Microtonal Weekend--Wright State University--Ben Johnston/Owen Jorgensen

To tuning list participants,

I hope some of you might be interested in this event in Dayton, Ohio.

best

Franklin

Dr. Franklin Cox

1107 Xenia Ave.

Yellow Springs, OH 45387

(937) 767-1165

franklincox@...

--- On Thu, 3/4/10, cameron <misterbobro@...> wrote:

From: cameron <misterbobro@...>
Subject: [tuning] Re: A response to Kalle's "scale with strong bass-lines" question
To: tuning@yahoogroups.com
Date: Thursday, March 4, 2010, 6:18 PM

There wasn't any "compositional weakness" in your original "A" scale. Disjunct tetrachords divided for a resulting diatonic octave scale? That's a "classic" scale structure, in a real way, like, "a very large part of the world's music for the last several thousand years has used this same basic structure".

And it sounded really nice harmonically and melodically, not to mention it had stuff like some downright traditional alternate cadences, vii°-i, IV-i on the original tonic for example. IMO you shouldn't dump it yet, though I'd recommend dropping the third a couple of cents, to 63/52 (mirror image of the 13/7, 3/2 the mirror).

I think it be a shame to simply abandon a scale with a unique flavor for no real reason.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups. com, Michael <djtrancendance@ ...> wrote:

>

> Try this

> 1/1

> 10/9

> 16/13

> 4/3

> 3/2

> 5/3

> 13/7

> 2/1 (period)

>

> I optimized this scale to improve purity for chords that extend between two octaves trying to approach the strong bass-line possibilities that exist in scales like deca-tonic scales and those formed from "circles of intervals". The more I played around with that idea the more I realized you were right and my "tempered" Ptolemy Homalon scale needed some tweaking.

> The scale did gain a tad of critical band roughness due to slightly decreased ratios between dyads, but gained a lot of periodicity due to ratios like 16/13 and 13/7 tempering closely between just pure intervals and doing so better across octaves (IMVHO) than the original 11/6.and 11/9 they replace.

>

> Kalle and others, what do you think of this scale and what do you see as its still-standing weaknesses so far as compositional flexibility?

>

> -Michael

>