Do These Sound Functional?

In my files folder:
/tuning/files/IgliashonJones/

I have added four files, "Number 1" through "Number 4". These are simple triadic chord progressions in four different tunings (which you can guess at if you dare), but I would like to know if you hear these progressions as leading "organically" or "naturally" to a place of resolution. Some may work better than others. I'll reveal the tunings once I get a few responses.

-Igs

They all sound like different tunings of the same basic
progression, so they don't sound much different in terms of
resolution, especially when heard back to back.
They all sound fairly resolved. Perhaps #2 is weaker
than the others.

-Carl

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "cityoftheasleep" <igliashon@...> wrote:
>
> In my files folder:
> /tuning/files/IgliashonJones/
>
> I have added four files, "Number 1" through "Number 4". These are
> simple triadic chord progressions in four different tunings (which
> you can guess at if you dare), but I would like to know if you hear
> these progressions as leading "organically" or "naturally" to a
> place of resolution. Some may work better than others. I'll
> reveal the tunings once I get a few responses.
> -Igs

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "cityoftheasleep" <igliashon@...> wrote:
>
> In my files folder:
> /tuning/files/IgliashonJones/
>
> I have added four files, "Number 1" through "Number 4". These are simple triadic chord progressions in four different tunings (which you can guess at if you dare), but I would like to know if you hear these progressions as leading "organically" or "naturally" to a place of resolution. Some may work better than others. I'll reveal the tunings once I get a few responses.
>
> -Igs
>

Don't you mean, specifically, cadential and not just functional?

IMO:

#1 would sound more cadential were it to end on the penultimate chord.
#2 doesn't sound cadential
#3 sounds cadential
#4 sounds very cadential, even in spite of the awkward part writing.

They all sound "functional" (in a modern/general sense), and what Michael calls "confident", ie, as if they were done on purpose, except for number two.

On Tue, May 17, 2011 at 5:31 PM, cityoftheasleep
<igliashon@...> wrote:
>
> In my files folder:
> /tuning/files/IgliashonJones/
>
> I have added four files, "Number 1" through "Number 4". These are simple triadic chord progressions in four different tunings (which you can guess at if you dare), but I would like to know if you hear these progressions as leading "organically" or "naturally" to a place of resolution. Some may work better than others. I'll reveal the tunings once I get a few responses.
>
> -Igs

I have no idea what functional means anymore. No, I don't feel like
they lead organically to a place of resolution. I feel like there are
some pretty random chord movements, and then sometimes it sounds like
just the penultimate chord moving into the last one resolves. I note
that the resolutions tend to work best when in the melody between the
two last chords at the end moves like E-C, or 5/4-1/1, although I'm
not sure how related that really is.

-Mike

1 and 3 just seem to wander. 2 is better, but still wanders somewhat.
4 doesn't seem to wander.

Regards,
Jake

On 5/17/11, cityoftheasleep <igliashon@...> wrote:
> In my files folder:
> /tuning/files/IgliashonJones/
>
> I have added four files, "Number 1" through "Number 4". These are simple
> triadic chord progressions in four different tunings (which you can guess at
> if you dare), but I would like to know if you hear these progressions as
> leading "organically" or "naturally" to a place of resolution. Some may
> work better than others. I'll reveal the tunings once I get a few
> responses.
>
> -Igs
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
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The responses were all very interesting, and very inconsistent from person to person. To me, they all sound pretty natural, if exotic. Now for the unveil:

#1: 13-EDO, 2 2 2 2 2 1 2 mode; basic consonant triad approximates 4:5:9
#2: 11-EDO, 2 2 2 2 2 1 mode; basic consonant triad approximates 7:9:16
#3: 16-EDO, 3 2 3 3 2 3 mode; basic consonant triad approximates 4:5:7
#4: 10-EDO, whole scale; no particular basic consonant triad.

Of course, there were other chords used in each besides the basic consonant triad, and I should note I know jack about voice-leading, but there you have it. Make of these examples what you will. Note that none of the harmonies approximated are any less accurate than 12-TET's 4:5:6's.

