retuning Lassus

Dear Tuning people,

A student forwarded me some posts from this list about different ways of tuning a Lassus motet. You might be interested in some retuned versions of "Carmina Chromatico", another piece from the _Prophetiae Sibyllarum_, that Peter Schubert and I made for a conference presentation a couple of years ago. This particular conference was interdisciplinary, with all kinds of researchers who didn't know much music theory, so you will find it's at an introductory level--plus this quick write-up leaves out the best stuff (our Vicentino renderings, and analysis of some of the enharmonic madrigals), to save it for a more in-depth article in a theory-friendly venue. No doubt there will be nits to pick, but you might like listening to the retuned versions of the Lassus motet, that each show a different approach to where to hide the commas. The article is here:

http://www.musicstudies.org/JIMS2008/articles/Wild_JIMS_0821208.pdf

and the music examples are here:

http://www.musicstudies.org/JIMS2008/multimedia/WildMP3/

The idea is not that we claim any of the tunings as a historically accurate rendition (as an aside, my vote for best intonational practice for a piece like this would be a more-or-less meantone approach to the root progressions in the bass, with upper parts aiming for pure sonorities on sustained major chords, and adjusting their melodic intervals accordingly). The article is more of an introduction to the kinds of things you have to think about with JI (and I see some posters to the list know all about this), as well as an introduction to the potential of Melodyne as retuning aid to illuminate these kinds of discussions. Our newer recordings/retunings are more sophisticated (less robotic) and when they're ready for public consumption I'll post a link.

My personal response to hearing these retunings was that I have better tolerance for dodgy comma shifts, when everything is presented in a fairly naturalistic context with pretty voices etc., than I previously imagined. Learning to distinguish between the beginnings of Audio Examples 5, 6 and 7 is a good exercise!

Best regards --Jon Wild

Jon,

Thank you so much!

Excellent article and examples. The motet is beautiful too.

Chris

On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 10:08 PM, Jon Wild <wildJon@music.mcgill.ca> wrote:

> Dear Tuning people,
>
> A student forwarded me some posts from this list about different ways of
> tuning a Lassus motet. You might be interested in some retuned versions of
> "Carmina Chromatico", another piece from the _Prophetiae Sibyllarum_, that
> Peter Schubert and I made for a conference presentation a couple of years
> ago. This particular conference was interdisciplinary, with all kinds of
> researchers who didn't know much music theory, so you will find it's at an
> introductory level--plus this quick write-up leaves out the best stuff
> (our Vicentino renderings, and analysis of some of the enharmonic
> madrigals), to save it for a more in-depth article in a theory-friendly
> venue. No doubt there will be nits to pick, but you might like listening
> to the retuned versions of the Lassus motet, that each show a different
> approach to where to hide the commas. The article is here:
>
> http://www.musicstudies.org/JIMS2008/articles/Wild_JIMS_0821208.pdf
>
> and the music examples are here:
>
> http://www.musicstudies.org/JIMS2008/multimedia/WildMP3/
>
> The idea is not that we claim any of the tunings as a historically
> accurate rendition (as an aside, my vote for best intonational practice
> for a piece like this would be a more-or-less meantone approach to the
> root progressions in the bass, with upper parts aiming for pure sonorities
> on sustained major chords, and adjusting their melodic intervals
> accordingly). The article is more of an introduction to the kinds of
> things you have to think about with JI (and I see some posters to the list
> know all about this), as well as an introduction to the potential of
> Melodyne as retuning aid to illuminate these kinds of discussions. Our
> newer recordings/retunings are more sophisticated (less robotic) and when
> they're ready for public consumption I'll post a link.
>
> My personal response to hearing these retunings was that I have better
> tolerance for dodgy comma shifts, when everything is presented in a fairly
> naturalistic context with pretty voices etc., than I previously imagined.
> Learning to distinguish between the beginnings of Audio Examples 5, 6 and
> 7 is a good exercise!
>
> Best regards --Jon Wild
>
>
>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Jon Wild <wild@...> wrote:
>
> Dear Tuning people,
>
> A student forwarded me some posts from this list about different
> ways of tuning a Lassus motet. You might be interested in some
> retuned versions of "Carmina Chromatico", another piece from the
> _Prophetiae Sibyllarum_, that Peter Schubert and I made for a
> conference presentation a couple of years ago. This particular
> conference was interdisciplinary, with all kinds of researchers
> who didn't know much music theory, so you will find it's at an
> introductory level--plus this quick write-up leaves out the best
> stuff (our Vicentino renderings, and analysis of some of the
> enharmonic madrigals), to save it for a more in-depth article
> in a theory-friendly venue. No doubt there will be nits to pick,
> but you might like listening to the retuned versions of the
> Lassus motet, that each show a different approach to where to
> hide the commas. The article is here:
>
> http://www.musicstudies.org/JIMS2008/articles/Wild_JIMS_0821208.pdf
>
> and the music examples are here:
>
> http://www.musicstudies.org/JIMS2008/multimedia/WildMP3/
>

Wow, thanks Jon. And here I always thought of you as a set
theory guy. :) Seriously, I didn't know anybody else was
working on this stuff. Very good to hear and I can't wait
to check out your paper.

