
will not hone it because it's something I shouldn't have said anyway =)

> -I think that the typical American simply has little interest in music 
> other than socializing and sentiment, little ability to pay attention, 
> and has so little knowledge that they actually have fun playing air- 
> guitar video games. We already live in the Idiocracy. In times 
> bygone, people had, at least, pianos in their parlors, and Wagner was 
> capable of causing controversy. No understanding without 
> participation. Music is not a spectator sport.

THIS is what I'm getting at! Especially since I consider myself to be
in the "idiot" group when compared to the amount of brain-power here.

I'm not prepared to layout judgement on the composer-to- common-joe
gap, but I feel like common-joe has been, and continues to be, thrown
to the curb and disregarded when it comes to 'serious' composition,
and I suspect the next major composer in history will sound good to
both academics *and* common-joes. Maybe not for the same reasons, but
genius to both types none-the-less. Of course, I may be way off or
maybe it already happened and I'm unaware, but that's how I feel.

One exciting thing about this, to me anyway, is that there is now a
huge opportunity to edify common-joe aurally, if it is decided they
are worth the effort, and my question is... "how can microtonality
contribute to this effort?". My current answer is "Through free
microtonality and 'synthesis' instead of what I consider 'traditional,
rule-based composition' that just sounds out of tune."

I mean, if you're gonna go the microtonal route and concede the fact
that common-joe won't understand it, why not go farther and just go
waaaay off the deep end when it comes to originality in the hopes that
common-joe will like it despite not being able to understand it? Why
lock yourself into a specific "out-of" tuning for a piece at all?

---

...so, anyway, I'm not sure if my point is coming through clearly as
my communication skills are somewhat lacking (I blame the 10 years of
writing code for that :)... but that's where I'm at right now as far
as I can tell.

Consider this an opportunity to edify *this* common-joe, I guess,
because I just don't understand why a lot of microtonal music sounds
horrible to me, or why anybody would have written it with the
knowledge that the majority of people on the planet will think it
sounds horrible, too. I mean, you guys aren't stupid, that's for
sure. You could all write music for common-joe pretty easily, but you
choose not to. To me, that comes across as selfish (which must be an
incorrect suspicion, right? ....because you all here don't seem like
the selfish types to me).

---

Regards,
~af~

p.s. I'm already re-reading this post and saying to myself "What an
idiot this andy (me) guy is." ...which means I'll soon be telling
myself not to post here anymore. So if you're gonna say something to
get a response from me, it should be done soon, before my desire to
not embarrass myself overcomes my desire to communicate, lol :)

well said.

On Feb 14, 2009, at 12:05 PM, Michael Sheiman wrote:

>
> -Most people's taste for new musical experience shuts down around > age 30, which is
> the end of our protracted adolescence.
>
> This is an interesting perception. I read somewhat (I believe in > a forum on Traxinspace.com) that a Swedish newspaper reported on a > study that says the ear changes what it can except at age 28. Being > 28 myself, I can already tell. Frequencies around 10khz really bug > me...and certain types of distortion (IE loud distortion beyond a > certain volume on electric guitars), loud cymbals and the high > "click" around 6000hz in dance music are beginning to "pound my > aging and feeble senses". Especially the types of music that > introduce high frequencies at high speed and in repetition get to my > hearing in ways they didn't used to (repetition ensures the exact > same hairs on the ear keep being stressed more often, when you think > about it).
> What I do...is EQ everything on my stereo systems very carefully > and/or lower the volume a decent amount.
> *******************************
> But far as learning new genres...I can't say I believe at a > certain age people stop being open to new things (with the exception > of those that are very harsh on said-above frequencies). I can say > there is a temptation to go to softer music as my lifestyle becomes > a tad less athletic and more serious to match it...but rather I stay > generally more into things like Goa Trance (very fast) as a way to > encourage myself to keep a fast, fit lifestyle while enjoying slower > music "on my breaks".
>
> "Elitism", I'd say...is generally what happens when someone is > either too proud or too tired to learn more. And I agree...most > record company execs and producers are 'elitist' and the composer is > indeed at the 'bottom of the food chain'.
>
> Composing is a labor of love, though I try very hard to > participate in 'outreach' of compositional ideas because slowly, as > the internet age heats up, I believe people are starting to realize > a lot of record execs are just 'old minded bums' and we independent > composers who release mp3s on independent sites are actually often > MUCH better than our major label equivalents in many ways.
>
> -Michael
>
>
> --- On Sat, 2/14/09, caleb morgan <calebmrgn@...> wrote:
>
> From: caleb morgan <calebmrgn@...>
> Subject: Re: [tuning] Andy/Common Joe/Elitism/Microtones
> To: tuning@yahoogroups.com
> Date: Saturday, February 14, 2009, 4:52 AM
>
>
> This topic interests me. I choose to respond in general--not line > by line. I speak for myself.
> I'm going for relative pith, and there's no particular order here.
>
> -Don't be embarrassed. Also, you're far from the average Joe.
>
> -I like to joke that I'm 'elitist' because the shoe fits in one > way: music.
>
> -I'm an elitist only because I'm interested in music that I think is > well-made, well-conceived,
> well-heard, and because I wish to learn from my betters. I'm less > interested in music that
> seems shoddy or brutish or imitative. I'm less interested in > teaching others, except in the
> rare cases when they want to learn from me. I'm not interested in > general outreach.
>
> -There's amazing things to be heard in almost all styles of music, > with the possible
> exception of: disco. The Sex Pistols.
>
> -I can't afford to be too exclusive in my tastes, nor do I want to > be. I'm far from the most
> talented musician in the world. Heck, I'm not even the most > talented musician on my block,
> probably. (There's a guy who I hear whistling from time to > time...damn.)
>
> -The 'elitism' that we should perhaps condemn is economic, or > racial, or concerned
> with status. That's the kind of elitism that says that rich people > deserve to be rich because
> they're better, and they should rule, and we should admire them, for > instance.
> There are other kinds of elitism, too, that I don't believe in.
>
> -I'm an elitist in the sense that I'd rather listen to Coltrane than > Kenny G., even though
> Kenny G. probably sells more records.
>
> -I completely reject "lifestyle" elitism--the kind of thing you see > in advertisements, in which
> wealth is associated with expensive consumption, which is associated > with a fine palate or
> a good eye for expensive duds. Wine-tasting elitism. Country-club > elitism.
>
> -I did lowly science-documentary scoring for a living in the 90's. > It was mainly a marathon
> making the best music I could as quickly as possible with > synthesizers, because
> there wasn't time or budget for live players. It was mainly about > trying to please producers.
> It was an exercise in alienation, because I couldn't really use my > own ears or my own taste.
> I learned, by trial-and-error, what "worked." Within that, I often > had a lot of fun, but I almost
> never wrote something I thought had lasting value. Some of it was > funny, some of it worked.
>
> -Film/TV production is hierarchical. Exec producer on top, > producer, host, editor, production
> assistant. Composer is not even part of hierarchy. No power > whatsoever. Composer is at
> end of production cycle, which means things are always insanely > rushed.
>
> -A musically ignorant man like executive producer John Angier could > smirk about a major figure
> in my estimation: Wendy Carlos. He could smirk because he didn't > have a clue what she has
> accomplished. And, because he felt accustomed to being in charge. > He could afford to "hire
> the best", without having a truly informed opinion about what that > meant. He and others like
> him are examples of elitism as arrogance, of vanity from power.
>
> -The TV world didn't respect the teachers at Berklee or NEC, and the > music world didn't respect
> the TV world.
>
> -I respond viscerally: Music sounds good or it doesn't. It takes a > while to learn to hear
> microtones like it does anything else. Once you hear whatever it > is you hear, you can't really
> go back to the way you heard before. You can't renounce your own > tastes. Or, to do so
> is an exercise in ascetic self-overcoming, like sleeping on a bed of > nails.
>
> -Most people's taste for new musical experience shuts down around > age 30, which is
> the end of our protracted adolescence. I think it requires training > and effort to stay open
> to new things.
>
> -There are maybe a dozen people here who I'm already sure know a lot > more than me
> about tuning, and I want to learn from them.
>
> -My experience is mostly with hands-on extended JI.
>
> -Jargon: It may seem elitist, but jargon is often necessary short-> hand, tech-talk that would
> be laborious to state in other ways. Sometimes used to puff things > up, but not necessarily.
>
> -So, here: once I understand what a 3-d tuning is, what Orwell, or > magic, or any of these
> other terms that seem so mysterious, I will have learned what I came > here to learn. Also,
> there's basic understanding, but then there's a deeper understanding > that comes from
> using these scales, these concepts. Applying them.
>
> -I try to compose what sounds good to me, but that includes what is > challenging, new and
> therefore exciting. New tunings are new flavors, but they are also > new structural situations.
>
> -I've got decent relative pitch, and very weak absolute pitch, so > already, I'd probably fail
> the entrance exam at Juilliard. So how elitist can I really afford > to be?
>
> Caleb
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Feb 13, 2009, at 12:26 PM, Andrew Fillebrown wrote:
>
>> --- In tuning@yahoogroups. com, caleb morgan <calebmrgn@. ..> wrote:
>>
>> > -animation seems more forgiving for (synthesized) microtonal
>> > composition, (also maybe non-synthesized) , because of the inherent
>> > whimsy, or unreality.
>>
>> Agreed!
>>
>> > -(pedant mode) don't conflate Occam's Razor with argument ad >> populum
>> > or argument ad ignorantiam
>>
>> ...I don't know what that means, but I've heard similar things before
>> in regards to using "Occam's Razor" like that. What would be a better
>> way to put it?
>>
>> > -I've wanted to ask Cameron Bobro how he gets away with >> microtones in
>> > film-scores- -if he does--and if they are films other than animated
>> > films.
>> >
>> > -I used some microtones in a score for The American Museum of >> Natural
>> > History--Cladogram exhibit, evolution stuff. That was because the
>> > client said he wanted something "harsh and evidentiary" -->> whatever that
>> > means--which was the first and only time anyone asked me to do
>> > something a little radical.
>> >
>> > -I also used some for a walk-through exhibit called LifeTunnel, >> with
>> > somewhat spooky pic.
>> >
>> > It's here, in the Scoring folder, under the name LifeTunnel.mp3
>> >
>> > http://www.box. net/shared/ m37jhti1og
>> >
>> > http://www.box. net/shared/ m37jhti1og# 2:20193246
>> >
>> > let me know if this doesn't play, or you can't find it.
>> >
>> > But, it's definitely droney and it's microtonal Lite.
>>
>> I think most of "Life Tunnel" would be fine for common-joe *except*
>> for the instrument that comes in around mid-way (plucked string >> sound,
>> similar to a harp). To my common-joe ears, it simply sounded out of
>> tune, like a mistake had been made that, for some reason, made it all
>> the way into the production version.
>>
>> > -I think it's actually a real insult, and simply incorrect, to call
>> > academics 'stodgy'--even 'seemingly'.
>>
>> My apologies to the non-stodgy academics, then :( in my defense,
>> though, I did preface the post with (rephrasing. ..) "I'm not very
>> smart, which is why I don't usually post here". :)
>>
>> > They weren't stodgy at NEC, or
>> > Berklee, or Penn State. Everyone has her will to power, his self-
>> > interest, that colors perception and judgment. The people in the
>> > commercial world were 'stodgier'.
>>
>> Yes, my intended target for the "stodgy" accusation was vague, but I
>> will not hone it because it's something I shouldn't have said >> anyway =)
>>
>> > -I think that the typical American simply has little interest in >> music
>> > other than socializing and sentiment, little ability to pay >> attention,
>> > and has so little knowledge that they actually have fun playing >> air-
>> > guitar video games. We already live in the Idiocracy. In times
>> > bygone, people had, at least, pianos in their parlors, and Wagner >> was
>> > capable of causing controversy. No understanding without
>> > participation. Music is not a spectator sport.
>>
>> THIS is what I'm getting at! Especially since I consider myself to be
>> in the "idiot" group when compared to the amount of brain-power here.
>>
>> I'm not prepared to layout judgement on the composer-to- common-joe
>> gap, but I feel like common-joe has been, and continues to be, thrown
>> to the curb and disregarded when it comes to 'serious' composition,
>> and I suspect the next major composer in history will sound good to
>> both academics *and* common-joes. Maybe not for the same reasons, but
>> genius to both types none-the-less. Of course, I may be way off or
>> maybe it already happened and I'm unaware, but that's how I feel.
>>
>> One exciting thing about this, to me anyway, is that there is now a
>> huge opportunity to edify common-joe aurally, if it is decided they
>> are worth the effort, and my question is... "how can microtonality
>> contribute to this effort?". My current answer is "Through free
>> microtonality and 'synthesis' instead of what I consider >> 'traditional,
>> rule-based composition' that just sounds out of tune."
>>
>> I mean, if you're gonna go the microtonal route and concede the fact
>> that common-joe won't understand it, why not go farther and just go
>> waaaay off the deep end when it comes to originality in the hopes >> that
>> common-joe will like it despite not being able to understand it? Why
>> lock yourself into a specific "out-of" tuning for a piece at all?
>>
>> ---
>>
>> ...so, anyway, I'm not sure if my point is coming through clearly as
>> my communication skills are somewhat lacking (I blame the 10 years of
>> writing code for that :)... but that's where I'm at right now as far
>> as I can tell.
>>
>> Consider this an opportunity to edify *this* common-joe, I guess,
>> because I just don't understand why a lot of microtonal music sounds
>> horrible to me, or why anybody would have written it with the
>> knowledge that the majority of people on the planet will think it
>> sounds horrible, too. I mean, you guys aren't stupid, that's for
>> sure. You could all write music for common-joe pretty easily, but you
>> choose not to. To me, that comes across as selfish (which must be an
>> incorrect suspicion, right? ....because you all here don't seem like
>> the selfish types to me).
>>
>> ---
>>
>> Regards,
>> ~af~
>>
>> p.s. I'm already re-reading this post and saying to myself "What an
>> idiot this andy (me) guy is." ...which means I'll soon be telling
>> myself not to post here anymore. So if you're gonna say something to
>> get a response from me, it should be done soon, before my desire to
>> not embarrass myself overcomes my desire to communicate, lol :)
>>
>>
>
>
>

