Vicentino on BBC Radio 3

Hi folks,

I'll probably delete this after some time but I just wanted to share this with you.
I encoded the recording with a very low bitrate since the actual sound quality from the IPlayer was also very poor and therefore my re-encoding could damage it only very slightly.
I missed a few minutes from the beginning but anyway here's the most of it.
http://www.box.net/shared/oyla7rilef

Petr

They must have used Melodyne to tune the choir to 31-equal.
Interesting! But too much talk in the background.

Oz.

✩ ✩ ✩
www.ozanyarman.com

On Mar 27, 2010, at 4:31 PM, Petr Pařízek wrote:

> Hi folks,
>
> I'll probably delete this after some time but I just wanted to share
> this
> with you.
> I encoded the recording with a very low bitrate since the actual sound
> quality from the IPlayer was also very poor and therefore my re-
> encoding
> could damage it only very slightly.
> I missed a few minutes from the beginning but anyway here's the most
> of it.
> http://www.box.net/shared/oyla7rilef
>
> Petr

Good catch, Petr!

Yes, this is the work of Jon Wild's group I mentioned earlier.
They use Melodyne and have papers in the works.

-Carl

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Ozan Yarman <ozanyarman@...> wrote:
>
> They must have used Melodyne to tune the choir to 31-equal.
> Interesting! But too much talk in the background.
>
> Oz.
>

Hang on, starting around 21:00, there's another group
doing it au nauturale.

-Carl

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <carl@...> wrote:
>
> Good catch, Petr!
>
> Yes, this is the work of Jon Wild's group I mentioned earlier.
> They use Melodyne and have papers in the works.
>
> -Carl
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Ozan Yarman <ozanyarman@> wrote:
> >
> > They must have used Melodyne to tune the choir to 31-equal.
> > Interesting! But too much talk in the background.
> >
> > Oz.
> >
>

Fantastic, fantastic programme. Wonderful historians!
I had no idea enharmonic music was so central to Vicentino's
career, or that it had gotten so much traction. Probably
the most successful microtonalist of all time (I previously
assumed Partch held this title). Apparently Galileo Sr.
was not impressed. It's also stated that Gesualdo designed
his own 31-tone keyboard. This was news to me.

Everyone ought to have a good listen.

For now I was unable to capture it as a file (without
re-encoding). They are apparently tracking listeners by
IP address -- if I erase all cookies and load it in a
different browser, it offers to continue where I left off!

-Carl

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Petr Pařízek <p.parizek@...> wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> I'll probably delete this after some time but I just wanted to
> share this with you. I encoded the recording with a very low
> bitrate since the actual sound quality from the IPlayer was also
> very poor and therefore my re-encoding could damage it only very
> slightly. I missed a few minutes from the beginning but anyway
> here's the most of it.
> http://www.box.net/shared/oyla7rilef
>
> Petr

Carl wrote:

> Hang on, starting around 21:00, there's another group
> doing it au nauturale.

Toby Twining was doing 13-limit harmony with real singers without any post-processing -- actually, long before the pitch correction tools got the "popularity" they have today.
Even though I was only able to find one part if his Chrisalid requiem (and I would be keen to find more), I think it's enough to prove the point:
http://www.cantaloupemusic.com/album.php?catno=007

Petr

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Petr Parízek <p.parizek@...> wrote:
>
> Carl wrote:
>
> > Hang on, starting around 21:00, there's another group
> > doing it au nauturale.
>
> Toby Twining was doing 13-limit harmony with real singers without
> any post-processing -- actually, long before the pitch correction
> tools got the "popularity" they have today.

A tremendous achievement, but his singers were cued from
headphones.

-Carl

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <carl@...> wrote:
> A tremendous achievement, but his singers were cued from
> headphones.

I was pretty sure that was what I remembered as well, but a quick search this morning didn't turn up that information. I suppose if two of us remember that it means I'm not crazy.

I hope that's the case, anyway.

Cheers,
Jon

On 29 March 2010 05:51, jonszanto <jszanto@...> wrote:

> I was pretty sure that was what I remembered as well, but a quick search this morning didn't turn up that information. I suppose if two of us remember that it means I'm not crazy.

I remember that as well. I also have the whole thing from Emusic.

Graham

> I was pretty sure that was what I remembered as well, but a quick search
> this morning didn't turn up that information. I suppose if two of us
> remember that it means I'm not crazy.
>
> I hope that's the case, anyway.
>

Yes, it was mentioned in the show itself.

