Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup tuning Neutral Listening Test

Hi Gang,

In my folder in the "files" section, you will find four .mp3 files called "Neutral 1", "Neutral 2", "Neutral 3", and "Neutral 4". These are just some short little melodic diddles in a variety of neutral-esque scales, meant to see if people can actually tell by listening how the neutral intervals are tuned. I used four EDO-based scales:

24-EDO:
0
150
350
500
700
850
1050
1200

26-EDO
0
138
369
507
693
831
1062
1200

27-EDO
0
133.3
355.6
488.9
711.1
844.4
1066.7
1200

36-EDO
0
133.3
366.7
500
700
833.3
1066.7
1200

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to "name the tuning" of each track. No cheating! And you should give yourself no more than four or five listens to each track, because if the difference in tuning is obvious enough to matter, it should only take you that many listens to get it.

-Igs

🔗lobawad <lobawad@...>

I'm guess 27, 24, 26, 36.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "cityoftheasleep" <igliashon@...> wrote:
>
> Hi Gang,
>
> In my folder in the "files" section, you will find four .mp3 files called "Neutral 1", "Neutral 2", "Neutral 3", and "Neutral 4". These are just some short little melodic diddles in a variety of neutral-esque scales, meant to see if people can actually tell by listening how the neutral intervals are tuned. I used four EDO-based scales:
>
> 24-EDO:
> 0
> 150
> 350
> 500
> 700
> 850
> 1050
> 1200
>
> 26-EDO
> 0
> 138
> 369
> 507
> 693
> 831
> 1062
> 1200
>
> 27-EDO
> 0
> 133.3
> 355.6
> 488.9
> 711.1
> 844.4
> 1066.7
> 1200
>
> 36-EDO
> 0
> 133.3
> 366.7
> 500
> 700
> 833.3
> 1066.7
> 1200
>
> Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to "name the tuning" of each track. No cheating! And you should give yourself no more than four or five listens to each track, because if the difference in tuning is obvious enough to matter, it should only take you that many listens to get it.
>
> -Igs
>

🔗genewardsmith <genewardsmith@...>

🔗Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...>

Igs - Will get to this, too swamped with work now. And also, if you
check out tuning-math, I just found all of the proper near-MOS's of
porcupine in 15 and 22-tet and they're blowing my mind right now.

-Mike

On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 6:47 PM, cityoftheasleep
<igliashon@...> wrote:
>
> Hi Gang,
>
> In my folder in the "files" section, you will find four .mp3 files called "Neutral 1", "Neutral 2", "Neutral 3", and "Neutral 4". These are just some short little melodic diddles in a variety of neutral-esque scales, meant to see if people can actually tell by listening how the neutral intervals are tuned. I used four EDO-based scales:
>
> 24-EDO:
> 0
> 150
> 350
> 500
> 700
> 850
> 1050
> 1200
>
> 26-EDO
> 0
> 138
> 369
> 507
> 693
> 831
> 1062
> 1200
>
> 27-EDO
> 0
> 133.3
> 355.6
> 488.9
> 711.1
> 844.4
> 1066.7
> 1200
>
> 36-EDO
> 0
> 133.3
> 366.7
> 500
> 700
> 833.3
> 1066.7
> 1200
>
> Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to "name the tuning" of each track. No cheating! And you should give yourself no more than four or five listens to each track, because if the difference in tuning is obvious enough to matter, it should only take you that many listens to get it.
>
> -Igs

🔗genewardsmith <genewardsmith@...>

🔗Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...>

On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 7:54 PM, genewardsmith
<genewardsmith@...> wrote:
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
> >
> > Igs - Will get to this, too swamped with work now. And also, if you
> > check out tuning-math, I just found all of the proper near-MOS's of
> > porcupine in 15 and 22-tet and they're blowing my mind right now.
>
> Are you operating on the theory that near-MOS and MOSMOS are different? Can you give your definition of near-MOS again, because I thought it was the same thing.