-Igs

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "cityoftheasleep" <igliashon@...> wrote:
>
> In my files folder:
> /tuning/files/IgliashonJones/
>
> I have added four files, "Number 1" through "Number 4". These are simple triadic chord progressions in four different tunings (which you can guess at if you dare), but I would like to know if you hear these progressions as leading "organically" or "naturally" to a place of resolution. Some may work better than others. I'll reveal the tunings once I get a few responses.
>
> -Igs
>

Let me point out specifically why I find this so interesting. I made four chord progressions in 4 very different tunings with 4 very different scales, based on several different rationally-based consonances, and got four very different responses to my question of whether they sounded functional.

Mike thought none of them sounded functional except for the final two chords, Lobawad thought they all did (though some succeeded more than others), Carl thought they all sounded like different tunings of the same progression (which they definitely were NOT) and similarly resolved, and Jake thought they mostly seemed to wander. #2 was divisive; the 'Wad thought 2 did not sound cadential, and Carl thought it was the weakest, while Jake thought it was stronger (or less "wandering") than #1 and #3. #4 sounded uniformly the strongest to everyone who mentioned it, perhaps because it was the only tuning with workable 3-limit harmonies? And for me, I feel like #1 and #3 are the most functional, and #4 is the worst. Clearly my ears are telling me very different things than everyone else's.

In light of this little experiment, I don't think we're going to "figure anything out" about functionality here on this list. I don't think the denizens of the list are capable of reaching sufficient consensus on such matters to meaningfully answer any questions.

-Igs

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "cityoftheasleep" <igliashon@...> wrote:
>
> The responses were all very interesting, and very inconsistent from person to person. To me, they all sound pretty natural, if exotic. Now for the unveil:
>
> #1: 13-EDO, 2 2 2 2 2 1 2 mode; basic consonant triad approximates 4:5:9
> #2: 11-EDO, 2 2 2 2 2 1 mode; basic consonant triad approximates 7:9:16
> #3: 16-EDO, 3 2 3 3 2 3 mode; basic consonant triad approximates 4:5:7
> #4: 10-EDO, whole scale; no particular basic consonant triad.
>
> Of course, there were other chords used in each besides the basic consonant triad, and I should note I know jack about voice-leading, but there you have it. Make of these examples what you will. Note that none of the harmonies approximated are any less accurate than 12-TET's 4:5:6's.
>
> -Igs
>
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "cityoftheasleep" <igliashon@> wrote:
> >
> > In my files folder:
> > /tuning/files/IgliashonJones/
> >
> > I have added four files, "Number 1" through "Number 4". These are simple triadic chord progressions in four different tunings (which you can guess at if you dare), but I would like to know if you hear these progressions as leading "organically" or "naturally" to a place of resolution. Some may work better than others. I'll reveal the tunings once I get a few responses.
> >
> > -Igs
> >
>

On Wed, May 18, 2011 at 1:35 PM, cityoftheasleep
<igliashon@...> wrote:
>
> Let me point out specifically why I find this so interesting. I made four chord progressions in 4 very different tunings with 4 very different scales, based on several different rationally-based consonances, and got four very different responses to my question of whether they sounded functional.

Yes!

> Mike thought none of them sounded functional except for the final two chords, Lobawad thought they all did (though some succeeded more than others), Carl thought they all sounded like different tunings of the same progression (which they definitely were NOT) and similarly resolved, and Jake thought they mostly seemed to wander. #2 was divisive; the 'Wad thought 2 did not sound cadential, and Carl thought it was the weakest, while Jake thought it was stronger (or less "wandering") than #1 and #3. #4 sounded uniformly the strongest to everyone who mentioned it, perhaps because it was the only tuning with workable 3-limit harmonies? And for me, I feel like #1 and #3 are the most functional, and #4 is the worst. Clearly my ears are telling me very different things than everyone else's.

Yes!

> In light of this little experiment, I don't think we're going to "figure anything out" about functionality here on this list. I don't think the denizens of the list are capable of reaching sufficient consensus on such matters to meaningfully answer any questions.

No! No! No! No! Arrrghhghh

-Mike

PS - it just means we need to stop doing listening experiments on the
tuning list. I also proposed that functionality is subjective and has
to do with an individual's capacity to place chords into a larger
context.

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

> No! No! No! No! Arrrghhghh
>
> -Mike
>
> PS - it just means we need to stop doing listening experiments on the
> tuning list. I also proposed that functionality is subjective and has
> to do with an individual's capacity to place chords into a larger
> context.

Which precludes being able to generalize the workings of functionality in any meaningful sense.