> Nononora sounds great to me Carl, especially the ending. Is there
> anything microtonal in it cause it sounds pretty normal to me?
>
> -Rick

Hi Rick, thanks for listening. All of the barbershop examples
I posted are 7-limit just intonation!

-Carl

caleb morgan wrote:

> -I respond viscerally: Music sounds good or it doesn't. It takes a > while to learn to hear
> microtones like it do! es anything else. Once you hear whatever it is > you hear, you can't really
> go back to the way you heard before. You can't renounce your own > tastes. Or, to do so
> is an exercise in ascetic self-overcoming, like sleeping on a bed of nails.
> > -Most people's taste for new musical experience shuts down around age > 30, which is > the end of our protracted adolescence. I think it requires training and > effort to stay open
> to new things.

That's an interesting observation. I began listening to oddly-tuned music in my early 20's. I started collecting recordings of gamelan music, Indian music, traditional Japanese music and so on. Then Wendy Carlos' _Beauty in the Beast_ came out, with tunings inspired by gamelan music and other traditional sources, but also new and exotic tunings that had their own compelling style and character. I must have been in my mid 30's before I heard Easley Blackwood's etudes, but I'd been actively interested in alternative tunings for a long time by then.

> -So, here: once I understand what ! a 3-d tuning is, what Orwell, or > magic, or any of these
> other terms that seem so mysterious, I will have learned what I came > here to learn. Also,
> there's basic understanding, but then there's a deeper understanding > that comes from
> using these scales, these concepts. Applying them.

There's a large class of tuning systems that we've been calling "regular temperaments" (or "regular temperament classes" depending on who's writing). Meantone is a familiar one of those. You can describe any pitch in meantone with two numbers: how many octaves up or down, and how many fourths (or fifths) up or down, since meantone is based on a chain of fourths (or fifths). So we call meantone a "rank 2" temperament [class] because it has 2 dimensions. The octave and the fourth are referred to as the "generators" of meantone. It's "regular" because it has a consistent "mapping" of approximations to JI -- a major third for instance is always two octaves up, four fourths down. Magic and orwell are similar, but with different sizes of generators and different mappings.

I've attempted to give a brief description of regular temperaments here:

http://www.io.com/~hmiller/music/regular-temperaments.html

Paul Erlich's "Middle Path" paper is essential reading on the topic and contains lists of the most musically useful 5- and 7-limit temperaments of this kind (including magic and orwell).

http://eceserv0.ece.wisc.edu/~sethares/paperspdf/Erlich-MiddlePath.pdf

Thanks all,

...lots of good replies to think on as I make my transition from coder
to composer again this spring.

~af~

Howdy Carl!

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <carl@...> wrote:
>
> Hi Andrew!
>
> > I don't post much because my level of understanding regarding
> > tuning is much lower than what I read here, in general, and
> > most of my past posts look horribly ignorant in retrospective
> > comparison.
>
> I don't have that impression.

"phew".

> > Gradually, however, my
> > interest has waned, and it's largely due to the *incredibly*
> > negative responses I got from my "common-joe" audiences,
>
> Really? Any of those pieces available for us to hear?

hehe, no, I deleted them before I posted them anywhere because I
didn't like them either.

> > So how does one do microtonal film scoring, then?
>
> I dunno, but Stephen James Taylor seems to manage. He's
> even put microtonal stuff into the music for ABC afterschool
> specials!

Cool!

> > My current solution-in-progress has been to abandon the pursuit
> > of microtonal theory and move towards synthesis as a microtonal
> > outlet, i.e. make it *so* microtonal that common-joe doesn't
> > even try to associate it with "normal" and is therefore not
> > pissed off by it, but instead, is attracted to it's "newness",
> > which I find to be much more accepted in the relatively young
> > world of synthesis instead of the seemingly "stodgy" world of
> > pure composition.
>
> Sounds like a fine approach to me. I think one of the worst
> mistakes a microtonal musician can make is by making a point
> to tell the audience the music is "microtonal".

yeah, I stopped calling it microtonal, too, even when it is, mainly
because I got sick of trying to define it for the uninitiated.

