Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup tuning One more example, of the Highest Musickal Caliber

Hello friends, countrymen,

I decided to one more listening test. This one is just a few chords,
no score to follow, and everything is in JI. It is, however,
admittedly, very undanceable. Here you go:

http://www.mikebattagliamusic.com/music/hightonalness.mp3

These are the chords played:

1/1 - 6/5 - 3/2 - 15/8 - 9/4 (a just minor9/maj7 chord)
1/1 - 6/5 - 3/2 - 15/8 - 9/4 - 11/4 (a just minor9/maj7 chord with 11/4 on top)
1/1 - 6/5 - 3/2 - 15/8 - 9/4 - 11/4 - 13/4 (a just minor9/maj7 chord
with 11/4 and 13/4 on top)
1/1 - 6/5 - 3/2 - 15/8 - 9/4 - 11/4 - 13/4 - 7/2 (hey, are you still
reading this?)

And the last one:

1/1 - 6/5 - 3/2 - 7/4 - 9/4 - 11/4 - 13/4 - 15/4 (so the full 15-limit
octad, but with 5/4 replaced with 6/5)

By the time you get to that second to last chord, things are sounding
pretty tonal. I hear the low "C" VF popping out audibly. However, I
still hear it as "minor" in the sense that it shares whatever
fundamental quality with the diatonic minor triad that makes it
"minor" to begin with. The fact that the second-last chord so strongly
refers to that C, but that there's the minor third above it, makes it
sound almost sinister to my ears.

I initially didn't want to do the last chord because I thought the
wolf fifth between 6/5 and 7/4 would sound "Bad." But I then threw in
the last last chord, and it didn't sound too bad. I find this one is a
bit less "sinister" than the last one, very mellow to my ears. But I
would still say that it sounds predominantly "minor," despite being
the most tonal of the whole lot. Thus I would say that low
tonalness/low roughness is just one quality that the diatonic minor
triad has (which the supermajor triad can break into moments of
sharing), but that it isn't the most fundamental in defining its
character.

How do you all hear it?

-Mike

I hear only the first chord as minor, the rest as mixtures of moods.
I also hear the virtual fundamental popping out very strongly in the last chords, in fact I first thought you'd dropped your left pinky down onto the fundamental an octave below.

That timbre though... I see you're taking "highest caliber" in its original, military, sense.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> Hello friends, countrymen,
>
> I decided to one more listening test. This one is just a few chords,
> no score to follow, and everything is in JI. It is, however,
> admittedly, very undanceable. Here you go:
>
> http://www.mikebattagliamusic.com/music/hightonalness.mp3
>
> These are the chords played:
>
> 1/1 - 6/5 - 3/2 - 15/8 - 9/4 (a just minor9/maj7 chord)
> 1/1 - 6/5 - 3/2 - 15/8 - 9/4 - 11/4 (a just minor9/maj7 chord with 11/4 on top)
> 1/1 - 6/5 - 3/2 - 15/8 - 9/4 - 11/4 - 13/4 (a just minor9/maj7 chord
> with 11/4 and 13/4 on top)
> 1/1 - 6/5 - 3/2 - 15/8 - 9/4 - 11/4 - 13/4 - 7/2 (hey, are you still
> reading this?)
>
> And the last one:
>
> 1/1 - 6/5 - 3/2 - 7/4 - 9/4 - 11/4 - 13/4 - 15/4 (so the full 15-limit
> octad, but with 5/4 replaced with 6/5)
>
> By the time you get to that second to last chord, things are sounding
> pretty tonal. I hear the low "C" VF popping out audibly. However, I
> still hear it as "minor" in the sense that it shares whatever
> fundamental quality with the diatonic minor triad that makes it
> "minor" to begin with. The fact that the second-last chord so strongly
> refers to that C, but that there's the minor third above it, makes it
> sound almost sinister to my ears.
>
> I initially didn't want to do the last chord because I thought the
> wolf fifth between 6/5 and 7/4 would sound "Bad." But I then threw in
> the last last chord, and it didn't sound too bad. I find this one is a
> bit less "sinister" than the last one, very mellow to my ears. But I
> would still say that it sounds predominantly "minor," despite being
> the most tonal of the whole lot. Thus I would say that low
> tonalness/low roughness is just one quality that the diatonic minor
> triad has (which the supermajor triad can break into moments of
> sharing), but that it isn't the most fundamental in defining its
> character.
>
> How do you all hear it?
>
> -Mike
>