Marcel

Marcel wrote:

> Yes, it was mentioned in the show itself.

I thought Carl and Jon and Graham were talking about Twining, not Vicentino ... Actually, I'm pretty unsure now. :-D

Petr

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Petr Parízek <p.parizek@...> wrote:
> I thought Carl and Jon and Graham were talking about Twining, not Vicentino
> ... Actually, I'm pretty unsure now. :-D

I was *definitely* referring to Twining, and how they used audio cues through headphones to assist in good intonation. I have not heard the Vincentino show.

Jon

Toby Twining talked about his stunning masterpiece, and performing and recording it in this episode of New Sounds: http://www.wnyc.org/shows/newsounds/episodes/2004/04/25

It says on the CD sleeve that the sheet music is available online but the given link (to a Twining website) doesn't work. Some examples of this hyper-complex score (notated in Johnston's system) have been published in the 1/1 magazine and elsewhere but I have been unable to find a copy of the score. Can anyone help?

Juhani

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "jonszanto" <jszanto@...> wrote:
>
> > I thought Carl and Jon and Graham were talking about Twining,
> > not Vicentino ... Actually, I'm pretty unsure now. :-D
>
> I was *definitely* referring to Twining, and how they used audio
> cues through headphones to assist in good intonation. I have not
> heard the Vincentino show.

Jon, you should totally check out the Vicentino show. I've
finally managed to save their stream to a file for archival.
Complete, with no lossy recompression:

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

(about 75MB)

Twining had not just cues, but full synthesized parts and a
sound engineer doing mixing to all the 'phones.

-Carl

Carl,

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <carl@...> wrote:
>
> Jon, you should totally check out the Vicentino show.

Thanks much - dl'ing now, and will have time in a day or two to spend some quiet moments listening.

Ta,
Jon

The radio broadcast was quite enjoyable, if only because it is so rarely
pointed out how interesting Nicola was. I agree with Ozan that there was
too much talk OVER the music. For such short excerpts of music, one
unhindered performance would seem to be most appropriate.

It does seem that there are no unadulturated performances, each requiring
technical advances. Jon, it was wonderful to hear what is possible. You
did an excellent job.

As per Juhani, we have been rehearsing feverishly for the May 15th
performance in NYC of Musica Priscis Caput every Monday evening (_www.afmm.org_
(http://www.afmm.org) ). We finally have our soprano, Svjetlana
Bukvich-Nichols (composer on the WORLD CD album), and we are singing the piece a capella
au natural.

As I sing the bass line, I have set up an alto recorder to be in just
intonation through the changing of the open tone holes with scotch tape. I can
then effect the dotted notes with either special fingerings...or an exact
shading.

Listening to the show, it was surprising that everyone spoke about the
dotted dieses sharp of a note and how they adjusted their minds to hear it
discretely. However, the greater challenge by far are the singing of larger
intervals that have been offset (higher and/or lower) by the dieses.

For example, the piece ends with the bass singing an ascending "mit-tat"
at a sharp neutral third of 461 cents. It seems Vicentino was fair in
distributing several different microtonal intervals throughout the four parts.

Singing the piece is amazing. Juhani, if you have any knowledge of any
errors in the English translation from the English translation, please
advise. I hope we are all spot on for the 2 minute microtonal extravaganza.

best, Johnny Reinhard

No matter when I tried to listen, the stream is impossibly sluggish
and cutty. Does anybody have another link to the Toby Twining
interview or did anyone make an audio recording for keeps?

Oz.

✩ ✩ ✩
www.ozanyarman.com

On Mar 29, 2010, at 10:31 AM, Juhani wrote:

> Toby Twining talked about his stunning masterpiece, and performing
> and recording it in this episode of New Sounds: http://www.wnyc.org/shows/newsounds/episodes/2004/04/25
>
> It says on the CD sleeve that the sheet music is available online
> but the given link (to a Twining website) doesn't work. Some
> examples of this hyper-complex score (notated in Johnston's system)
> have been published in the 1/1 magazine and elsewhere but I have
> been unable to find a copy of the score. Can anyone help?
>
> Juhani
>

Hi Johnny,
this is really exciting news! I'm eagerly looking forward to hearing your performance.
If my previous posts about Vicentino's piece played any part in inspiring you to put up this performance, I'm really pleased and honored.

