Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup tuning Finding my scales in scala

Genewardsmith wrote:
> If you know the exact numbers you want in cents and can put them into
> Scala file format, you could find these yourself by using Scala's compare
> scales function. Otherwise, "ET" means 12 equal, with steps going 100.0
> 200.0 etc, Kirnberger might mean Kirnberger III, in the Scala directory as > kirnberger.scl, Werckmeister probably means Werckmeister III, in the
> directory as werck3.scl. Meantone is whatever they used for meantone, but
> it could be meanquar.scl. Pythagorean could be pyth.scl, pyth_12.scl,
> zwolle.scl, or ling-lun.scl, which are transpostions of the same scale. As
> for Just Minor and Just Major, various choices are possible. You might
> check out malcolm.scl.

Thanks Gene for that that gives me something to start on.
But (please pardon this) I find this quite something:

Wikipedia on just intonation seems to say as if there is one just scale
(recent edits seem to have diluted that)

My piano gives 2

And scala gives 3778 (and my 2 seem quite lost there :-) )

🔗Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>

Hi Rustom,

This answer is for a scala file directory being sorted by name.

There are about a dozen werkmeister starting at werck1.scl

There are about 5 kirnbergers starting at kirnberger.scl

There are 20 or 30 meantone variants starting at mean2nine.scl

There about a dozen Pythagorean starting with pyth_7a.scl - and there are 2
bohlen pierce variants to boot

As for the just major or minor - I'm not sure on the corresponding names
though I'd be pretty sure they are in there.

Have a good day,

Chris

On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 1:25 AM, Rustom Mody <rustompmody@...> wrote:

>
>
> Hello from a Noob!
>
> Im trying to find my way around scala and the scale (scl) directory has
> 3778 entries!!
>
> My piano has the following 7:
> 1. ET
> 2. Kirnberger
> 3. Werckmeister
> 4. Meantone
> 5. Pythagorean
> 6. Just major
> 7. Just minor
>
> Can someone please tell me where in those 3778 (if at all!) my 7 are
> located??
>
> Rustom
>
>
>

🔗Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>

🔗Rustom Mody <rustompmody@...>

--- On Wed, 6/2/10, Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...> wrote:

From: Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>
Subject: Re: [tuning] Re: Finding my scales in scala
To: tuning@yahoogroups.com
Date: Wednesday, June 2, 2010, 5:42 PM

There are a large number of subtle variations for particular tunings.

You can look at, for instance the werckmeister files, as being a

related "family" of tunings that share some properties.

If you can describe what in particular you want to do then perhaps we

can make some more meaningful suggestions.I wish it were that easy to ask correct questions!! Still let me try...When I first discovered that my keyboard had something called tunings/temperaments all I knew was that pythagorean was 'correct' and tempered was a 'bit off'. So I put it in pythagorean and played (Bach and Beethoven) -- didn't sound any better but slightly worse!! So I dropped it for a while.Later by some chance I played some Gurdjieff music in Just and it was beautiful as Ive never heard before! But there would be one or two chords that were quite off.So I started playing around with the others available -- kernberger, werckmeister and meantone. At first I found meantone absolutely horrible -- until I read somewhere that I was playing minor key pieces and for that it must be put in the relative major. Then I began to like meantone but in some different way from Kernberger and Werckmeister.So what is that difference? Can it be
quantified?
The other thing I want is similar rules for Werckmeister and Kernberger as the ones given for meantone. At the least -- Which minor keys are best (for a given root)? But its more complex than that. eg I find that G major pieces (eg Beethovens alla tedesca sonata) sound sweeter in Werckmeister-C than Werckmeister-G.I look at the way the numbers are distributed in them and I find that everything is flatter (than ET). Somehow this also does not make any sense to me.So is there some easy way to tell scala to transpose a scale? ie if I tune in Werckmeister-C and then use G as tonic how do the numbers work out?

Chris

On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 7:19 AM, Rustom Mody <rustompmody@...> wrote:

> Wikipedia on just intonation seems to say as if there is one just scale

> (recent edits seem to have diluted that)

> My piano gives 2

> And scala gives 3778 (and my 2 seem quite lost there :-) )

🔗Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>

Two answers,

1. this quantification of tunings is an on-going subject here. I can't
answer this at all but someone else might be able to help with what is
known so far.

2. Have you tried Lucy tunings? It is a meantone system where Charles
Lucy has created a bunch of transposed scala files.

http://www.lucytune.com/index.html

In specific the scala files are under the heading "Downloads for Logic"

http://www.lucytune.com/midi_and_keyboard/pitch_bend.html

The files have names with sections like 2b3s in them - which indicates
the tuning good for key signatures which contain 2 flats to 3 sharps
and in between.

Here is an example Lucy Tuned piece of mine
http://micro.soonlabel.com/lucy-vs-12tet/lucytuning001.mp3

and the corresponding 12 tet version

http://micro.soonlabel.com/lucy-vs-12tet/lucytuning001as12tet.mp3

Hope this is of some help.

Chris

> So I started playing around with the others available -- kernberger, werckmeister and meantone. At first I found meantone absolutely horrible -- until I read somewhere that I was playing minor key pieces and for that it must be put in the relative major. Then I began to like meantone but in some different way from Kernberger and Werckmeister.
>
> So what is that difference? Can it be quantified?
>
> The other thing I want is similar rules for Werckmeister and Kernberger as the ones given for meantone. At the least -- Which minor keys are best (for a given root)? But its more complex than that. eg I find that G major pieces (eg Beethovens alla tedesca sonata) sound sweeter in Werckmeister-C than Werckmeister-G.
>
> I look at the way the numbers are distributed in them and I find that everything is flatter (than ET). Somehow this also does not make any sense to me.
>
> So is there some easy way to tell scala to transpose a scale? ie if I tune in Werckmeister-C and then use G as tonic how do the numbers work out?