---

btw, there's an alpha windows version of AudioCarver up on sourceforge...

https://sourceforge.net/projects/audiocarver/

...if you wanna check it out. It's full of bugs and a pain in the
butt to use (requires Csound as well), but it will get better,
eventually. Regardless, it's what I'll be using this coming spring
for my next round of audio-sculptures/videos.

Regards,
~af~

thank you. I've bookmarked these and will read them.

I think I understand your explanation of what "rank 2" is, now.

My observation about "shutting down" was meant to refer to the Average Joe,
and is based in part on Levitin's _This Is Your Brain On Music_, also
observing my friends and family.

On Feb 14, 2009, at 5:25 PM, Herman Miller wrote:

> caleb morgan wrote:
>
> > -I respond viscerally: Music sounds good or it doesn't. It takes a
> > while to learn to hear
> > microtones like it do! es anything else. Once you hear whatever it > is
> > you hear, you can't really
> > go back to the way you heard before. You can't renounce your own
> > tastes. Or, to do so
> > is an exercise in ascetic self-overcoming, like sleeping on a bed > of nails.
> >
> > -Most people's taste for new musical experience shuts down around > age
> > 30, which is
> > the end of our protracted adolescence. I think it requires > training and
> > effort to stay open
> > to new things.
>
> That's an interesting observation. I began listening to oddly-tuned
> music in my early 20's. I started collecting recordings of gamelan
> music, Indian music, traditional Japanese music and so on. Then Wendy
> Carlos' _Beauty in the Beast_ came out, with tunings inspired by > gamelan
> music and other traditional sources, but also new and exotic tunings
> that had their own compelling style and character. I must have been in
> my mid 30's before I heard Easley Blackwood's etudes, but I'd been
> actively interested in alternative tunings for a long time by then.
>
> > -So, here: once I understand what ! a 3-d tuning is, what Orwell, or
> > magic, or any of these
> > other terms that seem so mysterious, I will have learned what I came
> > here to learn. Also,
> > there's basic understanding, but then there's a deeper understanding
> > that comes from
> > using these scales, these concepts. Applying them.
>
> There's a large class of tuning systems that we've been calling > "regular
> temperaments" (or "regular temperament classes" depending on who's
> writing). Meantone is a familiar one of those. You can describe any
> pitch in meantone with two numbers: how many octaves up or down, and > how
> many fourths (or fifths) up or down, since meantone is based on a > chain
> of fourths (or fifths). So we call meantone a "rank 2" temperament
> [class] because it has 2 dimensions. The octave and the fourth are
> referred to as the "generators" of meantone. It's "regular" because it
> has a consistent "mapping" of approximations to JI -- a major third > for
> instance is always two octaves up, four fourths down. Magic and orwell
> are similar, but with different sizes of generators and different > mappings.
>
> I've attempted to give a brief description of regular temperaments > here:
>
> http://www.io.com/~hmiller/music/regular-temperaments.html
>
> Paul Erlich's "Middle Path" paper is essential reading on the topic > and
> contains lists of the most musically useful 5- and 7-limit > temperaments
> of this kind (including magic and orwell).
>
> http://eceserv0.ece.wisc.edu/~sethares/paperspdf/Erlich-MiddlePath.pdf
>
>
>

> Hi Carl, all,

I'm working out the first scale you gave me.

Already, I must be wrong.

My confusion must turn on the "limit" concept.

I thought "limits" were primes, yet this is 15-limit.

Further, you say this is 33 tones, and I get more than that.

But, you give: 8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16 as the 15-limit
harmonic scale.

So, I get:

1/1
16/15
15/14
14/13
13/12
12/11
11/10
10/9
9/8
8/7
15/13
7/6

13/11
6/5
11/9
16/13
5/4
14/11
9/7
13/10
4/3
15/11
11/8
18/13

7/5
10/7
13/9
22/15
3/2
20/13
14/9
11/7
8/5
13/8
18/11
5/3

22/13
12/7
26/15
7/4
16/9
9/5
20/11
11/6
24/13
13/7
28/15
15/8

(2/1)

Which, I think, is 48 tones per 2/1.

Now: 1) I've probably made a mistake or two or three 2) I must be unclear on the "limit" concept

I guess I'd call this a 13-limit scale.

Where am I going wrong?

caleb

>

Caleb wrote:

> I thought "limits" were primes, yet this is 15-limit.

Harry Partch himself was ambiguous in using his "limit" concept -- IIRC, in some cases he used "prime limit" (in which case harmonics from 1 to 16 would be a 13-limit set), in others he used "odd limit" (in which case that would be a 15-limit set).

> Further, you say this is 33 tones, and I get more than that.

Not sure what scale Carl meant but I have made (if I should use the "odd limit" now) a 15-limit 33-tone scale in August 2003. But actually, I later added three more tones to the original version, which resulted in 36 tones. The problem was that no matter if there were 33 or 36 tones, I didn't find an easy way to realize this in actual music, which I still hope will change some day.

Anyway, if you are interested, here's how I made the scale.

Suppose we have a frequency of F. If we add a frequency of F/2 to that, the F can work not only as a proper frequency of F but also as the second harmonic of F/2. If we add F/3 and 2F/3 to that, then the 2F/3 works as the second harmonic of F/3 and the F works as the third harmonic of F/3. Then, if we add F/4 and 3F/4 to that, the F/2, 3F/4, and F can work as the second, third, and fourth harmonic of F/4, respectively. And so on and so on, until you get to the point where you add frequencies as low as F/15. So you see, you eventually get a subharmonic scale from F/1 to F/15 filled with the corresponding harmonics for each subharmonic up to the F. All the frequencies used are lower than or equal to F and this F has many possible meanings here ranging from the second harmonic of F/2 (or even the first harmonic of F, for that matter) to the 15th harmonic of F/15. If you then reduce this into a single octave (i.e. keep multipliing them by 2 until they are greater than F but not greater than 2F), you get a 33-tone scale. And if, instead of using F/15 as the lowest subharmonic, you use F/16 and do the same, you get a 36-tone scale, which is what I did there back in 2003.

Petr

hmm. I think I'm doing the same thing. But I'm not sure.

I did 8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15 over 8.

then 8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15 over 9.

then same over 10,11,12,13,14,15, respectively.

I adjusted the ratio to make it fit into 2/1.

Eliminate duplicates.

I calculated each ratio as a decimal number, i.e.
12/11=1.09 etc.,
so that it would be easy to put them in order,
since I don't know the 13 ratios very well.

This is more or less how I came up with my own 11-limit
36-note per octave scale that I have internalized (can play in my
sleep),

with a few extra pitches like 27/16 and 32/27 to give some better
chords with "4ths" and "5ths", and minus a few pitches.

Is it also the same basic method that Partch used to come up
with his 43-note scale? I'm not sure about that.

I'm not sure why you don't have more pitches--i.e., what are the extra
ones in my result in my previous post?

caleb

On Feb 15, 2009, at 10:09 AM, Petr Parízek wrote:

>
> Caleb wrote:
>
> > I thought "limits" were primes, yet this is 15-limit.
>
> Harry Partch himself was ambiguous in using his „limit“ concept --
> IIRC, in some cases he used „prime limit“ (in which case harmonics
> from 1 to 16 would be a 13-limit set), in others he used „odd
> limit“ (in which case that would be a 15-limit set).
>
> > Further, you say this is 33 tones, and I get more than that.
>
> Not sure what scale Carl meant but I have made (if I should use the
> „odd limit“ now) a 15-limit 33-tone scale in August 2003. But
> actually, I later added three more tones to the original version,
> which resulted in 36 tones. The problem was that no matter if there
> were 33 or 36 tones, I didn’t find an easy way to realize this in
> actual music, which I still hope will change some day.
>
> Anyway, if you are interested, here’s how I made the scale.
>
> Suppose we have a frequency of F. If we add a frequency of F/2 to
> that, the F can work not only as a proper frequency of F but also as
> the second harmonic of F/2. If we add F/3 and 2F/3 to that, then the
> 2F/3 works as the second harmonic of F/3 and the F works as the
> third harmonic of F/3. Then, if we add F/4 and 3F/4 to that, the F/
> 2, 3F/4, and F can work as the second, third, and fourth harmonic of
> F/4, respectively. And so on and so on, until you get to the point
> where you add frequencies as low as F/15. So you see, you eventually
> get a subharmonic scale from F/1 to F/15 filled with the
> corresponding harmonics for each subharmonic up to the F. All the
> frequencies used are lower than or equal to F and this F has many
> possible meanings here ranging from the second harmonic of F/2 (or
> even the first harmonic of F, for that matter) to the 15th harmonic
> of F/15. If you then reduce this into a single octave (i.e. keep
> multipliing them by 2 until they are greater than F but not greater
> than 2F), you get a 33-tone scale. And if, instead of using F/15 as
> the lowest subharmonic, you use F/16 and do the same, you get a 36-
> tone scale, which is what I did there back in 2003.
>
> Petr
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Caleb wrote:

> hmm. I think I'm doing the same thing. But I'm not sure.

I have to disappoint you -- you’re not.

> I did 8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15 over 8.
> then 8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15 over 9.
> then same over 10,11,12,13,14,15, respectively.