Mike wrote:
> I decided to one more listening test. This one is just a few chords,
> no score to follow, and everything is in JI. It is, however,
> admittedly, very undanceable. Here you go:
>
> http://www.mikebattagliamusic.com/music/hightonalness.mp3

In my case, everything but the last chord sounds
rather nontonal, and the last chord sounds tonal.

> However, I
> still hear it as "minor" in the sense that it shares whatever
> fundamental quality with the diatonic minor triad that makes it
> "minor" to begin with.

I hear the last chord as tonal (major). All the others,
not so much.

-Carl

can I run these through Paul's extreme stretch?

I have a feeling that would be an interesting thing to do.

On Wed, Sep 15, 2010 at 7:59 PM, Carl Lumma <carl@...> wrote:

>
>
> Mike wrote:
> > I decided to one more listening test. This one is just a few chords,
> > no score to follow, and everything is in JI. It is, however,
> > admittedly, very undanceable. Here you go:
> >
> > http://www.mikebattagliamusic.com/music/hightonalness.mp3
>
> In my case, everything but the last chord sounds
> rather nontonal, and the last chord sounds tonal.
>
>
> > However, I
> > still hear it as "minor" in the sense that it shares whatever
> > fundamental quality with the diatonic minor triad that makes it
> > "minor" to begin with.
>
> I hear the last chord as tonal (major). All the others,
> not so much.
>
> -Carl
>
>
>

> How do you all hear it?

The last chord was the most major sounding, with a strong fundamental rooted feeling and otonal-style fusion.

Hi everyone,

Thanks for your responses. I'm actually really surprised, because I
hear every single chord as "minor" as far as the usual definition of
the word goes. I do hear the last ones as very otonal and fused, but I
still hear them as retaining some kind of "minor" sound, presumably
because of the minor third.

I have made one more example, but first I would like to clarify what I
am asking in this case, as apparently I am prone to miscommunication
with these examples :)

I am trying to study common practice harmony, specifically "major" and
"minor," to determine exactly what they are and how the (somewhat
oversimplified) "happy/sad" feelings emerge from each triad. Although
I recognize that there are plenty of other xenharmonic chords out
there, for the purposes of this I'd like to limit this example only to
major/minor triads, a la common practice harmony. Although I recognize
that major chords aren't really "happy," and minor chords aren't
really "sad," for the purposes of this discussion I'm going to use
those words, because those are the only words that I know how to use
in this case.

A dominant seventh chord, a major sixth chord, and a major seventh
chord all have different moods and feelings, but they still sound like
diverging members of the "major" family. What sounds radically
different from these are minor seventh chords, minor sixth chords, and
minor/major 7 chords. These sound like diverging members of the
"minor" family. What they have in common is that they have a minor
triad at the bottom with an extension on top further defining the
sound, as do the major family ones with the major triad. And the minor
triad ones all sound like different variations on the theme of
"sadness" when played in isolation, although sometimes you can get
them to sound differently (m7 chords especially).

Carl threw out the idea that the sadness of the minor chord inherently
comes from its properties of being nontonal yet not rough, making it
stable in one way but not in another, which somehow leads to sadness.
So for these examples, to test this theory, I have played a 5-limit
just minor triad and added some xenharmonic extensions on top, which
are otonal extensions of 1/1. This makes the chord sound very tonal
and rooted, but still to me sounding like a member of the "minor"
family in the same way that minor 6, minor 7, and minor/maj7 chords
are. In my world they all share the same characteristic "minor"
feeling.