As to the errors in various translations - I'm no expert. I have the English translation of Vicentino's book published by Yale University Press, 1996, and that has the score with the dots. Then, in Patrizio Barbieri's book 'Enharmonic Instruments and Music 1470-1900' the piece is notated using double flats and f flat, c flat etc. (in meantone). But I've never seen a faximile of the original and and I do not have much expertise in early music.
I think there were a couple of places where Barbieri's version differs from the one in the English translation of Vicentino's book. If that's what you meant, I will check out what these were.

Best,

Juhani

> As per Juhani, we have been rehearsing feverishly for the May 15th
> performance in NYC of Musica Priscis Caput every Monday evening (_www.afmm.org_
> (http://www.afmm.org) ). We finally have our soprano, Svjetlana
> Bukvich-Nichols (composer on the WORLD CD album), and we are singing the piece a capella
> au natural.

>
> As I sing the bass line, I have set up an alto recorder to be in just
> intonation through the changing of the open tone holes with scotch tape. I can
> then effect the dotted notes with either special fingerings...or an exact
> shading.
>
> Listening to the show, it was surprising that everyone spoke about the
> dotted dieses sharp of a note and how they adjusted their minds to hear it
> discretely. However, the greater challenge by far are the singing of larger
> intervals that have been offset (higher and/or lower) by the dieses.
>
> For example, the piece ends with the bass singing an ascending "mit-tat"
> at a sharp neutral third of 461 cents. It seems Vicentino was fair in
> distributing several different microtonal intervals throughout the four parts.
>
> Singing the piece is amazing. Juhani, if you have any knowledge of any
> errors in the English translation from the English translation, please
> advise. I hope we are all spot on for the 2 minute microtonal extravaganza.
>
> best, Johnny Reinhard
>

Hi Oz,
the newer links in the WNYC archives open up the 'WNYC Media Player' but this show is in RealAudio. Maybe adjusting your RealAudio player settings or updating the player would help, or you could write WNYC for guidance, or even to ask them to transfer the show to the newer format. I used to have similar problems with RealAudio streams but this stream runs without interruptions. I'm on Mac OS 10.4., Real Player 11, and I don't have a particularly fast internet connection.

Juhani

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Ozan Yarman <ozanyarman@...> wrote:
>
> No matter when I tried to listen, the stream is impossibly sluggish
> and cutty. Does anybody have another link to the Toby Twining
> interview or did anyone make an audio recording for keeps?
>
> Oz.
>
> ✩ ✩ ✩
> www.ozanyarman.com
>
> On Mar 29, 2010, at 10:31 AM, Juhani wrote:
>
> > Toby Twining talked about his stunning masterpiece, and performing
> > and recording it in this episode of New Sounds: http://www.wnyc.org/shows/newsounds/episodes/2004/04/25
> >
> > It says on the CD sleeve that the sheet music is available online
> > but the given link (to a Twining website) doesn't work. Some
> > examples of this hyper-complex score (notated in Johnston's system)
> > have been published in the 1/1 magazine and elsewhere but I have
> > been unable to find a copy of the score. Can anyone help?
> >
> > Juhani
> >
>

Dear Juhani, I have the latest version of Realplayer on my Macbook Pro
running OS 10.5.8. The audio stream is stuttering frequently or
cutting off at 30-40 second intervals and is impossible to endure. I
tried to adjust the bandwidth to no avail. My internet speed is half a
meg per sec. I really think realplayer sucks! Can anyone, maybe you,
make a recording in an "acceptable" format and make it available as a
link to download?

Cordially,
Oz.

✩ ✩ ✩
www.ozanyarman.com

On Mar 31, 2010, at 12:02 AM, Juhani wrote:

> Hi Oz,
> the newer links in the WNYC archives open up the 'WNYC Media Player'
> but this show is in RealAudio. Maybe adjusting your RealAudio player
> settings or updating the player would help, or you could write WNYC
> for guidance, or even to ask them to transfer the show to the newer
> format. I used to have similar problems with RealAudio streams but
> this stream runs without interruptions. I'm on Mac OS 10.4., Real
> Player 11, and I don't have a particularly fast internet connection.
>
> Juhani
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Ozan Yarman <ozanyarman@...> wrote:
>>
>> No matter when I tried to listen, the stream is impossibly sluggish
>> and cutty. Does anybody have another link to the Toby Twining
>> interview or did anyone make an audio recording for keeps?
>>
>> Oz.
>>
>> ✩ ✩ ✩
>> www.ozanyarman.com
>>
>> On Mar 29, 2010, at 10:31 AM, Juhani wrote:
>>
>>> Toby Twining talked about his stunning masterpiece, and performing
>>> and recording it in this episode of New Sounds: http://www.wnyc.org/shows/newsounds/episodes/2004/04/25
>>>
>>> It says on the CD sleeve that the sheet music is available online
>>> but the given link (to a Twining website) doesn't work. Some
>>> examples of this hyper-complex score (notated in Johnston's system)
>>> have been published in the 1/1 magazine and elsewhere but I have
>>> been unable to find a copy of the score. Can anyone help?
>>>
>>> Juhani
>>>
>>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> You can configure your subscription by sending an empty email to one
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On 28 March 2010 01:08, Carl Lumma <carl@...> wrote:
> Fantastic, fantastic programme.  Wonderful historians!
> I had no idea enharmonic music was so central to Vicentino's
> career, or that it had gotten so much traction.  Probably
> the most successful microtonalist of all time (I previously
> assumed Partch held this title).  Apparently Galileo Sr.
> was not impressed.  It's also stated that Gesualdo designed
> his own 31-tone keyboard.  This was news to me.

It was good. They found some quotes I didn't now about. But a lot of
it was speculation from brief mentions in the treatise, and Margo had
mentioned V. Galileo's attitude. Unfortunately, it looks like
Vicentino's one of those losers of history, so the quotes we have are
from his enemies.

I'd also like to hear more about the Gesualdo connection. The Watkins
biography says that the Gesualdo should have received the archicembalo
with his second marriage, but that there was no other mention of it.
They must have uncovered a new document somewhere.

What they also did is link all the other 31-toners to Vicentino. So
he's solidly the godfather of microtonality -- the first person to
write music with a large number of distict pitches, and the first to
build a huge keyboard. They make him sound like a key figure of the
chromatic movement as well.

> Everyone ought to have a good listen.
>
> For now I was unable to capture it as a file (without
> re-encoding).  They are apparently tracking listeners by
> IP address -- if I erase all cookies and load it in a
> different browser, it offers to continue where I left off!

Thank you for finally defeating their imaginary property restrictions
so that I could hear it!

Graham

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Graham Breed <gbreed@...> wrote:
>
> I'd also like to hear more about the Gesualdo connection.
> The Watkins biography says that the Gesualdo should have
> received the archicembalo with his second marriage, but that
> there was no other mention of it.
> They must have uncovered a new document somewhere.

Ack, thanks for reminding me. I meant to post a correction.
I listened again, and I'd misheard. The other 31-tone keyboard
design wasn't by Gesualdo, it was by

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

-Carl

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <carl@...> wrote:
> Jon, you should totally check out the Vicentino show. I've
> finally managed to save their stream to a file for archival.
> Complete, with no lossy recompression: ...

Carl,
thank you for this!
there is also a programme about Gesualdo on the BBC website now - could you do the same for this, or explain to me how to do it?

Steve M.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "martinsj013" <martinsj@...> wrote:
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <carl@> wrote:
> > Jon, you should totally check out the Vicentino show. I've
> > finally managed to save their stream to a file for archival.
> > Complete, with no lossy recompression: ...
>
> Carl,
> thank you for this!
> there is also a programme about Gesualdo on the BBC website
> now - could you do the same for this, or explain to me how
> to do it?
>
> Steve M.

What's the URL?

-Carl

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <carl@...> wrote:
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "martinsj013" <martinsj@> wrote:
> > ... there is also a programme about Gesualdo on the BBC website
> > now - could you do the same for this, or explain to me how
> > to do it? ...
> What's the URL? ...

yeah, that might help:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00rs4rx

Steve M.

here is a question from this program

It says Vincentino divided the whole tone into 5 instead of 2 - but then
talk about 31 EDO.
The math doesn't work.
12 / 2 = 6 * 5 equals 30 not 31.