Right, so you’re already doing the expansion in an octave range which forces you to add not only intervals below the (this I called) F, but also above that, which couldn’t happen in the method I was describing. That’s why you also used pitches like 15/14 or 11/9 and I did not.

> This is more or less how I came up with my own 11-limit
> 36-note per octave scale that I have internalized (can play in my sleep),
> with a few extra pitches like 27/16 and 32/27 to give some better
> chords with "4ths" and "5ths", and minus a few pitches.

This is another proof that each of us is doing it differently. Interestingly enough, in 2003, I was also making a similar scale where I only used subharmonics from 2 to 12, not 16. What I got then was not a 36-tone scale, but actually a 23-tone scale.

> Is it also the same basic method that Partch used to come up
> with his 43-note scale? I'm not sure about that.

Probably not. His original idea was to use the 11-limit „tonality diamond“, which is a 29-tone scale, to which he later added 14 more tones. The 11-limit tonality diamond could be described as taking all the integers from 1 to 11, dividing each one by each other (which results in 11 harmonic series having fundamentals from 1/1 to 1/11 and also 11 subharmonic series having guide tones from 1/1 to 11/1) and then reducing this to a single octave. See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Partch%27s_43-tone_scale

Petr

Well, now I'm the one who has to plead limited intelligence.

Petr, if you have patience, can you simply give me the ratios

included in your 33-note scale?

Or Carl?

Concrete examples help me.

But no rush. meanwhile, I'll look at the wiki on Partch.

Thanks, caleb

ps. as for gaps around the 1/1, I never minded them.

And if I needed a crunch around 1/1, I could just shift the tuning base.

The only ratio I really wished I could have that I didn't have was
21/16--which to me

only sounds good when it's 21/1, 21/2, 21/4, 21/8--that is, in a high
register--

because it sounds good--but if I wanted that, I could shift the whole
tuning to a new base of 3/2.

(the scale I used is sort of formally ugly and naive, but I was
satisfied with it.)

On Feb 15, 2009, at 11:10 AM, Petr Parízek wrote:

>
> Caleb wrote:
>
> > hmm. I think I'm doing the same thing. But I'm not sure.
>
> I have to disappoint you -- you’re not.
>
> > I did 8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15 over 8.
> > then 8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15 over 9.
> > then same over 10,11,12,13,14,15, respectively.
>
> Right, so you’re already doing the expansion in an octave range
> which forces you to add not only intervals below the (this I called)
> F, but also above that, which couldn’t happen in the method I was
> describing. That’s why you also used pitches like 15/14 or 11/9 and
> I did not.
>
> > This is more or less how I came up with my own 11-limit
> > 36-note per octave scale that I have internalized (can play in my
> sleep),
> > with a few extra pitches like 27/16 and 32/27 to give some better
> > chords with "4ths" and "5ths", and minus a few pitches.
>
> This is another proof that each of us is doing it differently.> Interestingly enough, in 2003, I was also making a similar scale
> where I only used subharmonics from 2 to 12, not 16. What I got then
> was not a 36-tone scale, but actually a 23-tone scale.
>
> > Is it also the same basic method that Partch used to come up
> > with his 43-note scale? I'm not sure about that.
>
> Probably not. His original idea was to use the 11-limit „tonality
> diamond“, which is a 29-tone scale, to which he later added 14 more
> tones. The 11-limit tonality diamond could be described as taking
> all the integers from 1 to 11, dividing each one by each other
> (which results in 11 harmonic series having fundamentals from 1/1 to
> 1/11 and also 11 subharmonic series having guide tones from 1/1 to
> 11/1) and then reducing this to a single octave. See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Partch%27s_43-tone_scale
>
> Petr
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Caleb wrote:

> Petr, if you have patience, can you simply give me the ratios
> included in your 33-note scale?

Well, I don’t have the actual list of intervals here now but I can find it tomorrow.

Anyway, I’ll try to make my explanation shorter.

Let’s také relative frequencies of 1, then 1/2, then (1:2)/3, then (1:2:3)/4, then (1:2:3:4)/5, and so on, up to (1:2:3:4:5:6:7:8:9:10:11:12:13:14)/15. You’ll see this generates many many duplicate frequencies (like 2/10 equal to 1/5, 3/12 equal to 2/8 and 1/4, 4/12 equal to 3/9 and 2/6 and 1/3, and lots of others). Anyway, now we’ll multiply each of them by 2 repeatedly until the result is greater than 1 and not greater than 2. After we remove the duplicate frequencies, we get 33 different values. The interesting thing here is that if you use 16 as the lowest divider instead of 15 and do exactly the same, the only three factors that are added then will be 11/16, 13/16, and 15/16; all the rest are just duplicates of what’s already been there.

Petr

>
> Hi Rick, thanks for listening. All of the barbershop examples
> I posted are 7-limit just intonation!
>

I think you can't say this with any certainty.
These guys are not singing perfectly like a synthesizer, they're allways
several cents off.
This makes it impossible to tell the difference between for instance 75/64
and 7/6 (which is allready very hard to tell when played by a synthesizer).

Marcel

Marcel de Velde wrote:
> Hi Rick, thanks for listening. All of the barbershop examples
> I posted are 7-limit just intonation!
> > > I think you can't say this with any certainty.
> These guys are not singing perfectly like a synthesizer, they're allways > several cents off.
> This makes it impossible to tell the difference between for instance > 75/64 and 7/6 (which is allready very hard to tell when played by a > synthesizer).

75/64 does make sense in certain contexts. Say you have an E-G#-C-D# chord. You'll tend to hear the E-C interval as 8/5 and the G#-D# as 3/2. So if you tune G# to 5/4 above E you'll have 15/8 for E-D#, which gives you an interval of 75/64 for C-D#.

I don't think it makes sense in an ordinary subminor triad. 6:7:9 triads have a very smooth texture that's comparable to the smoothness of a 10:12:15 triad but with a darker mood, easily suitable for a tonic chord. (Note also the 4:5:6:7 dominant sevenths in the example.)

http://teamouse.googlepages.com/reflections.mp3

I've posted the full scale before:

! C:\Scala22\reflections.scl
!
7-limit (slightly tempered) "reflections" scale
12
!
28/27
9/8
7/6
383.74300
4/3
7/5
3/2
14/9
5/3
7/4
1083.12800
2/1

Andrew,

----Generally, though, I'm looking for sounds and ideas that are more
----"in-your-face" microtonal because I *want* common-joe to know he's

----listening to a breech of 12tet, with the caveat that he enjoys
----listening to it, too, and will want to know more about it.
    The closest thing to my ears that both sounds very in-your-face and natural/proportionate is strategic use of the PHI tuning to generate scales.
  I've tried mixing multiple JI scales ("a ptolemic method?") to form something "not quite JI but familiar like JI" but still haven't had close to the success with them that I have with making scales from the PHI tuning.  Even many JI fanatics have told me so far...that my PHI-based scales are better than the ones I formulated from taking an avant-garde angle on JI.
**************************
    Look at http://www.geocities.com/djtrancendance/.  It includes a sound sample of my PHI-tuning based "PHITER" scale (meant to emphasize its fairly rebellious (against 12TET) nature.  Yet it also is designed to meet the consonance standards of the 12TET-accustomed ear.

   Other examples that don't sound a lot like 12TET seem hard to find.  Even most of Wilson's MOS scales (like the one in the 2nd link) and Lucy Tuning are often just a trivial amount of cents away from either 12TET or Just Intonation.

   Let me know how it works.  I'm happy to see someone here beside me is very interested in finding a non-JI-like/"in your face" scale system that works well enough for the public ear to make them think "hey, that's different but seriously cool and confident sounding, I want to try that!". 

  And, by all means (if you are willing to dive in to creating your own scale), I encourage you to experiment with the path less taken to create scales IE using irrational numbers as generators to "normal" tuning method.  Once you find a gem of an irrational generator like PHI...you'll likely find many cool intervals to play with to make scales from...maybe you can find a scale under PHI which beats mine so far and persuades more people to "go micro-tonal"...who knows. :-)

--I'm sure the answer is in here somewhere and I'm simply missing
--it. Of course, it may be another 10 years before my brain is ready
--for the answer, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.
    The fact there are so many cool symmetrical patterns in math based on things like irrational ratios (I've been experimenting with PHI, and Charles Lucy with PI) seem to say the Lord has left us clues in math.
   So does the fact that much of the world's best architecture AND what's viewed as physically attractive far as human proportions is based on PHI.
    This has gotten me back into hard-core efforts trying to create tunings.  For the longest time I was stuck on simply mixing up JI scales thinking that's as "rebellious" as I could get while pleasing the "Average Joe".  Of course, the "classic" ratios of 2 and 3/2 come across as very natural in music and other calculations...but, to be sure, those are not the only basis or near-basis for beautiful scales. :-)

-michael

Hi Herman,

75/64 does make sense in certain contexts. Say you have an E-G#-C-D#
> chord. You'll tend to hear the E-C interval as 8/5 and the G#-D# as 3/2.
> So if you tune G# to 5/4 above E you'll have 15/8 for E-D#, which gives
> you an interval of 75/64 for C-D#.
>

I'm saying the way you tend to hear an interval depends on the context and
musical structure you've come to expect due to that context.
I don't think you can aproach music as easy as simply using the simplest
interval to what you think is the root.