If I can't get a consistent response as to the "functionality" of four ultra-basic chord progressions, that means that there is no consistent agreement of what functionality "is" or sounds like. If the participants in a discussion cannot agree on the meaning of basic terms, no meaningful discussion can take place. Q.E.D.

-Igs

We could stick to a traditional use of the term and idea "functional"
and have no trouble coming to a consensus that these chord progressions were definitely not functional. Of course the traditional take on the thing sees dissolution of functionality already happening in the 19th Century, so it's not going to help us much.

Maybe we need a term other than "functional"? I do sense agreement on the "feel" of "functionality" here, though. We're basically asking ourselves if the final chord came out of nowhere or not, and whether there was a feeling of continuity/logic/non-wonkiness to the chord progression.

Anyway, I don't equate "most cadential" with "best". I think #1 probably has the most potential for a nice flow in say SATB writing.

And, I don't hear anything "3" about #4 whatsoever. It sounds very much 13, 14 to me.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "cityoftheasleep" <igliashon@...> wrote:
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@> wrote:
>
> > No! No! No! No! Arrrghhghh
> >
> > -Mike
> >
> > PS - it just means we need to stop doing listening experiments on the
> > tuning list. I also proposed that functionality is subjective and has
> > to do with an individual's capacity to place chords into a larger
> > context.
>
> Which precludes being able to generalize the workings of functionality in any meaningful sense.
>
> If I can't get a consistent response as to the "functionality" of four ultra-basic chord progressions, that means that there is no consistent agreement of what functionality "is" or sounds like. If the participants in a discussion cannot agree on the meaning of basic terms, no meaningful discussion can take place. Q.E.D.
>
> -Igs
>

On Wed, May 18, 2011 at 2:17 PM, cityoftheasleep
<igliashon@...> wrote:
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> > No! No! No! No! Arrrghhghh
> >
> > -Mike
> >
> > PS - it just means we need to stop doing listening experiments on the
> > tuning list. I also proposed that functionality is subjective and has
> > to do with an individual's capacity to place chords into a larger
> > context.
>
> Which precludes being able to generalize the workings of functionality in any meaningful sense.
>
> If I can't get a consistent response as to the "functionality" of four ultra-basic chord progressions, that means that there is no consistent agreement of what functionality "is" or sounds like. If the participants in a discussion cannot agree on the meaning of basic terms, no meaningful discussion can take place. Q.E.D.

Or, it means that our notion of functionality is going to be dependent
on various parameters which are subject-dependent, and by coming to a
greater understanding of what those parameters are we will be able to
understand why the responses differed, how to write chord progressions
that will be functional to the widest range of audiences, and how to
guide people towards expanding their parameter space to encompass new
systems rather than cramming all stimuli into the old system. As we've
discussed in your last email, which I'll respond to shortly, part of
the formula in guiding people towards expanding seems to involve
inebriation and exotic dancers. Q.E.D. and double KO.

Mike

On Wed, May 18, 2011 at 2:43 PM, lobawad <lobawad@...> wrote:
>
> We could stick to a traditional use of the term and idea "functional"
> and have no trouble coming to a consensus that these chord progressions were definitely not functional. Of course the traditional take on the thing sees dissolution of functionality already happening in the 19th Century, so it's not going to help us much.

Are these functional?

http://soundcloud.com/mikebattagliamusic/functionalporcupineexcerpt

The whole thing is based on a comma pump that only works in porcupine.

-Mike

On Wed, May 18, 2011 at 2:45 PM, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> Or, it means that our notion of functionality is going to be dependent
> on various parameters which are subject-dependent, and by coming to a
> greater understanding of what those parameters are we will be able to
> understand why the responses differed, how to write chord progressions
> that will be functional to the widest range of audiences, and how to
> guide people towards expanding their parameter space to encompass new
> systems rather than cramming all stimuli into the old system. As we've
> discussed in your last email, which I'll respond to shortly, part of
> the formula in guiding people towards expanding seems to involve
> inebriation and exotic dancers. Q.E.D. and double KO.

Also, to add to this, it could just be that the chord progressions you
posted were just too complex for us to hear them as functional. If we
started blasting people from the 1400s with chromatic mediants, e.g.
Cm -> Em and stuff like that, they might not hear it as functional at
all, but just as random 5-limit harmony. To our ears, however, stuff
like that can be viewed as part of "extended harmony" to a basic
functional framework. Maybe it's just that the chord progressions you
posted were too complex for us to follow them. That's what it was for
me - I heard random, random, random, random, random, random, oh shit
the I chord!!!