🔗Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...>

On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 12:05 PM, Rustom Mody <rustompmody@...> wrote:
>
> I wish it were that easy to ask correct questions!! Still let me try...
>
> When I first discovered that my keyboard had something called tunings/temperaments all I knew was that pythagorean was 'correct' and tempered was a 'bit off'. So I put it in pythagorean and played (Bach and Beethoven) -- didn't sound any better but slightly worse!! So I dropped it for a while.
>
> Later by some chance I played some Gurdjieff music in Just and it was beautiful as Ive never heard before! But there would be one or two chords that were quite off.

You have just discovered the tremendous annoyance that is the syntonic
comma. Congratulations.

Just intonation just refers to the practice of tuning intervals based
directly from the harmonic series. So a major third is the difference
between the fourth and fifth overtones of some fundamental, or a "5/4"
frequency ratio. 12-equal just picks 12 equally spaced notes per
octave because it "sort of hits" a lot of these overtone relationships
pretty well (generally up to the fifth one and in certain cases the
mysterious and elusive seventh one).

There is a term I'm going to borrow from the fitness community called
"broscience." Broscience is like... "Hey bro, I heard if you eat carbs
before you go to bed, it turns right into fat." Or "Hey bro, I heard
if you eat every 2 hours, your metabolism speeds up." These myths are
generally unsupported by the scientific literature, but they continue
to propagate through the vast network of bros out there.

The idea that Pythagorean tuning is the holy grail of tuning is
broscience (brotheory?). The notion that the problem with 12-equal is
that the fifths are a whopping 2 cents flat and that this
subconsciously alters the sound to be inferior is all wrong. The
problem is that the major thirds are ~14 cents sharp. And that its
approximations to upper overtones in the harmonic series are usually
pretty bad. The second problem is that with just intonation, 4 fifths
isn't SUPPOSED to equal a major third + some octaves. They're just
"rounded off" to the same note in 12-equal (and other "meantone"
tunings).

This is basically what you figured out when you started playing in
Pythagorean tuning and noticed it sounded awful (particularly the
major thirds).

Sincerely,
Bro

🔗Rustom Mody <rustompmody@...>

--- On Wed, 6/2/10, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:

From: Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...>
Subject: Re: [tuning] Finding my scales in scala
To: tuning@yahoogroups.com
Date: Wednesday, June 2, 2010, 10:06 PM

On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 12:05 PM, Rustom Mody <rustompmody@...> wrote:

> I wish it were that easy to ask correct questions!! Still let me try...

> When I first discovered that my keyboard had something called tunings/temperaments all I knew was that pythagorean was 'correct' and tempered was a 'bit off'. So I put it in pythagorean and played (Bach and Beethoven) -- didn't sound any better but slightly worse!! So I dropped it for a while.

> Later by some chance I played some Gurdjieff music in Just and it was beautiful as Ive never heard before! But there would be one or two chords that were quite off.

You have just discovered the tremendous annoyance that is the syntonic

comma. Congratulations.Minor annoyance is how I see (hear) it.Better an odd comma here and there than a layer of mud everywhere!The last time I went for a concert I ran out in the intermission because I found the (ET-tuned) piano so out of tune I could not sit.

Just intonation just refers to the practice of tuning intervals based

directly from the harmonic series. So a major third is the difference

between the fourth and fifth overtones of some fundamental, or a "5/4"

frequency ratio. 12-equal just picks 12 equally spaced notes per

octave because it "sort of hits" a lot of these overtone relationships

pretty well (generally up to the fifth one and in certain cases the

mysterious and elusive seventh one).

There is a term I'm going to borrow from the fitness community called

"broscience." Broscience is like... "Hey bro, I heard if you eat carbs

before you go to bed, it turns right into fat." Or "Hey bro, I heard

if you eat every 2 hours, your metabolism speeds up." These myths are

generally unsupported by the scientific literature, but they continue

to propagate through the vast network of bros out there.

The idea that Pythagorean tuning is the holy grail of tuning is

broscience (brotheory?). The notion that the problem with 12-equal is

that the fifths are a whopping 2 cents flat and that this

subconsciously alters the sound to be inferior is all wrong.
Well this is so mostly but at least in some cases it matters. eg Beethoven Waldstein sonata (3 mov) the G at the top sings in just and almost thuds in ET. Of course you could say that that G is on top of a cloud of C major arpeggio in the bass and its E is really whats causing the difference... Dunno... As far as I am concerned that < than 2 cents different G is something that I can hear.Which reminds me of another strange thing -- the f#. I generally prefer all the just notes except for the f# where I find the good-ol square-root-of-2 more consonant -- mystifies me.
The

problem is that the major thirds are ~14 cents sharp. And that its

approximations to upper overtones in the harmonic series are usually

pretty bad. The second problem is that with just intonation, 4 fifths

isn't SUPPOSED to equal a major third + some octaves. They're just

"rounded off" to the same note in 12-equal (and other "meantone"

tunings).

This is basically what you figured out when you started playing in

Pythagorean tuning and noticed it sounded awful (particularly the

major thirds).

Sincerely,

Bro:-)

Finding my scales in scala

🔗Rustom Mody <rustompmody@...>

🔗genewardsmith <genewardsmith@...>

🔗Rustom Mody <rustompmody@...>

🔗Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>

🔗Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>

🔗Rustom Mody <rustompmody@...>

🔗Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>

🔗Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...>

🔗Rustom Mody <rustompmody@...>