> I don't think it makes sense in an ordinary subminor triad. 6:7:9 triads
> have a very smooth texture that's comparable to the smoothness of a
> 10:12:15 triad but with a darker mood, easily suitable for a tonic
> chord. (Note also the 4:5:6:7 dominant sevenths in the example.)
>

I do think 64:75:96 makes more sense than 6:7:9 in music, especially if you
start to do things with it.
64:75:96 tells me the structure, it tells me what modes I can be in and
which degree of those modes.
It tells me which chords I can play after it. It tells me the melodies I can
play over that chord etc etc.

> http://teamouse.googlepages.com/reflections.mp3
>
> I've posted the full scale before:
>
> ! C:\Scala22\reflections.scl
> !
> 7-limit (slightly tempered) "reflections" scale
> 12
> !
> 28/27
> 9/8
> 7/6
> 383.74300
> 4/3
> 7/5
> 3/2
> 14/9
> 5/3
> 7/4
> 1083.12800
> 2/1
>

I really like you composition :)
I can;t tell very well just by listening if I agree with it's tuning.
Though some notes starting at 35 seconds may seem a bit off to me.

Marcel

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, caleb morgan <calebmrgn@...> wrote:
>
> Hi Carl, all,
>
> I'm working out the first scale you gave me.
> Already, I must be wrong.
> My confusion must turn on the "limit" concept.
> I thought "limits" were primes, yet this is 15-limit.

Hi Caleb! There are (confusingly) two kinds of "limits",
prime and odd. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limit_(music)

> Further, you say this is 33 tones, and I get more than that.
>
> But, you give: 8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16 as the 15-limit
> harmonic scale.

Yup.

> Which, I think, is 48 tones per 2/1.

Have a gander at this:

http://lumma.org/stuff/Mode8CrossSet.pdf

any better?

-Carl

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Marcel de Velde <m.develde@...> wrote:
>
> > Hi Rick, thanks for listening. All of the barbershop examples
> > I posted are 7-limit just intonation!
>
> I think you can't say this with any certainty.
> These guys are not singing perfectly like a synthesizer, they're
> allways several cents off.

Not always. Sometimes to the nearest cent accuracy is achieved.
It's actually to within the resolution of the FFTs I've been able
to do. But true, the accuracy is only this good on sustained
chords.

> This makes it impossible to tell the difference between for
> instance 75/64 and 7/6 (which is allready very hard to tell when
> played by a synthesizer).

One day we'll get to why this distinction that you are trying
to draw is a red herring...

-Carl

Marcel de Velde wrote:

> I'm saying the way you tend to hear an interval depends on the context and > musical structure you've come to expect due to that context.
> I don't think you can aproach music as easy as simply using the simplest > interval to what you think is the root.

Ah, here we go! The "musical structure you've come to expect" is 5-limit. Not some universal law of music. You learn 5-limit harmony (as *you* obviously have) and you tend to hear everything in terms of the 5-limit, or out of tune relative to it. That doesn't say anything about what 7-limit harmony would sound like if you came to expect it.

Graham

Ah, I think I get it.

This is a multiplication table.

Each location is a product of the bottom row or the left column.

You multiply the numerator and the denominator.

The denominator is always a multiple of 2.

So, these are all "overtones".

Some are, like, way gnarly and distant overtones,

such as 143/128. I would have mistaken 143 for a prime.

Or 91. (I obviously don't know my 13's.)

Almost counter-intuitively, 143 and 91 fall very
close to 12et -- around 204 and 609.

If you were mapping this to the usual keyboard,
you could add 3 notes, so that the pattern would
repeat at an "octave".

What would those notes be? (not a terribly important question)

Step sizes are all different, including some very small ones:

143 to 9, for example. (Because these are all overtones,
you can just leave off the denominators, perhaps)

this is ratio of 143/144.

143--the 11th partial of the 13th partial, or the 13th partial
of the 11th partial. gnarly.

In practice, is 143 hearable as a consonance in this scale?

caleb

On Feb 16, 2009, at 3:45 AM, Carl Lumma wrote:

> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, caleb morgan <calebmrgn@...> wrote:
> >
> > Hi Carl, all,
> >
> > I'm working out the first scale you gave me.
> > Already, I must be wrong.
> > My confusion must turn on the "limit" concept.
> > I thought "limits" were primes, yet this is 15-limit.
>
> Hi Caleb! There are (confusingly) two kinds of "limits",
> prime and odd. See:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limit_(music)
>
> > Further, you say this is 33 tones, and I get more than that.
> >
> > But, you give: 8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16 as the 15-limit
> > harmonic scale.
>
> Yup.
>
> > Which, I think, is 48 tones per 2/1.
>
> Have a gander at this:
>
> http://lumma.org/stuff/Mode8CrossSet.pdf
>
> any better?
>
> -Carl
>
>
>

>
> Ah, here we go! The "musical structure you've come to
> expect" is 5-limit. Not some universal law of music. You
> learn 5-limit harmony (as *you* obviously have) and you tend
> to hear everything in terms of the 5-limit, or out of tune
> relative to it. That doesn't say anything about what
> 7-limit harmony would sound like if you came to expect it.
>

No that's not the way I said and ment it sorry :)
I said something about musical context and then: ...the musical structure
you've come to expect due to that context.
The expecting part I mean only in relation to the musical context at that
time.
For instance if you're in a major key etc things like that.
And yes I did mean it as part of some universal law of music thing.

I did not mean I learned 5-limit harmony and then become to expect 5-limit
harmony.
I'm not stupid. I'm interested in finding truth only no matter what it
takes, not interested in fooling myself.

Marcel

>
> I did not mean I learned 5-limit harmony and then become to expect 5-limit
> harmony.
>

Btw I thought this should have been clear by now.
As I've said so many times it's not even about how it sounds as 225/128 and
7/4 are very similar, it's about the math and the musical structure and
things like that.

Marcel

Dear Marcel,

On Feb 16, 2009, at 10:36 AM, Marcel de Velde wrote:
> Btw I thought this should have been clear by now.
> As I've said so many times it's not even about how it sounds as > 225/128 and 7/4 are very similar, it's about the math and the > musical structure and things like that.

Now, this discussion might be an instance of a "point-of-view-which-cannot-be-resolved" discussion which I just pointed out in my message on answering Carl's request for moderation.

You claim you hear 7-limit intervals actually as 5-limit. Many here would instead claim that 7-limit intervals have in quality in their own. Fine, just let's leave it there (until we have real evidence...).

Best
Torsten

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, caleb morgan <calebmrgn@...> wrote:
>
> Ah, I think I get it.
> This is a multiplication table.
> Each location is a product of the bottom row or the left column.
> You multiply the numerator and the denominator.
> The denominator is always a multiple of 2.
> So, these are all "overtones".

Yes!

> If you were mapping this to the usual keyboard,
> you could add 3 notes, so that the pattern would
> repeat at an "octave".
> What would those notes be? (not a terribly important question)

Not sure I follow here. 12 + 3 still doesn't get
us to 33.

> Some are, like, way gnarly and distant overtones,
> such as 143/128. I would have mistaken 143 for a prime.
> Or 91. (I obviously don't know my 13's.)
> Almost counter-intuitively, 143 and 91 fall very
> close to 12et -- around 204 and 609.
> Step sizes are all different, including some very small ones:
> 143 to 9, for example. (Because these are all overtones,
> you can just leave off the denominators, perhaps)
> this is ratio of 143/144.
> 143--the 11th partial of the 13th partial, or the 13th partial
> of the 11th partial. gnarly.
> In practice, is 143 hearable as a consonance in this scale?

That's not the main intention. Of course these 33-tones
can be used in a myriad of ways, all of the valid. But
the main idea is to treat overtones 8-16 as a scale, and
be able to modulate to any key of itself. Modulation is
like the multiplication in this table.

You won't be able to modulate to any key of _that_. You
can only go once removed from the starting scale. Still,
there's plenty of stuff to work with here. And harmonics
8-16 are holy. You can multiply any two scales and
get a similar matrix.

-Carl

from caleb, one clarification, one incomprehension.

-I just meant that 3 more pitches would bring the total to 36,
which would repeat at an octave. On a full-sized midi
keyboard, you could have two 36-note sets at the 2/1,
without having to memorize two different keyboard patterns.

-I'm pretty sure I'm not getting something important:

What "key" or "mode" could you modulate to that
would use a 143, or a 91, that would be a recognizable
"thing in itself".

For example, in my first misunderstanding, the 48-note
13-limit scale I first came up with, if you "modulate" to /13,
you have:

8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16 over
13

that is,

a "complete" overtone series on /13.

What would be some sets you could modulate to
in this Cartheisan Cross Set?