-Carl

By the way, have you heard Aaron Wolf's forced-exact 7-limit
barbershop examples (done in melodyne)?

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

-C.

> Wow, thanks Jon. And here I always thought of you as a set
> theory guy. :) Seriously, I didn't know anybody else was
> working on this stuff. Very good to hear and I can't wait
> to check out your paper.
>
> -Carl

unbelievable.

That sound, for me, defines "perfectly in tune" of the JI kind.

With absolutely no beating, it's almost TOO in tune.

But I love it.

How was that tuned?

caleb

On Feb 19, 2009, at 2:19 AM, Carl Lumma wrote:

> By the way, have you heard Aaron Wolf's forced-exact 7-limit
> barbershop examples (done in melodyne)?
>
> http://lumma.org/stuff/MeetAgain.mp3
>
> -C.
>
> > Wow, thanks Jon. And here I always thought of you as a set
> > theory guy. :) Seriously, I didn't know anybody else was
> > working on this stuff. Very good to hear and I can't wait
> > to check out your paper.
> >
> > -Carl
>
>
>

I meant, how do you do microtunings in melodyne?

I've gotta try that.

On Feb 19, 2009, at 12:16 PM, caleb morgan wrote:

>
> unbelievable.
>
> That sound, for me, defines "perfectly in tune" of the JI kind.
>
> With absolutely no beating, it's almost TOO in tune.
>
> But I love it.
>
> How was that tuned?
>
> caleb
>
>
>
> On Feb 19, 2009, at 2:19 AM, Carl Lumma wrote:
>
>> By the way, have you heard Aaron Wolf's forced-exact 7-limit
>> barbershop examples (done in melodyne)?
>>
>> http://lumma.org/stuff/MeetAgain.mp3
>>
>> -C.
>>
>> > Wow, thanks Jon. And here I always thought of you as a set
>> > theory guy. :) Seriously, I didn't know anybody else was
>> > working on this stuff. Very good to hear and I can't wait
>> > to check out your paper.
>> >
>> > -Carl
>>
>>
>
>
>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, caleb morgan <calebmrgn@...> wrote:
>
> unbelievable.
>
> That sound, for me, defines "perfectly in tune" of the JI kind.
>
> With absolutely no beating, it's almost TOO in tune.
>
> But I love it.
>
> How was that tuned?
>
> caleb

7-limit JI (I think there may be a few 15s and 17s also).
He sang the tracks, and then pitch-shifted them in Melodyne.

It sounds a little artificial because I think he shifted
by largish intervals to be able to do all 4 parts. Also,
like the pop song with too much Auto-Tune, real barbershop
isn't that rigid. But the accuracy is almost as good 10%
of the time or so, and close the rest of the time. Maybe
have a second listen to:
/tuning/topicId_81089.html#81089

-Carl

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, caleb morgan <calebmrgn@...> wrote:
>
> I meant, how do you do microtunings in melodyne?
>
> I've gotta try that.

It has cent-accurate displacement on a grid, IIRC. It also
has snap-to-scale, but that wouldn't work for a performance
like this that isn't in a fixed scale (call it Adaptive JI
if you like, though I don't think there are any irrational
melodic intervals involved).

-Carl

Carl wrote:

> By the way, have you heard Aaron Wolf's forced-exact 7-limit
> barbershop examples (done in melodyne)?

I have! And Aaron and I had a brief correspondance about it. I checked out your Lassus examples too, and we're definitely thinking along the same lines about how to solve these little puzzles if you want to be able to use JI for these pieces. Another good example of this kind of thinking is on "Margo's site"; if some people don't read French at least the examples are self-explanatory:

http://ockeghem.medieval.org/emfaq/zarlino/article4.html

Thanks for your email off-list Carl--I was waiting to see if there were any other comments about the retuned examples and the article before compiling any replies into one email to the list. The main reason I can't follow the list any more is the proliferation of posts, especially when people don't trim the cruft--it's very hard to actually find the new content when 2 lines of response are hidden in sometimes literally hundreds of lines of unnecessary and disorganised remnants.