So here's the new example: I took the last two chords from the old
example, which everyone said sounded the most "otonal." I took them
and replaced the 6/5 in each example with 5/4, which makes them sound
more "major" to me in the sense that I defined it above. Then I flip
back between 5/4 and 6/5 a few times, ending on 6/5.

Your job is to tell me if you hear the chords as flipping back and
forth between "major with some xenharmonic extensions" and "minor with
some xenharmonic extensions," or if you hear them as major both times.
Or, in the second case, if you hear them as flipping back and forth
between "one huge 15-limit otonality" and "one huge 15-limit otonality
pointing to a minor chord", or something to that effect.

And now, the link:

http://www.mikebattagliamusic.com/music/majminxenharmonic.mp3

-Mike

On Wed, Sep 15, 2010 at 6:38 PM, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
> Hello friends, countrymen,
>
> I decided to one more listening test. This one is just a few chords,
> no score to follow, and everything is in JI. It is, however,
> admittedly, very undanceable. Here you go:
>
> http://www.mikebattagliamusic.com/music/hightonalness.mp3
>
> These are the chords played:
>
> 1/1 - 6/5 - 3/2 - 15/8 - 9/4 (a just minor9/maj7 chord)
> 1/1 - 6/5 - 3/2 - 15/8 - 9/4 - 11/4 (a just minor9/maj7 chord with 11/4 on top)
> 1/1 - 6/5 - 3/2 - 15/8 - 9/4 - 11/4 - 13/4 (a just minor9/maj7 chord
> with 11/4 and 13/4 on top)
> 1/1 - 6/5 - 3/2 - 15/8 - 9/4 - 11/4 - 13/4 - 7/2 (hey, are you still
> reading this?)
>
> And the last one:
>
> 1/1 - 6/5 - 3/2 - 7/4 - 9/4 - 11/4 - 13/4 - 15/4 (so the full 15-limit
> octad, but with 5/4 replaced with 6/5)
>
> By the time you get to that second to last chord, things are sounding
> pretty tonal. I hear the low "C" VF popping out audibly. However, I
> still hear it as "minor" in the sense that it shares whatever
> fundamental quality with the diatonic minor triad that makes it
> "minor" to begin with. The fact that the second-last chord so strongly
> refers to that C, but that there's the minor third above it, makes it
> sound almost sinister to my ears.
>
> I initially didn't want to do the last chord because I thought the
> wolf fifth between 6/5 and 7/4 would sound "Bad." But I then threw in
> the last last chord, and it didn't sound too bad. I find this one is a
> bit less "sinister" than the last one, very mellow to my ears. But I
> would still say that it sounds predominantly "minor," despite being
> the most tonal of the whole lot. Thus I would say that low
> tonalness/low roughness is just one quality that the diatonic minor
> triad has (which the supermajor triad can break into moments of
> sharing), but that it isn't the most fundamental in defining its
> character.
>
> How do you all hear it?
>
> -Mike
>

I mostly agree with Cameron. Generally, for me, only the minor triad is truly "minor"--not just in this example but in "regular" music too. When we get beyond triads, i.e. into seventh or sixth chords, the emotional content becomes a lot more complex. Maj7 chords, for instance, are sort of "wistful" or "bittersweet", maybe a little pensive or melancholy. Min7 chords are not sad at all, but "open" and kind of "floaty" or "dream-like". Dom7 chords have a swagger to them, they're rather brazen and tough, angry even. Min-Maj7 chords are just weird, kind of confused and angry and sad all at once.

As an aside: regardless of how "tonal" a 4:5:6:7 chord is, I've never been able to hear it as resolved, i.e. as the final chord in a cadence. Are there any non-blues/non-jazz musical examples out there that resolve to it? And definitely FWIW, a 4:5:6:7:9:11:13 chord does nothing for me emotionally. I hear it as just noise. It means nothing to my ears.