On Feb 16, 2009, at 5:53 AM, Carl Lumma wrote:

> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, caleb morgan <calebmrgn@...> wrote:
> >
> > Ah, I think I get it.
> > This is a multiplication table.
> > Each location is a product of the bottom row or the left column.
> > You multiply the numerator and the denominator.
> > The denominator is always a multiple of 2.
> > So, these are all "overtones".
>
> Yes!
>
> > If you were mapping this to the usual keyboard,
> > you could add 3 notes, so that the pattern would
> > repeat at an "octave".
> > What would those notes be? (not a terribly important question)
>
> Not sure I follow here. 12 + 3 still doesn't get
> us to 33.
>
> > Some are, like, way gnarly and distant overtones,
> > such as 143/128. I would have mistaken 143 for a prime.
> > Or 91. (I obviously don't know my 13's.)
> > Almost counter-intuitively, 143 and 91 fall very
> > close to 12et -- around 204 and 609.
> > Step sizes are all different, including some very small ones:
> > 143 to 9, for example. (Because these are all overtones,
> > you can just leave off the denominators, perhaps)
> > this is ratio of 143/144.
> > 143--the 11th partial of the 13th partial, or the 13th partial
> > of the 11th partial. gnarly.
> > In practice, is 143 hearable as a consonance in this scale?
>
> That's not the main intention. Of course these 33-tones
> can be used in a myriad of ways, all of the valid. But
> the main idea is to treat overtones 8-16 as a scale, and
> be able to modulate to any key of itself. Modulation is
> like the multiplication in this table.
>
> You won't be able to modulate to any key of _that_. You
> can only go once removed from the starting scale. Still,
> there's plenty of stuff to work with here. And harmonics
> 8-16 are holy. You can multiply any two scales and
> get a similar matrix.
>
> -Carl
>
>
>

Hi Torsten,

Now, this discussion might be an instance of a "point-of-view-which-
> cannot-be-resolved" discussion which I just pointed out in my message
> on answering Carl's request for moderation.
>
> You claim you hear 7-limit intervals actually as 5-limit. Many here
> would instead claim that 7-limit intervals have in quality in their
> own. Fine, just let's leave it there (until we have real evidence...).
>

Well I think / hope it can be resolved / understood eventually :)
And it has far stretching consequences.
For instance, how are you going to make music or retune an existing
composition without knowing what's really going on.
And other things like that.
But I'll leave the discussion for now since it seems most people are not
really interested (while this is potentially one of the most important
discussions ever on this list it seems to me)
I'll go retune some music and put it up against 7-limit retuned music by
others and then we'll see.

Kind regards,
Marcel

Dear Marcel,

On Feb 16, 2009, at 11:28 AM, Marcel de Velde wrote:
> I'll go retune some music and put it up against 7-limit retuned > music by others and then we'll see.

:)

Best
Torsten

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, caleb morgan <calebmrgn@...> wrote:
>
> from caleb, one clarification, one incomprehension.
>
> -I just meant that 3 more pitches would bring the total to 36,
> which would repeat at an octave.

Oh, you mean on a conventional keyboard (there's nothing
"12" about an octave otherwise). Yeah, if that helps you
manage it, sure, add three notes.

But maybe there is a more logical way to map this scale
to the halberstadt than simply in ascending order...

> -I'm pretty sure I'm not getting something important:
>
> What "key" or "mode" could you modulate to that
> would use a 143, or a 91, that would be a recognizable
> "thing in itself".

It wouldn't. If you modulate to 7/4 and then play the
13th harmonic, that's 91 relative to the 1/1. You don't
play 91 in the key of 1/1. At least, that's not the point
of the scale -- you certainly _can_ play 91 in the key of
1/1 if you want to.

> For example, in my first misunderstanding, the 48-note
> 13-limit scale I first came up with, if you "modulate" to /13,
> you have:
> 8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16 over
> 13
> that is,
> a "complete" overtone series on /13.
> What would be some sets you could modulate to
> in this Cartheisan Cross Set?

Um, there's no /13 in this. There is a /13 in a 15-limit
tonality diamond. You can view a tonality diamond as a
carthesian cross set between harmonics and subharmonics...

It may help you to think of the chart I sent as a keyboard,
where each square is a button.
In fact, it would make a very good keyboard for this scale.

-Carl

Carl, you've been enormously helpful before this,

but I sense some impatience here, and I don't want to annoy you.

I sense impatience because in several spots below, I attempted

careful wording, which seems to have not gotten through.

What I'm asking for may be obvious to you but not to me.

I believe you have insight and knowledge superior to mine

in most matters of tunings, and in all matters relating to terminology of

tuning.

I didn't make it clear to you what I was asking, because I was looking for
a different kind of answer.

For example, I wasn't saying there was a /13 in this scale. I was saying that
the scale I erroneously came up with first--because it was derived, erroneously,
in a way familiar to me--had a /13.

So, here goes, again.

*What other pitches would you likely add to the 7/4 you speak of, to
make it a viable "key"?

I ask, not in the narrow sense of "viable" or "correct" that Marcel seems to favor,
but, to you.

Where can you go in this scale?

I ask, not with skepticism, but in a sort of rare spirit of humbleness.

As in: cool, this scale is interesting, what are the sweet spots?

How do you treat these notes that are new to me, like 91?

I also don't understand halberstadt--Google says it's a town in Germany.

I'm hoping to go through each of your scales, and see if I get the basics.

Then, when I get the softsynths you recommended, I'll try to implement them,

and then the fun begins.

I'm actually expecting to get some funds next week, so this will happen fairly soon,

if all goes according to plan.

No rush, sir, I find the list a little overwhelming, but I'm in no hurry.

Thanks, Caleb

On Feb 16, 2009, at 1:54 PM, Carl Lumma wrote:

> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, caleb morgan <calebmrgn@...> wrote:
> >
> > from caleb, one clarification, one incomprehension.
> >
> > -I just meant that 3 more pitches would bring the total to 36,
> > which would repeat at an octave.
>
> Oh, you mean on a conventional keyboard (there's nothing
> "12" about an octave otherwise). Yeah, if that helps you
> manage it, sure, add three notes.
>
> But maybe there is a more logical way to map this scale
> to the halberstadt than simply in ascending order...
>
> > -I'm pretty sure I'm not getting something important:
> >
> > What "key" or "mode" could you modulate to that
> > would use a 143, or a 91, that would be a recognizable
> > "thing in itself".
>
> It wouldn't. If you modulate to 7/4 and then play the
> 13th harmonic, that's 91 relative to the 1/1. You don't
> play 91 in the key of 1/1. At least, that's not the point
> of the scale -- you certainly _can_ play 91 in the key of
> 1/1 if you want to.
>
> > For example, in my first misunderstanding, the 48-note
> > 13-limit scale I first came up with, if you "modulate" to /13,
> > you have:
> > 8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16 over
> > 13
> > that is,
> > a "complete" overtone series on /13.
> > What would be some sets you could modulate to
> > in this Cartheisan Cross Set?
>
> Um, there's no /13 in this. There is a /13 in a 15-limit
> tonality diamond. You can view a tonality diamond as a
> carthesian cross set between harmonics and subharmonics...
>
> It may help you to think of the chart I sent as a keyboard,
> where each square is a button.
> In fact, it would make a very good keyboard for this scale.
>
> -Carl
>
>
>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, caleb morgan <calebmrgn@...> wrote:
>
> Carl, you've been enormously helpful before this,
>
> but I sense some impatience here, and I don't want to annoy you.

Not at all!

> I didn't make it clear to you what I was asking, because I was
> looking for a different kind of answer.

Oh, OK. Let's try again.

> For example, I wasn't saying there was a /13 in this scale.
> I was saying that the scale I erroneously came up with first--
> because it was derived, erroneously, in a way familiar to
> me--had a /13.

Oh, sorry. Are we all done talking about that scale then, or
would you like to discuss it more? If so, could you refresh
my memory on what it is?

> So, here goes, again.
>
> *What other pitches would you likely add to the 7/4 you speak
> of, to make it a viable "key"?

A "key" in the 33-tone scale (or tuning, or insert term of your
choice) I'm recommending is just harmonics 8-16.

1/1 9/8 5/4 11/8 3/2 13/8 7/4 15/8 2/1

(By the way, if you're reading this on yahoo's website, choose
"use fixed width font" on the right to make the numbers easier
to read.)

Now if I'm playing along, and I want to module to 7/4, that is,
I want to play the above scale rooted on 7/4, I can do so -- the
pitches are all there in the 33 tones.

> I ask, not in the narrow sense of "viable" or "correct" that
> Marcel seems to favor, but, to you.

I didn't mean to imply that. I'm just saying, the 91 is there
as the 13th above 7/4, but there's no law saying it isn't
useful in other ways.

> Where can you go in this scale?
> How do you treat these notes that are new to me, like 91?

You can play the above scale on any note of itself.

Again, if you have a look at this chart:

http://lumma.org/stuff/Mode8CrossSet.pdf

and imagine the top part is a keyboard, all should be revealed
to you.

> I also don't understand halberstadt--Google says it's a town
> in Germany.

Right! The town where the first keyboard resembling a modern
one is known to have been built. Therefore our keyboard is
often called the "halberstadt keyboard" in tuning circles.
We have to say this because we intend to use the term "keyboard"
very literally, "any bunch of buttons".

> I'm hoping to go through each of your scales, and see if I get the
> basics.

Cool. Hope I can help.

> Then, when I get the softsynths you recommended, I'll try to
> implement them, and then the fun begins.

That'd be sweet.

-Carl

Oops! I just got it.

Each row of the table is just 8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,
transposed to a starting-point defined
by the left column.

It's so, simple, but I didn't see it. (I think because these
are relatively new numbers for me.)