I think they are the same thing. On the xenharmonic wiki, I called the
new page "near-MOS" because that was the term that I first heard when
Carl introduced the concept to me ages ago. If you were calling it
MODMOS first before I joined the list then let's change it to that.

Right now I have near-MOS defined very loosely: any time you start
with an MOS and start chromatically altering notes, that's a near-MOS
(provided you don't just alter them to give you another MOS). The idea
is, however, that if you start making too many alterations, your scale
will stop looking like a chromatically altered version of the original
MOS, and start looking like another scale. I haven't defined any
cutoff for when it stops being a near-MOS of the original scale and
starts being a new scale; what you want to call it is up to you.

Here's an example, if you start with 12-tet mixolydian - C D E F G A
Bb C - and you alter the F to F#, giving you mixo #4/lydian dominant,
which is a mode of melodic minor - C D E F# G A Bb C - and then you
decide you also want to sharp the 2, you now end up with C D# E F# G A
Bb C, which is an improper scale that probably makes more sense if
viewed as a subset of the octatonic scale, C C# D# E F# G A Bb C,
which is proper. And this is precisely what jazz musicians tend to do
in this situation: if I'm given a C7#9#11nat13 chord, I'm going to
play the C octatonic scale over that, or else Shelly Berg will fail me
for the semester (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelly_Berg). So in
this case, the second alteration makes more sense if it's thought of
as transforming the scale into a subset of the octatonic scale, but
you can still think of it as a near-MOS of meantone if you want. This
situation obviously runs up more often if you're working within an
equal temperament.

I've just suggested that, as a rough guideline, that if you make more
than two scale alterations to a scale, it's probably best to start
viewing it as a separate scale instead of a near-MOS. This might be
too restrictive for something like miracle[10], though.

-Mike

🔗cityoftheasleep <igliashon@...>

🔗Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...>

My guess is:
1) 27-EDO
2) 24-EDO
3) 26-EDO
4) 36-EDO

I made the following charts for reference:
24-EDO: 150 200 150 200 150 200 150 - sLsLsLs
26-EDO: 138 231 138 186 138 231 138 - sLsMsLs
27-EDO: 133 222 133 222 133 222 133 - sLsLsLs
36-EDO: 133 233 133 200 133 233 133 - sLsMsLs

I went by whether that interval in the middle was an M or just another
L, and also if the first trichord sounded more to me like C Db E or C
Dv E. I will admit that it was a pretty hard exercise; I'm not all
that familiar with 26-EDO. In contrast, the 27-EDO one seemed obvious.

This was fun, although I don't see how what point this proves about
maqam intonation - this is kind of like saying that western music
isn't in meantone by playing examples in Werckmeister I-IV or
something. And as far as barging in with a western mentality and
making a wreck of maqam theory goes, at maqamworld.com, which is a
site that's maintained by actual maqam practitioners, they just talk
about using a whole step in both cases, so I don't know if they'd be
down to use two different sizes of whole tone. I'm also curious to see
what they'd make of the examples. But this was a fun exercise, thanks
for posting this.

-Mike

🔗Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...>

🔗genewardsmith <genewardsmith@...>

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

> I think they are the same thing. On the xenharmonic wiki, I called the
> new page "near-MOS" because that was the term that I first heard when
> Carl introduced the concept to me ages ago. If you were calling it
> MODMOS first before I joined the list then let's change it to that.

What a headache. MODMOS is the older term, but I'll need to look at your page to see how to fit ideas together. Moving the page to "MODMOS and near-MOS scales" plus some editing might do it. Also, you are using N-MOS, which is a term relevant to this issue in another sense, also defined some time back.

🔗Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...>

On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 3:49 AM, genewardsmith
<genewardsmith@...> wrote:
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> > I think they are the same thing. On the xenharmonic wiki, I called the
> > new page "near-MOS" because that was the term that I first heard when
> > Carl introduced the concept to me ages ago. If you were calling it
> > MODMOS first before I joined the list then let's change it to that.
>
> What a headache. MODMOS is the older term, but I'll need to look at your page to see how to fit ideas together. Moving the page to "MODMOS and near-MOS scales" plus some editing might do it. Also, you are using N-MOS, which is a term relevant to this issue in another sense, also defined some time back.