It is interesting that when it comes to "major" intervals, the Maj2's, Maj3's, and Maj6's all sound "happy" to me, i.e. distinctly "majory", but Maj7's definitely have a sadness to them. I wonder from whence this phenomenon arises? Could it be because the Maj7 is the only Major interval with a higher H.E. than its Minor counterpart?

-Igs

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "cameron" <misterbobro@...> wrote:
>
> I hear only the first chord as minor, the rest as mixtures of moods.
> I also hear the virtual fundamental popping out very strongly in the last chords, in fact I first thought you'd dropped your left pinky down onto the fundamental an octave below.
>
> That timbre though... I see you're taking "highest caliber" in its original, military, sense.
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@> wrote:
> >
> > Hello friends, countrymen,
> >
> > I decided to one more listening test. This one is just a few chords,
> > no score to follow, and everything is in JI. It is, however,
> > admittedly, very undanceable. Here you go:
> >
> > http://www.mikebattagliamusic.com/music/hightonalness.mp3
> >
> > These are the chords played:
> >
> > 1/1 - 6/5 - 3/2 - 15/8 - 9/4 (a just minor9/maj7 chord)
> > 1/1 - 6/5 - 3/2 - 15/8 - 9/4 - 11/4 (a just minor9/maj7 chord with 11/4 on top)
> > 1/1 - 6/5 - 3/2 - 15/8 - 9/4 - 11/4 - 13/4 (a just minor9/maj7 chord
> > with 11/4 and 13/4 on top)
> > 1/1 - 6/5 - 3/2 - 15/8 - 9/4 - 11/4 - 13/4 - 7/2 (hey, are you still
> > reading this?)
> >
> > And the last one:
> >
> > 1/1 - 6/5 - 3/2 - 7/4 - 9/4 - 11/4 - 13/4 - 15/4 (so the full 15-limit
> > octad, but with 5/4 replaced with 6/5)
> >
> > By the time you get to that second to last chord, things are sounding
> > pretty tonal. I hear the low "C" VF popping out audibly. However, I
> > still hear it as "minor" in the sense that it shares whatever
> > fundamental quality with the diatonic minor triad that makes it
> > "minor" to begin with. The fact that the second-last chord so strongly
> > refers to that C, but that there's the minor third above it, makes it
> > sound almost sinister to my ears.
> >
> > I initially didn't want to do the last chord because I thought the
> > wolf fifth between 6/5 and 7/4 would sound "Bad." But I then threw in
> > the last last chord, and it didn't sound too bad. I find this one is a
> > bit less "sinister" than the last one, very mellow to my ears. But I
> > would still say that it sounds predominantly "minor," despite being
> > the most tonal of the whole lot. Thus I would say that low
> > tonalness/low roughness is just one quality that the diatonic minor
> > triad has (which the supermajor triad can break into moments of
> > sharing), but that it isn't the most fundamental in defining its
> > character.
> >
> > How do you all hear it?
> >
> > -Mike
> >
>

On Thu, Sep 16, 2010 at 12:12 AM, cityoftheasleep
<igliashon@...> wrote:
>
> I mostly agree with Cameron. Generally, for me, only the minor triad is truly "minor"--not just in this example but in "regular" music too. When we get beyond triads, i.e. into seventh or sixth chords, the emotional content becomes a lot more complex. Maj7 chords, for instance, are sort of "wistful" or "bittersweet", maybe a little pensive or melancholy. Min7 chords are not sad at all, but "open" and kind of "floaty" or "dream-like". Dom7 chords have a swagger to them, they're rather brazen and tough, angry even. Min-Maj7 chords are just weird, kind of confused and angry and sad all at once.