On Wed, Apr 7, 2010 at 8:05 AM, martinsj013 <martinsj@...> wrote:

>
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com <tuning%40yahoogroups.com>, "Carl Lumma"
> <carl@...> wrote:
> > --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com <tuning%40yahoogroups.com>, "martinsj013"
> <martinsj@> wrote:
> > > ... there is also a programme about Gesualdo on the BBC website
>
> > > now - could you do the same for this, or explain to me how
> > > to do it? ...
> > What's the URL? ...
>
> yeah, that might help:
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00rs4rx
>
> Steve M.
>
>
>

See for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/31_equal_temperament

Also note that 6 whole tones in 31TET don't add up to an octave.

jn

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...> wrote:
>
> here is a question from this program
>
> It says Vincentino divided the whole tone into 5 instead of 2 - but then
> talk about 31 EDO.
> The math doesn't work.
> 12 / 2 = 6 * 5 equals 30 not 31.
>

ok, thanks. Some of this is starting to make some sense now since I'm
starting to understand the nomenclature.

And the answer is the BBC program was approximating by saying 1/5 of a whole
tone.

Chris

On Wed, Apr 7, 2010 at 9:34 AM, Juhani <jnylenius@...> wrote:

>
>
> See for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/31_equal_temperament
>
> Also note that 6 whole tones in 31TET don't add up to an octave.
>
> jn
>
>
>

Hi Chris,

when saying "whole tone", he actually means a major second, which is the same in 12-equal but not really in 31-equal.
31-equal doesn't have things like proper tones and semitones but it does have major and minor seconds, where a minor second is 3 steps and a major second is 5 steps.
So going from C to D, for example, you get C, Dbb, C#, Db, C##, D.
You can imagine the 31-equal as a 31-tone chain of fifths from the 12th flat to the 12th sharp (i.e. Gbb to A##) where two tones 31 fifths apart would sound the same (i.e. E##, if you used such a tone, would have the same pitch as Gbb), similarly as G# and Ab are the same pitch in 12-equal.
Likewise, in 19-equal, 3 steps make a major second, 2 steps make a minor second, and B# has the same pitch as Cb.
Clear enough?

Petr

Hi Petr,

Yes it is clear - and it brings out the fact that the whole tone isn't
divided in half in 31 or 19 which is causing some cognitive dissonance :-)

Thanks,

Chris

On Wed, Apr 7, 2010 at 10:21 AM, Petr Parízek <p.parizek@...> wrote:

> Hi Chris,
>
> when saying "whole tone", he actually means a major second, which is the
> same in 12-equal but not really in 31-equal.
> 31-equal doesn't have things like proper tones and semitones but it does
> have major and minor seconds, where a minor second is 3 steps and a major
> second is 5 steps.
> So going from C to D, for example, you get C, Dbb, C#, Db, C##, D.
> You can imagine the 31-equal as a 31-tone chain of fifths from the 12th
> flat
> to the 12th sharp (i.e. Gbb to A##) where two tones 31 fifths apart would
> sound the same (i.e. E##, if you used such a tone, would have the same
> pitch
> as Gbb), similarly as G# and Ab are the same pitch in 12-equal.
> Likewise, in 19-equal, 3 steps make a major second, 2 steps make a minor
> second, and B# has the same pitch as Cb.
> Clear enough?
>
> Petr
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> You can configure your subscription by sending an empty email to one
> of these addresses (from the address at which you receive the list):
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--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "martinsj013" <martinsj@...> wrote:

> > > ... there is also a programme about Gesualdo on the BBC website
> > > now - could you do the same for this, or explain to me how
> > > to do it? ...
> >
> > What's the URL? ...
>
> yeah, that might help:
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00rs4rx
>
> Steve M.

Here 'tis!

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

I still wasn't sure I'd heard right in the Vicentino programme
that he'd "bumped off his wife". Guess so.

Remarkable: the BBC webpage says there are only 3 days left
to listen. Apparently the only kind of history they believe
in is the one that's playing right now.

-Carl

Probably good term for what Gesualdo did with her and her lover... Dark side of composer's life. Maybe one of the reason for his extravagant chromaticism :-)

Daniel Forro

On 8 Apr 2010, at 6:07 AM, Carl Lumma wrote:
> I still wasn't sure I'd heard right in the Vicentino programme
> that he'd "bumped off his wife". Guess so.
>

Thank you Carl.

Excellent program.

> Here 'tis!
>
> http://lumma.org/stuff/MusicMattersGesualdo.mp3
>
> I still wasn't sure I'd heard right in the Vicentino programme
> that he'd "bumped off his wife". Guess so.
>
> Remarkable: the BBC webpage says there are only 3 days left
> to listen. Apparently the only kind of history they believe
> in is the one that's playing right now.
>
> -Carl
>