What do the three terms mean? It is important to the concept that I'm
trying to communicate that these ___-MOS scales, at least the ones
that I want to explore, can lie more than one chromatic alteration
adjacent to the original scale, which will become especially important
when we start looking at ____-MOS's of scales that have a lot of
notes, like orwell or miracle or something.

-Mike

🔗lobawad <lobawad@...>

So, same guesses as mine.

The test doesn't prove anything of course. The main thing is, musically, the examples have different "feels" to them.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 6:47 PM, cityoftheasleep
> <igliashon@...> wrote:
> >
> > Hi Gang,
> >
> > In my folder in the "files" section, you will find four .mp3 files called "Neutral 1", "Neutral 2", "Neutral 3", and "Neutral 4". These are just some short little melodic diddles in a variety of neutral-esque scales, meant to see if people can actually tell by listening how the neutral intervals are tuned. I used four EDO-based scales:
>
> My guess is:
> 1) 27-EDO
> 2) 24-EDO
> 3) 26-EDO
> 4) 36-EDO
>
> I made the following charts for reference:
> 24-EDO: 150 200 150 200 150 200 150 - sLsLsLs
> 26-EDO: 138 231 138 186 138 231 138 - sLsMsLs
> 27-EDO: 133 222 133 222 133 222 133 - sLsLsLs
> 36-EDO: 133 233 133 200 133 233 133 - sLsMsLs
>
> I went by whether that interval in the middle was an M or just another
> L, and also if the first trichord sounded more to me like C Db E or C
> Dv E. I will admit that it was a pretty hard exercise; I'm not all
> that familiar with 26-EDO. In contrast, the 27-EDO one seemed obvious.
>
> This was fun, although I don't see how what point this proves about
> maqam intonation - this is kind of like saying that western music
> isn't in meantone by playing examples in Werckmeister I-IV or
> something. And as far as barging in with a western mentality and
> making a wreck of maqam theory goes, at maqamworld.com, which is a
> site that's maintained by actual maqam practitioners, they just talk
> about using a whole step in both cases, so I don't know if they'd be
> down to use two different sizes of whole tone. I'm also curious to see
> what they'd make of the examples. But this was a fun exercise, thanks
> for posting this.
>
> -Mike
>

🔗cityoftheasleep <igliashon@...>

Well, you got the 24 and the 26. The 36 and the 27 you guys got backwards, and that's interesting to me, because the 27 is MOS but the 36 is not.

I will admit also that I can hear the difference between 150 cents and 138 cents and 133 cents. So it seems that, even as westerners, we are able to discriminate rather fine differences in melodic organization, even absent a drone. This is good to know!

However, the point was less about our ability to discriminate and more that all of these tunings sound "vaguely middle eastern" enough that they could work as "landmarks" just as well as 24-EDO, with the expectation being that performers would make the proper intonational adjustments for each maqam. My hypothesis is that the use of 24-EDO as a landmark has less to do with any superiority of approximation and more to do with its ability to help shoe-horn maqam music into a Western framework. Of course, I don't care enough about this subject to actually test this hypothesis. So I'm not going to press the matter any further.

-Igs

🔗Michael <djtrancendance@...>

Igs>"The 36 and the 27 you guys got backwards, and that's interesting to me, because the 27 is MOS but the 36 is not."

There you go with a hyper-MOS (rank 3, if I have it correctly) in 36 EDO. As you might figure, I'm amused by this, because many of the irregular temperaments I like have 3, 4, and sometimes even 5 interval sizes. Not to say strict two-interval-size MOS is worse than "hyper MOS"...but, rather...I wish people here would consider taking hyper-MOS scales with the same level of seriousness as MOS scales (especially strictly proper hyper MOS scales, which have so many of MOS scales' desirable properties).

