Madagascar[19]

I haven't presented any hobbit scales in a while, but this one is worth looking at if the recent discussion of island tempering and the Archipelago interested you. This is the 19-note hobbit Madagascar[19], for the rank three 13-limit madagscar temperament, which rates 15/13, 3/2 and 13/10 as lowest in complexity, and ends up with 10 barbados (1-13/10-3/2) triads, and ten inverted (1-15/13-3/2) barbados triads among many other things. It's also strictly proper and all that good stuff.

! madagascar19.scl
Madagascar[19] (19&53&58) hobbit in 313et tuning
19
!
65.17572
138.01917
184.02556
249.20128
314.37700
387.22045
452.39617
498.40256
563.57827
636.42173
701.59744
747.60383
812.77955
885.62300
950.79872
1015.97444
1061.98083
1134.82428
1200.00000
!
!! premadagascar19.scl
! Madagascar[19] transversal
! 19
!!
! 26/25
! 13/12
! 10/9
! 15/13
! 6/5
! 5/4
! 13/10
! 4/3
! 18/13
! 13/9
! 3/2
! 20/13
! 8/5
! 5/3
! 26/15
! 9/5
! 24/13
! 25/13
! 2/1

I just updated the hobbit scale folder on micro.soonlabel.com to include
this one and some others I had not got around to yet.

http://micro.soonlabel.com/hobbit_scales/

On Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 7:54 PM, genewardsmith
<genewardsmith@...>wrote:

>
>
> I haven't presented any hobbit scales in a while, but this one is worth
> looking at if the recent discussion of island tempering and the Archipelago
> interested you. This is the 19-note hobbit Madagascar[19], for the rank
> three 13-limit madagscar temperament, which rates 15/13, 3/2 and 13/10 as
> lowest in complexity, and ends up with 10 barbados (1-13/10-3/2) triads, and
> ten inverted (1-15/13-3/2) barbados triads among many other things. It's
> also strictly proper and all that good stuff.
>
> ! madagascar19.scl
> Madagascar[19] (19&53&58) hobbit in 313et tuning
> 19
> !
> 65.17572
> 138.01917
> 184.02556
> 249.20128
> 314.37700
> 387.22045
> 452.39617
> 498.40256
> 563.57827
> 636.42173
> 701.59744
> 747.60383
> 812.77955
> 885.62300
> 950.79872
> 1015.97444
> 1061.98083
> 1134.82428
> 1200.00000
> !
> !! premadagascar19.scl
> ! Madagascar[19] transversal
> ! 19
> !!
> ! 26/25
> ! 13/12
> ! 10/9
> ! 15/13
> ! 6/5
> ! 5/4
> ! 13/10
> ! 4/3
> ! 18/13
> ! 13/9
> ! 3/2
> ! 20/13
> ! 8/5
> ! 5/3
> ! 26/15
> ! 9/5
> ! 24/13
> ! 25/13
> ! 2/1
>
>
>

This is certainly very interesting stuff Gene and I trust you for that, but again, why giving geographic names to scales that have strictly nothing to see with the musical cultures of the concerned geographic areas ? This gets me mad !
Malagasy music is one of the microtonal tuning treasures of this planet, and I am just in love with it. Try marovany.scl and valiha.scl in the Ethno collection and you may have an idea of Madagascar popular traditional tunings for string instruments. To my knowledge, but I will appreciate contradiction if based on serious analysis, 15/13s and 13/10s are not something that relates much with Malagasy music.
Same thing with Barbados, that is a island of the Lesser Antilles. You may know the music they play there better than me, but I would be surprised they use semifourth pentatonics. On the contrary, not the funeral, but the feast pentatonic tuning of the West African Bala can't escape to the semifourth pentatonic as one of its models, if not the main and typical one.
I will just relate an anecdote about it :
Two Bala and Djembe fola girls near my place have a African music school, and two nice balafons they brought from Mali. They were going back to Burkina Faso and Mali and wanted to bring back more balafons. But how to have them tuned with the first instruments ?
I found that these tunings were super good and I said to them I would lend them a small tubular bell set they would be able to carry with them, to present to the Bala maker. This is what they did and they came back with 2 more balafons in tune with the first ones. But not with my little tubular bells carillon, because the luthier loved it so much that they gave it to him.
What was this tuning ?

! neutr_pent2.scl
!
Quasi-Neutral Pentatonic 2, 15/13 x 52/45 in each trichord, after Dudon
5
!
15/13
4/3
3/2
45/26
2/1

I found this model in many other African Balas, and I have also done plenty of music myself with sequences of those since the early years of my photosonic disks.
I said what are my names for them, now you guys can do what you want, but you won't get me in calling those "Barbados" tunings.
- - - - - - -
Jacques

Gene wrote :
> I haven't presented any hobbit scales in a while, but this one is > worth looking at if the recent discussion of island tempering and > the Archipelago interested you. This is the 19-note hobbit > Madagascar[19], for the rank three 13-limit madagscar temperament, > which rates 15/13, 3/2 and 13/10 as lowest in complexity, and ends > up with 10 barbados (1-13/10-3/2) triads, and ten inverted > (1-15/13-3/2) barbados triads among many other things.

On Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 6:40 AM, Jacques Dudon <fotosonix@...> wrote:
>
> This is certainly very interesting stuff Gene and I trust you for that, but again, why giving geographic names to scales that have strictly nothing to see with the musical cultures of the concerned geographic areas ? This gets me mad !
>
> Malagasy music is one of the microtonal tuning treasures of this planet, and I am just in love with it. Try marovany.scl and valiha.scl in the Ethno collection and you may have an idea of Madagascar popular traditional tunings for string instruments. To my knowledge, but I will appreciate contradiction if based on serious analysis, 15/13s and  13/10s are not something that relates much with Malagasy music.
> Same thing with Barbados, that is a island of the Lesser Antilles. You may know the music they play there better than me, but I would be surprised they use semifourth pentatonics. On the contrary, not the funeral, but the feast  pentatonic tuning of the West African Bala can't escape to the semifourth pentatonic as one of its models, if not the main and typical one.

Haha, I figured we'd run up against this issue sooner or later...
yikes. Looks like the fun's over.

-Mike

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Jacques Dudon <fotosonix@...> wrote:
>
> This is certainly very interesting stuff Gene and I trust you for
> that, but again, why giving geographic names to scales that have
> strictly nothing to see with the musical cultures of the concerned
> geographic areas ? This gets me mad !

I didn't choose "Barbados" or began the talk of islands, but once that began I want to locate names within a cluster of names. Naming the rank three 13-limit temperaments tempering out 676/675, I started from the largest island and associated it to the smallest badness figure, and went down the list. The exception is History, which Graham had already named, which corresponds to New Guinea. So, we have Greenland, History, Borneo, Madagascar and Baffin.

You are making the assumption that the only possible reason for using a geographic name is ethnological, which strikes me as unwarranted and based on your own particular interests. If you seriously objected to "Barbados" it would have been helpful to hear about it immediately, and not after so much effort has gone into promoting this "island" trope. I'm starting with composing in Madagascar temperament, so I hope that won't upset you. Personally, I like the name.

> ! neutr_pent2.scl
> !
> Quasi-Neutral Pentatonic 2, 15/13 x 52/45 in each trichord, after Dudon

Interesting!

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

> You are making the assumption that the only possible reason for
> using a geographic name is ethnological, which strikes me as
> unwarranted

At best. -Carl

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "genewardsmith" <genewardsmith@...> wrote:
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Jacques Dudon <fotosonix@> wrote:
> >
> > This is certainly very interesting stuff Gene and I trust you for
> > that, but again, why giving geographic names to scales that have
> > strictly nothing to see with the musical cultures of the concerned
> > geographic areas ? This gets me mad !
>
> I didn't choose "Barbados" or began the talk of islands,
but once that began I want to locate names within a cluster of names. Naming the rank three 13-limit temperaments tempering out 676/675, I started from the largest island and associated it to the smallest badness figure, and went down the list. The exception is History, which Graham had already named, which corresponds to New Guinea. So, we have Greenland, History, Borneo, Madagascar and Baffin.

I know, and I don't address to you nor anyone in particular here, I understand this logic and it's fine with me. I only say that if everyone starts to use common geographical names for any tuning that does not relates with the concerned areas, this can be extremely confusing. There are billions of beautiful names that aren't.

> You are making the assumption that the only possible reason for using a geographic name is ethnological, which strikes me as unwarranted and based on your own particular interests.

The interest of the people of every area of this planet and their musical culture is my interest, certainly. And many of their tunings are microtonal endangered species. Heavens, is it something I need to argue on the Tuning List ?

> If you seriously objected to "Barbados" it would have been helpful to hear about it immediately,

I expressed myself. Who did answer ?

>and not after so much effort has gone into promoting this "island" trope.

Note that I have no problem with the "Island" metaphore in itself.

>I'm starting with composing in Madagascar temperament, so I hope that won't upset you.

Certainly not Gene. Sounds like a pretty palette and Malagasy people are honored.

>Personally, I like the name.

Me too. Leaves you dreaming...
Except that the french are known to have created some diplomatic incidents overthere ! ;-D
- - - -
Jacques

Mike,
My point is just a request for a little more coherence in the alternative microtonal systems we propose.
Not only for our community of microtonalists, but for the whole world, who already has a long microtonal tradition. This deserves more than a mockery I think.
Anything else is not the point, or lets talk about it offlist if you want.
- - - - - - -
Jacques

Mike wrote :

> Haha, I figured we'd run up against this issue sooner or later...
> yikes. Looks like the fun's over.
>
> -Mike