Best - Jon

Hi Jon,

Yes, Margo's site rocks.

I've heard from a number of well-respected microtonalists
(Denny Genovese, David Doty, among others) that one of the
main reason they don't read the list is the messiness of
the text. That's why I always trim my replies and clean up
broken quote blocks.

I'm sure I'm shouting into the wind, but when IMHO this list
was most productive, it was back in the late '90s when most
posters topquoted

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style

and trimmed their replies.

-Carl

Top posting--you mean like this?

The article linked below mentions the joke

A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?

That's pretty funny, but I guess I agree that top-posting is perhaps
the least annoying style. Nested responses after 4 iterations are
really annoying to parse, and start to look like LISP code or
something where you need a software parser. And bottom posting in a
large post is annoying, b/c you have to scroll all the way down. So
top-posting isn't great, but it sucks least.

About trimming, I've also had the experience here and elsewhere that
people tend to snip replies in heated arguments as a method of either
avoiding difficult questions that wuld sink their arguments, or of
taking the original statement out of context and turning it into a
straw man.

-A.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <carl@...> wrote:
>
> Hi Jon,
>
> Yes, Margo's site rocks.
>
> I've heard from a number of well-respected microtonalists
> (Denny Genovese, David Doty, among others) that one of the
> main reason they don't read the list is the messiness of
> the text. That's why I always trim my replies and clean up
> broken quote blocks.
>
> I'm sure I'm shouting into the wind, but when IMHO this list
> was most productive, it was back in the late '90s when most
> posters topquoted
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style
>
> and trimmed their replies.
>
> -Carl
>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Aaron Krister Johnson" <aaron@...> wrote:
>
> Top posting--you mean like this?

No, like this. :)

I said top _quoting_. But I later noticed the Wikipedia
article explains everything in terms of Xposting rather than
Xquoting, so your confusion is understandable.

> The article linked below mentions the joke
>
> A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally
> read text.
> Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
> A: Top-posting.
> Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?
>
> That's pretty funny, but I guess I agree that top-posting is
> perhaps the least annoying style.

I tend to agree with the joke. Though I occasionally
top-post when I just have a quick overall remark.

> Nested responses after 4 iterations are
> really annoying to parse, and start to look like LISP code or
> something where you need a software parser.

Some boards have indentation and/or color coding, which
helps. I usually keep only 1 or 2 levels of prior context,
trimming the rest away. I think that's OK as long as it's
wrapped sensibly.

> And bottom posting in a
> large post is annoying, b/c you have to scroll all the way down. So
> top-posting isn't great, but it sucks least.

Joel Splosky has argued that making people scroll past the
context is actually a good thing, since they might actually
read it. :) The context is supposed to be read or at least
skimmed, so things stay on-track and misunderstandings are
minimized.

> About trimming, I've also had the experience here and elsewhere
> that people tend to snip replies in heated arguments as a method
> of either avoiding difficult questions that wuld sink their
> arguments, or of taking the original statement out of context and
> turning it into a straw man.

I can't remember suspecting deliberate overtrimming, but I
was accused of it recently. Overtrimming can be a problem.
Kurt Bigler likes lots of context, and frequently complains
that I overtrim. But I think keeping messages to a reasonable
length should be more important.

But really, all this manual formatting is time-consuming,
contentious, and quickly leads to tragedies of the commons
like Jon is complaining about. It would be better if the
software handled it for us. One has to abandon e-mail
compatibility then. I generally think reddit is the best
board software I've used in this respect. It's made for
sharing links, but I think it could be adapted for a
mailing-list-type use without too much effort. . .

-Carl

I find posting from Google makes editing of what I'm actually responding to
very difficult to do.

If someone knows some editing tricks in googlemail beside brute force cut
and paste into notepad etc. I'd appreciate it.

Ironically the blackberry has a "delete original text" option which is quite
handy.

RE: posting style.

On Fri, Feb 20, 2

>
> I find posting from Google makes editing of what I'm actually responding to
> very difficult to do.
>
> If someone knows some editing tricks in googlemail beside brute force cut
> and paste into notepad etc. I'd appreciate it.
>

I post from gmail aswell.
Turn keyboard shortcuts on under settings-general, then under settings-labs
turn on quote selected text.
Then if you wish to quote some text simply select the text with your mouse
and press r on the keyboard and you'll automatically go to the reply section
with only this text quoted.

Marcel