Yes, of course. That isn't the point. We're all intelligent here, we
know that maj and min aren't really happy and sad. Min7 chords can
sound "chilled out" and "cool" a la Come Together by the beatles.
Min-maj7 chords sound like despair to me. I hear dom7 chords as bright
and sunny.

Read my reply that I just wrote - the point is I'm just using "happy"
and "sad" to point to a qualitative phenomenon that I have no other
word for. When I started using "majorness" and "minorness," people
started ascribing those words to a totally different phenomenon, e.g.
tonalness and nontonalness. So there has to be some set of words I can
use...

I'd be interested to hear your impressions of my second example.

> As an aside: regardless of how "tonal" a 4:5:6:7 chord is, I've never been able to hear it as resolved, i.e. as the final chord in a cadence. Are there any non-blues/non-jazz musical examples out there that resolve to it? And definitely FWIW, a 4:5:6:7:9:11:13 chord does nothing for me emotionally. I hear it as just noise. It means nothing to my ears.

Does motown count?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdvITn5cAVc

> It is interesting that when it comes to "major" intervals, the Maj2's, Maj3's, and Maj6's all sound "happy" to me, i.e. distinctly "majory", but Maj7's definitely have a sadness to them. I wonder from whence this phenomenon arises? Could it be because the Maj7 is the only Major interval with a higher H.E. than its Minor counterpart?

From whence, you say? I'm not sure, but maj9#11 chords sound even
happier and sadder, they're so happy that they're cathartically sad.
This is the characteristic of the lydian mode.

-Mike

On Thu, Sep 16, 2010 at 12:24 AM, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 16, 2010 at 12:12 AM, cityoftheasleep
> <igliashon@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>> As an aside: regardless of how "tonal" a 4:5:6:7 chord is, I've never been able to hear it as resolved, i.e. as the final chord in a cadence. Are there any non-blues/non-jazz musical examples out there that resolve to it? And definitely FWIW, a 4:5:6:7:9:11:13 chord does nothing for me emotionally. I hear it as just noise. It means nothing to my ears.
>
> Does motown count?
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdvITn5cAVc

Sorry, I didn't realize you meant 4:5:6:7 intoned justly.

If you take 12-tet to be a type of dominant temperament, then yes, I
know of a lot of pop/rock songs where the sonority of the I chord is
dominant. But if you mean 4:5:6:7, then I dunno... Not sure where
you'd find that in jazz either.

-Mike

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> So for these examples, to test this theory, I have played a 5-limit
> just minor triad and added some xenharmonic extensions on top, which
> are otonal extensions of 1/1. This makes the chord sound very tonal
> and rooted, but still to me sounding like a member of the "minor"
> family in the same way that minor 6, minor 7, and minor/maj7 chords
> are. In my world they all share the same characteristic "minor"
> feeling.

What feeling do you get out of the 5/4-5/4-9/7 chord in marvel temperament (for instance, as obtained from tuning in 197et?) This doesn't sound minor to me, but it also doesn't sound rooted.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:

> Or, in the second case, if you hear them as flipping back and forth
> between "one huge 15-limit otonality" and "one huge 15-limit otonality
> pointing to a minor chord", or something to that effect.

That's about it.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "cityoftheasleep" <igliashon@...> wrote:

Much of my output for starters.

On Thu, Sep 16, 2010 at 5:01 AM, genewardsmith
<genewardsmith@...> wrote:
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
> >
> > So for these examples, to test this theory, I have played a 5-limit
> > just minor triad and added some xenharmonic extensions on top, which
> > are otonal extensions of 1/1. This makes the chord sound very tonal
> > and rooted, but still to me sounding like a member of the "minor"
> > family in the same way that minor 6, minor 7, and minor/maj7 chords
> > are. In my world they all share the same characteristic "minor"
> > feeling.
>
> What feeling do you get out of the 5/4-5/4-9/7 chord in marvel temperament (for instance, as obtained from tuning in 197et?) This doesn't sound minor to me, but it also doesn't sound rooted.