>"My hypothesis is that the use of 24-EDO as a landmark has less to do
with any superiority of approximation and more to do with its ability to
help shoe-horn maqam music into a Western framework. "

My two cents: agreed, 24EDO is "the 12TET of Middle Eastern music". If we wanted to optimize the accuracy diatonic scale, for example, we would probably be using something like 31EDO instead. Far as optimizing for Maqams and the like (which cover many more different interval types/sizes than Western music), I can easily see how inaccurate 24EDO would be unable to create truly "recognizable" Maqams.

>"So it seems that, even as westerners, we are able to discriminate
rather fine differences in melodic organization, even absent a drone.
This is good to know! "

If I have it right, this seems to say melody and harmony are linked...and melodic intervals are interpreted by the brain in a way JUST as picky as the way it picks harmonic intervals.

🔗lobawad <lobawad@...>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "cityoftheasleep" <igliashon@...> wrote:
>
> Well, you got the 24 and the 26. The 36 and the 27 you guys got backwards, and that's interesting to me, because the 27 is MOS but the 36 is not.

I just listened briefly, for the size of the small middle second, so it's not suprising that I mixed 133 cents and 133 cents. :-) It is quite suprising to me though that the overall "vibe" of the 36 seemed so stringent and strange that I assumed it must be the 27, a tuning with which I have almost no familiarity, and the 27 seemed so bland that I assumed it was 36.

>
> I will admit also that I can hear the difference between 150 cents and 138 cents and 133 cents. So it seems that, even as westerners, we are able to discriminate rather fine differences in melodic organization, even absent a drone. This is good to know!

I think that human pitch perception generally reaches to pretty extreme discernment- and at the same time, is also happy with wildly ballpark stuff. Just like in visuals- we have great abilities to spot clearly defined shapes, deviations in straight lines, geometric shapes and such, but at the same time optical illusions can throw us way off, and we also love fuzzy vague suggestive drawings.

>
> However, the point was less about our ability to discriminate and more that all of these tunings sound "vaguely middle eastern" enough that they could work as "landmarks" just as well as 24-EDO, with the expectation being that performers would make the proper intonational adjustments for each maqam. My hypothesis is that the use of 24-EDO as a landmark has less to do with any superiority of approximation and more to do with its ability to help shoe-horn maqam music into a Western framework. Of course, I don't care enough about this subject to actually test this hypothesis. So I'm not going to press the matter any further.
>
> -Igs

Well if you did study it up a bit, you'd see that it is a simple historical fact that part (or all, depending on the political leanings of whom you're talking to, LOL) of the reason for the adoption of 24-tET as a "standard" has indeed been "Westernization".
Now someone is going to point out that "quartertones" were proposed as a theoretical entity in ancient times, roundly rejected by opponents then as now... yeah it's an endless thing. Long after the Middle East has established peace, people will be bickering about this. :-)

Anyway the whole deal with regular temperaments and maqam musics is oriented (ouch) toward polyphony. So it's really more an avant-garde creative kind of thing- everyone already knows that "maqam music" is traditionally played with all kinds of local and personal variations and subtleties.

🔗genewardsmith <genewardsmith@...>

So this means the first one was 36? I want to know, since it seemed to me to be both much the most interesting tuning and the one with what seemed to me (but what do I know?) to have the most "Middle Eastern" flavor. of course 36 is a highly accurate 2.3.7.11/5 system and pretty good for 2.3.7.11/5.13.

🔗cityoftheasleep <igliashon@...>

🔗genewardsmith <genewardsmith@...>

🔗cityoftheasleep <igliashon@...>

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

> Have you ever done much with 36, or is that a little too large for you?
>

I'm not sure if it would be too large or not. On guitar, size isn't everything, and 36's relationship with 12 could make it easier than, say, 31. Especially if every 3rd fret was painted or marked in some way. Or every even fret to mark out 18-EDO, which is another fave. For me, it's more a question of what I'd want to use it for that I couldn't get in a smaller EDO. I'm sure when I start looking at temperaments in 36 I'll find some cool things to use it for.

-Igs