Ok, now that I get it, that's definitely a "must" try.

caleb

On Feb 16, 2009, at 4:49 PM, Carl Lumma wrote:

> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, caleb morgan <calebmrgn@...> wrote:
> >
> > Carl, you've been enormously helpful before this,
> >
> > but I sense some impatience here, and I don't want to annoy you.
>
> Not at all!
>
> > I didn't make it clear to you what I was asking, because I was
> > looking for a different kind of answer.
>
> Oh, OK. Let's try again.
>
> > For example, I wasn't saying there was a /13 in this scale.
> > I was saying that the scale I erroneously came up with first--
> > because it was derived, erroneously, in a way familiar to
> > me--had a /13.
>
> Oh, sorry. Are we all done talking about that scale then, or
> would you like to discuss it more? If so, could you refresh
> my memory on what it is?
>
> > So, here goes, again.
> >
> > *What other pitches would you likely add to the 7/4 you speak
> > of, to make it a viable "key"?
>
> A "key" in the 33-tone scale (or tuning, or insert term of your
> choice) I'm recommending is just harmonics 8-16.
>
> 1/1 9/8 5/4 11/8 3/2 13/8 7/4 15/8 2/1
>
> (By the way, if you're reading this on yahoo's website, choose
> "use fixed width font" on the right to make the numbers easier
> to read.)
>
> Now if I'm playing along, and I want to module to 7/4, that is,
> I want to play the above scale rooted on 7/4, I can do so -- the
> pitches are all there in the 33 tones.
>
> > I ask, not in the narrow sense of "viable" or "correct" that
> > Marcel seems to favor, but, to you.
>
> I didn't mean to imply that. I'm just saying, the 91 is there
> as the 13th above 7/4, but there's no law saying it isn't
> useful in other ways.
>
> > Where can you go in this scale?
> > How do you treat these notes that are new to me, like 91?
>
> You can play the above scale on any note of itself.
>
> Again, if you have a look at this chart:
>
> http://lumma.org/stuff/Mode8CrossSet.pdf
>
> and imagine the top part is a keyboard, all should be revealed
> to you.
>
> > I also don't understand halberstadt--Google says it's a town
> > in Germany.
>
> Right! The town where the first keyboard resembling a modern
> one is known to have been built. Therefore our keyboard is
> often called the "halberstadt keyboard" in tuning circles.
> We have to say this because we intend to use the term "keyboard"
> very literally, "any bunch of buttons".
>
> > I'm hoping to go through each of your scales, and see if I get the
> > basics.
>
> Cool. Hope I can help.
>
> > Then, when I get the softsynths you recommended, I'll try to
> > implement them, and then the fun begins.
>
> That'd be sweet.
>
> -Carl
>
>
>

Caleb,

I feel pretty much the same way. With so many theorists and composers
(myself included) working in tonality-diamond scales, I never inclined
myself to use scales like this one, created by adding overtone series on
each note of the overtone series. I feel that this method of scale
generation will give me lots of new tonal resources to work in. (Besides
this, I am not really familiar with 13-limit tunings. Even 11-limit is
somewhat new to me:-)

As an aside, I noticed that the 15-limit cross set is the same scale
that Peter Hulen described in his exposition "Ratiotonic Temperament":

http://persweb.wabash.edu/facstaff/hulenp/musicwor/paper/paper1.html

This paper contains a music theory for the 15-limit cross set which is
somewhat similar to the theory that you were discussing (e.g. the
"keys"/overtone series are the contonations, etc.). It also has some
nice ideas and frameworks for composition, as well as a mapping for a
MIDI synthesizer. There seem to be some misprints (e.g. giving the value
of 9/7 as 373 cents) but otherwise I think you might find this paper
useful.
- Justin Tone

P.S. I have attached a SCALA version of this scale in Files >
justin_tone52's Folder > hulen_33.scl.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, caleb morgan <calebmrgn@...> wrote:
>
>
> Oops! I just got it.
>
> Each row of the table is just 8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,
> transposed to a starting-point defined
> by the left column.
>
> It's so, simple, but I didn't see it. (I think because these
> are relatively new numbers for me.)
>
> Ok, now that I get it, that's definitely a "must" try.
>
> caleb
>
>
>
>
>
> On Feb 16, 2009, at 4:49 PM, Carl Lumma wrote:
>
> > --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, caleb morgan calebmrgn@ wrote:
> > >
> > > Carl, you've been enormously helpful before this,
> > >
> > > but I sense some impatience here, and I don't want to annoy you.
> >
> > Not at all!
> >
> > > I didn't make it clear to you what I was asking, because I was
> > > looking for a different kind of answer.
> >
> > Oh, OK. Let's try again.
> >
> > > For example, I wasn't saying there was a /13 in this scale.
> > > I was saying that the scale I erroneously came up with first--
> > > because it was derived, erroneously, in a way familiar to
> > > me--had a /13.
> >
> > Oh, sorry. Are we all done talking about that scale then, or
> > would you like to discuss it more? If so, could you refresh
> > my memory on what it is?
> >
> > > So, here goes, again.
> > >
> > > *What other pitches would you likely add to the 7/4 you speak
> > > of, to make it a viable "key"?
> >
> > A "key" in the 33-tone scale (or tuning, or insert term of your
> > choice) I'm recommending is just harmonics 8-16.
> >
> > 1/1 9/8 5/4 11/8 3/2 13/8 7/4 15/8 2/1
> >
> > (By the way, if you're reading this on yahoo's website, choose
> > "use fixed width font" on the right to make the numbers easier
> > to read.)
> >
> > Now if I'm playing along, and I want to module to 7/4, that is,
> > I want to play the above scale rooted on 7/4, I can do so -- the
> > pitches are all there in the 33 tones.
> >
> > > I ask, not in the narrow sense of "viable" or "correct" that
> > > Marcel seems to favor, but, to you.
> >
> > I didn't mean to imply that. I'm just saying, the 91 is there
> > as the 13th above 7/4, but there's no law saying it isn't
> > useful in other ways.
> >
> > > Where can you go in this scale?
> > > How do you treat these notes that are new to me, like 91?
> >
> > You can play the above scale on any note of itself.
> >
> > Again, if you have a look at this chart:
> >
> > http://lumma.org/stuff/Mode8CrossSet.pdf
> >
> > and imagine the top part is a keyboard, all should be revealed
> > to you.
> >
> > > I also don't understand halberstadt--Google says it's a town
> > > in Germany.
> >
> > Right! The town where the first keyboard resembling a modern
> > one is known to have been built. Therefore our keyboard is
> > often called the "halberstadt keyboard" in tuning circles.
> > We have to say this because we intend to use the term "keyboard"
> > very literally, "any bunch of buttons".
> >
> > > I'm hoping to go through each of your scales, and see if I get the
> > > basics.
> >
> > Cool. Hope I can help.
> >
> > > Then, when I get the softsynths you recommended, I'll try to
> > > implement them, and then the fun begins.
> >
> > That'd be sweet.
> >
> > -Carl
> >
> >
> >
>

Justin wrote:

> As an aside, I noticed that the 15-limit cross set is the same
> scale that Peter Hulen described in his exposition "Ratiotonic
> Temperament":
>
> http://persweb.wabash.edu/facstaff/hulenp/musicwor/paper/paper1.html

[snip]

I originally got the idea from Jules Siegel, who used it very
effectively (IMO) in his series of albums. I recently pointed
to this track on MMM

http://lumma.org/stuff/Calliope.mp3

which I think is a nice demonstration of its potential.

-Carl

thx again Michael,

The best way to communicate my ideas further will probably be to just
start recording stuff (which I'm not quite ready to do, yet, since my
software isn't acceptably usable to me, yet -- soon, though), and when
I do start recording again it will become more apparent why I'm not
interested in scales...

To me, a scale functions as a compromise between composers and
performers (i.e. putting things in scale-form makes it possible/easier
for a performer to play it), and I feel like the harmonic
possibilities don't need to be limited by working in any particular
scale, or scales, at all. This is not to say I don't enjoy live
performance, because I do. I am a performer, too. As a composer,
though, I chafe at being limited by what I can perform live, so I
don't really care that much if my compositions don't fit that mold.
It would be cool, for sure, but I consider it secondary (maybe even
tertiary). I consider it more like a painting on a wall with the
primary goal being to record music that pushes the envelopes of my
mind, and while some of it will be analyzable from a scale point of
view, I'm hoping that a broader analysis will be based solely on the
physics of vibrations (and I'll be notating/documenting the scores
that way).

One of the reasons I like this forum is because it speaks to the
physics of vibrations and how certain scales align the vibrations in
interesting ways, which I will be exploring, for sure, but I doubt
I'll be coming up with any new scales. Does that make this off-topic
for this forum?

