5-limit vs. 7-limit JI, what's the "right" PHI tuning, and other ignorances...

If there is one thing that bugs the heck out of me concerning this
list...it's the prevalence of the attitude "if it's not directly
comparable to something in history, it must be complete bull excrement".
And, apparently, it also has seemed to be the recent point of debate
for huge threads which often argue opinions in the complete absence of
actual musical examples. Which, I don't know about the rest of
you...but that comes across to me as very frustrating and often not
very educational...

Note: I am assuming 5-limit JI qualifies as historic, since it
apparently is used in a fashion similar to much older diatonic
mean-tone tunings.
***************************************************************
Case in point: 5-limit vs. 7-limit JI (with 7-limit JI being the
"yet to be widely adopted" successor).
They have different chords and few intervals with the exact same
musical meaning as each other...but can both generate the same range
of emotions with near-equal ease (and isn't that the ultimate goal of
music anyhow?).
***********************************************************
Another case: JI vs. Wilson's MOS scales.

Yet another: the circle of thirds (NOT circles of 5ths) in 10TET,
for example at
http://eceserv0.ece.wisc.edu/~sethares/mp3s/circleofthirds.html.

Yet another: Fundamentally different PHI-based tunings based on the
noble mediant IE Noble_Mediant(i/j, m/n) = (i + Phi * m) / (j + Phi *
n) vs. PHI tunings based on mean-tone IE taking powers of PHI and
dividing by powers of 2.

And, as another comparison, Lucy Tuning. These often seem
stereotyped as "yet another irrational-number-generated tuning"...yet
due to the vastly different ways they use irrational numbers in their
generation no two sound close and no two (far as I've heard) can be
forced to, for example, use intervals for the exact same musical
purposes as each other.
****************************************************

Consonance and periodicity, dissonance/harmonic-entropy, minor 3rds
used to bring tension vs. some other interval newly devised that does
the same thing, tonal centers/5-limit-like chords of resolve vs.
completely different alternatives...

In the end of the day, isn't it really more about making a music
system that achieves a BALANCE between tension and relaxation...than
about preserving virtually the exact methods (esp. very similar
intervals and chords) to get to that point that have been used before?
----------------------------------
Recently 7-limit JI and Wilson's MOS scales are perhaps the two
things in the last 5 or so months that made me thing "nice, this truly
feels like a new avenue of expression...I have to learn something
about this..."

Much of the rest of it has degenerate into people insulting each
other about why each their highly subjective opinions are somehow
facts. Honestly, unless someone gave me, say, a double-blind survey
comparing two top-notch compositions in, say 5-limit vs. 7-limit JI in
which 30+ people were surveyed and over 80% of them rated the 7-limit
composition 3/10 or less would I consider 7-limit relatively "not able
to be publicly recognizable as music".
-----------------------------------

The point is, short of such dramatic surveys...I think we'd all do
well to get away from the "I have THE right way of doing this,
therefore you can't have a different right way and you should learn
from me" attitude so prevalent on here.

Yes, two people can produce two (or more) completely different PHI
tunings, completely different types of JI scales, and not have the
creator of one be the designated "master of knowledge" over the other.

Unless we could, say, get together a formal survey where random
listeners rated how our tunings (and, of course, the scales under
them) sound...we can't say one is more musical than the next. And,
believe me, I have trust some of my "crazy" tunings could make par
with much more historically established ones...as I'm sure many of you
do with your own. But can't we come to the conclusion that if you
don't formally test something in a large survey (especially in a group
like this which is so eager to learn) that it's basically an opinion
and no reason to butt egos for?

djtrancendance wrote:
> If there is one thing that bugs the heck out of me concerning this
> list...it's the prevalence of the attitude "if it's not directly
> comparable to something in history, it must be complete bull excrement".

Unless you seriously think the mailing list has achieved sentience, in which case we should be discussing how to switch it off with some degree of urgency, I think it best not to let it bug you.

> And, apparently, it also has seemed to be the recent point of debate
> for huge threads which often argue opinions in the complete absence of
> actual musical examples. Which, I don't know about the rest of
> you...but that comes across to me as very frustrating and often not
> very educational...

What threads? Why not ask for examples in the threads instead of here where we don't know what you're referring to?

> Note: I am assuming 5-limit JI qualifies as historic, since it
> apparently is used in a fashion similar to much older diatonic
> mean-tone tunings.

5-limit JI, at least as a theory, is much older than meantone. The reality is something historians can debate but I still think JI is older.