It sounds "augmented" in the diatonic/12-tet sense, but in a slightly
more "rooted" or more "consonant" way. Compared to 12-tet, the bottom
two intervals sound a bit "warmer" or "darker," similar to 19-tet's
major thirds, but the top one is much "brighter." I don't hear a
major/minor distinction from it, but I do from 7:9:11 and its utonal
inversion and from 9:11:13 and its utonal inversion, although I don't
know how to tell that from placebo anymore... The fact that I can bias
myself so strongly to hear intervals as other intervals suggests to me
that meaning still arises from some type of categorical perception.

> > Or, in the second case, if you hear them as flipping back and forth
> > between "one huge 15-limit otonality" and "one huge 15-limit otonality
> > pointing to a minor chord", or something to that effect.

> That's about it.

Me too. It's an awesome chord, and I'm going to use it a lot from now
on :) Can't believe I never investigated minor chords with subminor
sevenths before.

Despite what I just said about categorical perception, something about
Carl's theory makes sense, so I'm just going to investigate it
entirely in parallel. But I think in light of this it needs to be
modified; the presence of tonalness doesn't destroy minorness, but
perhaps the creation of polytonalness can create it, or at least a
generalized version of it.

-Mike

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "genewardsmith" <genewardsmith@...> wrote:
>
> Much of my output for starters.
>

Can you link me to a few representative pieces?

-Igs

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "cityoftheasleep" <igliashon@...> wrote:

I'm not sure if this counts as a cadence but try:

1/1 21/16 3/2 7/4
1/1 5/4 3/2 7/4

or if you tune C=1/1, E=5/4, F=21/16, G=3/2, Bb=7/4:

C F G Bb
C E G Bb

for a nice voicing try:

3/4 3/2 2/1 21/8 7/2
1/1 3/2 2/1 5/2 7/2

G G C F Bb
C G C E Bb

now add an Eb=19/4 on top of that. Oops, that starts to sound
really jazzy!

> And definitely FWIW, a 4:5:6:7:9:11:13 chord does nothing for me
emotionally. I hear it as just noise.

Just noise? A pun, perhaps? :D

Kalle

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "cityoftheasleep" <igliashon@...> wrote:
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "genewardsmith" <genewardsmith@> wrote:
> >
> > Much of my output for starters.
> >
>
> Can you link me to a few representative pieces?

http://www.archive.org/details/RachmaninoffPlaysBlackjack

http://www.archive.org/details/Choraled

http://www.archive.org/details/BodaciousBreed

I'm afraid I haven't gotten some other relevant pieces up there yet.

I like Rachman a lot. The way it's anchored in something like an O-tonality and keeps making radical departures.

I like the three parts. At the beginning of each one, I thought it was a different piece at first, then I heard the connection.

-c

On Sep 17, 2010, at 8:14 AM, genewardsmith wrote:

>
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "cityoftheasleep" <igliashon@...> wrote:
> >
> > --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "genewardsmith" <genewardsmith@> wrote:
> > >
> > > Much of my output for starters.
> > >
> >
> > Can you link me to a few representative pieces?
>
> http://www.archive.org/details/RachmaninoffPlaysBlackjack
>
> http://www.archive.org/details/Choraled
>
> http://www.archive.org/details/BodaciousBreed
>
> I'm afraid I haven't gotten some other relevant pieces up there yet.
>
>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, caleb morgan <calebmrgn@...> wrote:
>
> I like Rachman a lot. The way it's anchored in something like an O-tonality and keeps making radical departures.
>
> I like the three parts. At the beginning of each one, I thought it was a different piece at first, then I heard the connection.

Thanks! I've uploaded some more 7-limit stuff:

http://www.archive.org/details/ClintonVariations

http://www.archive.org/details/StainedGlass

And I could have included:

http://www.archive.org/details/NonagintaEtNovem

http://www.archive.org/details/Kotekant