Regards,
~af~

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Michael Sheiman <djtrancendance@...> wrote:
>
> Andrew,
>
> ----Generally, though, I'm looking for sounds and ideas that are more
> ----"in-your-face" microtonal because I *want* common-joe to know he's
>
> ----listening to a breech of 12tet, with the caveat that he enjoys
> ----listening to it, too, and will want to know more about it.
>     The closest thing to my ears that both sounds very in-your-face
and natural/proportionate is strategic use of the PHI tuning to
generate scales.
>   I've tried mixing multiple JI scales ("a ptolemic method?") to
form something "not quite JI but familiar like JI" but still haven't
had close to the success with them that I have with making scales from
the PHI tuning.  Even many JI fanatics have told me so far...that my
PHI-based scales are better than the ones I formulated from taking an
avant-garde angle on JI.
> **************************
>     Look at http://www.geocities.com/djtrancendance/.  It includes a
sound sample of my PHI-tuning based "PHITER" scale (meant to emphasize
its fairly rebellious (against 12TET) nature.  Yet it also is designed
to meet the consonance standards of the 12TET-accustomed ear.
>
>    Other examples that don't sound a lot like 12TET seem hard to
find.  Even most of Wilson's MOS scales (like the one in the 2nd link)
and Lucy Tuning are often just a trivial amount of cents away from
either 12TET or Just Intonation.
>
>    Let me know how it works.  I'm happy to see someone here beside
me is very interested in finding a non-JI-like/"in your face" scale
system that works well enough for the public ear to make them think
"hey, that's different but seriously cool and confident sounding, I
want to try that!". 
>
>   And, by all means (if you are willing to dive in to creating your
own scale), I encourage you to experiment with the path less taken to
create scales IE using irrational numbers as generators to "normal"
tuning method.  Once you find a gem of an irrational generator like
PHI...you'll likely find many cool intervals to play with to make
scales from...maybe you can find a scale under PHI which beats mine so
far and persuades more people to "go micro-tonal"...who knows. :-)
>
> --I'm sure the answer is in here somewhere and I'm simply missing
> --it. Of course, it may be another 10 years before my brain is ready
> --for the answer, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.
>     The fact there are so many cool symmetrical patterns in math
based on things like irrational ratios (I've been experimenting with
PHI, and Charles Lucy with PI) seem to say the Lord has left us clues
in math.
>    So does the fact that much of the world's best architecture AND
what's viewed as physically attractive far as human proportions is
based on PHI.
>     This has gotten me back into hard-core efforts trying to create
tunings.  For the longest time I was stuck on simply mixing up JI
scales thinking that's as "rebellious" as I could get while pleasing
the "Average Joe".  Of course, the "classic" ratios of 2 and 3/2 come
across as very natural in music and other calculations...but, to be
sure, those are not the only basis or near-basis for beautiful scales. :-)
>
> -michael
>

If you come up with any new scales let us know, for I think that I have already covered all the possible 12edo scales at:

http://www.lucytune.com/scales/

although there are thousands of (less ambiguous) others which can be generated by alternative spellings, which are unique and playable in meantone tunings.

On 18 Feb 2009, at 13:44, Andrew Fillebrown wrote:

>
> thx again Michael,
>
> The best way to communicate my ideas further will probably be to just
> start recording stuff (which I'm not quite ready to do, yet, since my
> software isn't acceptably usable to me, yet -- soon, though), and when
> I do start recording again it will become more apparent why I'm not
> interested in scales...
>
> To me, a scale functions as a compromise between composers and
> performers (i.e. putting things in scale-form makes it possible/easier
> for a performer to play it), and I feel like the harmonic
> possibilities don't need to be limited by working in any particular
> scale, or scales, at all. This is not to say I don't enjoy live
> performance, because I do. I am a performer, too. As a composer,
> though, I chafe at being limited by what I can perform live, so I
> don't really care that much if my compositions don't fit that mold.
> It would be cool, for sure, but I consider it secondary (maybe even
> tertiary). I consider it more like a painting on a wall with the
> primary goal being to record music that pushes the envelopes of my
> mind, and while some of it will be analyzable from a scale point of
> view, I'm hoping that a broader analysis will be based solely on the
> physics of vibrations (and I'll be notating/documenting the scores
> that way).
>
> One of the reasons I like this forum is because it speaks to the
> physics of vibrations and how certain scales align the vibrations in
> interesting ways, which I will be exploring, for sure, but I doubt
> I'll be coming up with any new scales. Does that make this off-topic
> for this forum?
>
> Regards,
> ~af~
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Michael Sheiman <djtrancendance@...> > wrote:
> >
> > Andrew,
> >
> > ----Generally, though, I'm looking for sounds and ideas that are > more
> > ----"in-your-face" microtonal because I *want* common-joe to know > he's
> >
> > ----listening to a breech of 12tet, with the caveat that he enjoys
> > ----listening to it, too, and will want to know more about it.
> > The closest thing to my ears that both sounds very in-your-face
> and natural/proportionate is strategic use of the PHI tuning to
> generate scales.
> > I've tried mixing multiple JI scales ("a ptolemic method?") to
> form something "not quite JI but familiar like JI" but still haven't
> had close to the success with them that I have with making scales from
> the PHI tuning. Even many JI fanatics have told me so far...that my
> PHI-based scales are better than the ones I formulated from taking an
> avant-garde angle on JI.
> > **************************
> > Look at http://www.geocities.com/djtrancendance/. It includes a
> sound sample of my PHI-tuning based "PHITER" scale (meant to emphasize
> its fairly rebellious (against 12TET) nature. Yet it also is designed
> to meet the consonance standards of the 12TET-accustomed ear.
> >
> > Other examples that don't sound a lot like 12TET seem hard to
> find. Even most of Wilson's MOS scales (like the one in the 2nd link)
> and Lucy Tuning are often just a trivial amount of cents away from
> either 12TET or Just Intonation.
> >
> > Let me know how it works. I'm happy to see someone here beside
> me is very interested in finding a non-JI-like/"in your face" scale
> system that works well enough for the public ear to make them think
> "hey, that's different but seriously cool and confident sounding, I
> want to try that!".
> >
> > And, by all means (if you are willing to dive in to creating your
> own scale), I encourage you to experiment with the path less taken to
> create scales IE using irrational numbers as generators to "normal"
> tuning method. Once you find a gem of an irrational generator like
> PHI...you'll likely find many cool intervals to play with to make
> scales from...maybe you can find a scale under PHI which beats mine so
> far and persuades more people to "go micro-tonal"...who knows. :-)
> >
> > --I'm sure the answer is in here somewhere and I'm simply missing
> > --it. Of course, it may be another 10 years before my brain is ready
> > --for the answer, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.
> > The fact there are so many cool symmetrical patterns in math
> based on things like irrational ratios (I've been experimenting with
> PHI, and Charles Lucy with PI) seem to say the Lord has left us clues
> in math.
> > So does the fact that much of the world's best architecture AND
> what's viewed as physically attractive far as human proportions is
> based on PHI.
> > This has gotten me back into hard-core efforts trying to create
> tunings. For the longest time I was stuck on simply mixing up JI
> scales thinking that's as "rebellious" as I could get while pleasing
> the "Average Joe". Of course, the "classic" ratios of 2 and 3/2 come
> across as very natural in music and other calculations...but, to be
> sure, those are not the only basis or near-basis for beautiful > scales. :-)
> >
> > -michael
> >
>
>
>
Charles Lucy
lucy@...

- Promoting global harmony through LucyTuning -

for information on LucyTuning go to:
http://www.lucytune.com

For LucyTuned Lullabies go to:
http://www.lullabies.co.uk

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Charles Lucy <lucy@...> wrote:
>
> If you come up with any new scales let us know, for I think that I
> have already covered all the possible 12edo scales at:
>
> http://www.lucytune.com/scales/
>
> although there are thousands of (less ambiguous) others which can be
> generated by alternative spellings, which are unique and playable in
> meantone tunings.
>

Question: Why is this list restricted to 12 tones? Both meantone and
Lucy tuning have the property that flats are different from sharps,
which would, for me, imply at least 17 tones should be considered. (And
Lucy tuning has even an infinite number of pitches...)
--
Hans Straub

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Andrew Fillebrown" <AMiltonF@...> wrote:

> One of the reasons I like this forum is because it speaks to the
> physics of vibrations and how certain scales align the vibrations in
> interesting ways, which I will be exploring, for sure, but I doubt
> I'll be coming up with any new scales. Does that make this off-topic
> for this forum?

Dude, your MO is to create a software version of the ANS
synthesizer. It would probably be quite difficult for you
to post something that is off topic. -Carl

It is restricted to 12 notes as that is the limit of notes per octave in 12edo, and the first stage of my analysis was to cover all the possible12edo scale. I am gradually adding to the list, yet after the first 2000
On 18 Feb 2009, at 14:29, hstraub64 wrote:

> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Charles Lucy <lucy@...> wrote:
> >
> > If you come up with any new scales let us know, for I think that I
> > have already covered all the possible 12edo scales at:
> >
> > http://www.lucytune.com/scales/
> >
> > although there are thousands of (less ambiguous) others which can be
> > generated by alternative spellings, which are unique and playable in
> > meantone tunings.
> >
>
> Question: Why is this list restricted to 12 tones? Both meantone and
> Lucy tuning have the property that flats are different from sharps,
> which would, for me, imply at least 17 tones should be considered. > (And
> Lucy tuning has even an infinite number of pitches...)
> --> Hans Straub
>
>
>
Charles Lucy
lucy@...

- Promoting global harmony through LucyTuning -

for information on LucyTuning go to:
http://www.lucytune.com

For LucyTuned Lullabies go to:
http://www.lullabies.co.uk