> Case in point: 5-limit vs. 7-limit JI (with 7-limit JI being the
> "yet to be widely adopted" successor).
> They have different chords and few intervals with the exact same
> musical meaning as each other...but can both generate the same range
> of emotions with near-equal ease (and isn't that the ultimate goal of
> music anyhow?). Case of what? Of one contributor making a large number of posts the rest of us disagree with, and that you haven't got round to ignoring yet?

> Another case: JI vs. Wilson's MOS scales. Case of what?

> Yet another: the circle of thirds (NOT circles of 5ths) in 10TET,
> for example at
> http://eceserv0.ece.wisc.edu/~sethares/mp3s/circleofthirds.html.

What of it?

> Yet another: Fundamentally different PHI-based tunings based on the
> noble mediant IE Noble_Mediant(i/j, m/n) = (i + Phi * m) / (j + Phi *
> n) vs. PHI tunings based on mean-tone IE taking powers of PHI and
> dividing by powers of 2. What of them?

> And, as another comparison, Lucy Tuning. These often seem
> stereotyped as "yet another irrational-number-generated tuning"...yet
> due to the vastly different ways they use irrational numbers in their
> generation no two sound close and no two (far as I've heard) can be
> forced to, for example, use intervals for the exact same musical
> purposes as each other.

LucyTuning is often stereotyped as yet another meantone temperament. And there's only one LucyTuning.

> Consonance and periodicity, dissonance/harmonic-entropy, minor 3rds
> used to bring tension vs. some other interval newly devised that does
> the same thing, tonal centers/5-limit-like chords of resolve vs.
> completely different alternatives...

I think you're missing a verb there.

> In the end of the day, isn't it really more about making a music
> system that achieves a BALANCE between tension and relaxation...than
> about preserving virtually the exact methods (esp. very similar
> intervals and chords) to get to that point that have been used before?

What's "it"?

> Recently 7-limit JI and Wilson's MOS scales are perhaps the two
> things in the last 5 or so months that made me thing "nice, this truly
> feels like a new avenue of expression...I have to learn something
> about this..."
> > Much of the rest of it has degenerate into people insulting each
> other about why each their highly subjective opinions are somehow
> facts. Honestly, unless someone gave me, say, a double-blind survey
> comparing two top-notch compositions in, say 5-limit vs. 7-limit JI in
> which 30+ people were surveyed and over 80% of them rated the 7-limit
> composition 3/10 or less would I consider 7-limit relatively "not able
> to be publicly recognizable as music".

Behind that double negative, do you mean the 7-limit can be recognizable as music? In that case you agree with the majority here.

> The point is, short of such dramatic surveys...I think we'd all do
> well to get away from the "I have THE right way of doing this,
> therefore you can't have a different right way and you should learn
> from me" attitude so prevalent on here.

I don't see it.

> Yes, two people can produce two (or more) completely different PHI
> tunings, completely different types of JI scales, and not have the
> creator of one be the designated "master of knowledge" over the other. Of course.

> Unless we could, say, get together a formal survey where random
> listeners rated how our tunings (and, of course, the scales under
> them) sound...we can't say one is more musical than the next. And,
> believe me, I have trust some of my "crazy" tunings could make par
> with much more historically established ones...as I'm sure many of you
> do with your own. But can't we come to the conclusion that if you
> don't formally test something in a large survey (especially in a group
> like this which is so eager to learn) that it's basically an opinion
> and no reason to butt egos for?

Who's "we"?

Graham

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "djtrancendance" <djtrancendance@...>
wrote:
>
> If there is one thing that bugs the heck out of me concerning this
> list...it's the prevalence of the attitude "if it's not directly
> comparable to something in history, it must be complete bull
> excrement".

This is not the impression I have from this list in general. It was a
little like that in the past days - but observe that the major part
of this is due to very few posters.

I think that in general this is a very good place for "new" tunings,
from generalized MOS scales over Lucy tuning (which is
not "historical") to all these different kinds of temperaments many
of which are absolutely not "historical" either, including the modern
temperament theory, etc. I think there is no need to worry.

>
> The point is, short of such dramatic surveys...I think we'd all do
> well to get away from the "I have THE right way of doing this,
> therefore you can't have a different right way and you should learn
> from me" attitude so prevalent on here.
>

I absolutely agree. And IMHO the huge majority of members here are
perfectly alright in this aspect. As for the few that are not - well,
in the end you might just have to set up a filter.
--
Hans Straub