-Mike

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

> http://soundcloud.com/mikebattagliamusic/functionalporcupineexcerpt
>
> The whole thing is based on a comma pump that only works in porcupine.

What do you say to the idea of adding this to the comma pump examples?

I say let's go for it. I have a whole collection of them here

http://soundcloud.com/mikebattagliamusic

Feel free to use whichever you'd like. The 17496/16807 examples worked
out pretty well.

-Mike

On Wed, May 18, 2011 at 4:48 PM, genewardsmith
<genewardsmith@...> wrote:
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> > http://soundcloud.com/mikebattagliamusic/functionalporcupineexcerpt
> >
> > The whole thing is based on a comma pump that only works in porcupine.
>
> What do you say to the idea of adding this to the comma pump examples?

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

> Carl thought they all sounded like different tunings of the
> same progression (which they definitely were NOT)

What's the root motion?

-Carl

I wrote:

> > Carl thought they all sounded like different tunings of the
> > same progression (which they definitely were NOT)
>
> What's the root motion?

...based on

#1: 13-EDO, 4:5:9, root = 4
#2: 11-EDO, 7:9:16, root = 7
#3: 16-EDO, 4:5:7, root = 4
#4: 10-EDO, no particular basic consonant triad = best guess

-Carl

1. Pretty much random. There are a few strings that sound like they work, and it might only be the jumps in range that really throw me off. Last three chords seem to work well enough, and the last one seems final.

2. A little better in that each chord *sort of* flows, but then the last chord doesn't sound final to me.

3. The chords still only *sort of* flow and the last chord, though final-eske, doesn't sound like it should follow the second to last chord. The second to last chord doesn't sound like the penultimate chord. It and everything before it sounds anti-penultimate and the final tonic triad sounds forced.

4. Best overall. I can hear a little better flow, and the movement from the second to last chord to the final tonic chord was *almost* expected.

-John

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "jlmoriart" <JlMoriart@...> wrote:
>
> 1. Pretty much random. There are a few strings that sound like they work, and it might only be the jumps in range that really throw me off. Last three chords seem to work well enough, and the last one seems final.

Sounds like crap on a cracker. Asking if it is "functional" seems irrelevant; anyway, I wouldn't know what it would mean.

> 2. A little better in that each chord *sort of* flows, but then the last chord doesn't sound final to me.

A little better.

> 3. The chords still only *sort of* flow and the last chord, though final-eske, doesn't sound like it should follow the second to last chord. The second to last chord doesn't sound like the penultimate chord. It and everything before it sounds anti-penultimate and the final tonic triad sounds forced.

A touch better yet. If you listened to nothing but this scale, you might buy into it being functional. But what a sad, sad musical life!

> 4. Best overall. I can hear a little better flow, and the movement from the second to last chord to the final tonic chord was *almost* expected.

Not very good. Maybe it could use a dog chorus, howling along with it.

Basically, all four were putrid.

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

> Basically, all four were putrid.

LOL! Did you listen before or after looking at the tunings? Thanks for the honest eval, though.

The 13-EDO one could be tuned in 19-EDO for some improvement, the 11-EDO might be near optimal...can you think of a better tuning based on 4:7:9 harmonies for the 5L+1s scale? The 16-EDO one is Lemba, I could try POTE Lemba instead, and the 10-EDO one might work in POTE Pajara[10]. Would you like me to try more concordant tunings of these and see if that helps?

-Igs

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "cityoftheasleep" <igliashon@...> wrote:
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "genewardsmith" <genewardsmith@> wrote:
>
> > Basically, all four were putrid.
>
> LOL! Did you listen before or after looking at the tunings? Thanks for the honest eval, though.

Before.

> The 13-EDO one could be tuned in 19-EDO for some improvement, the 11-EDO might be near optimal...can you think of a better tuning based on 4:7:9 harmonies for the 5L+1s scale? The 16-EDO one is Lemba, I could try POTE Lemba instead, and the 10-EDO one might work in POTE Pajara[10]. Would you like me to try more concordant tunings of these and see if that helps?

Probably. As for a better machine tuning, I don't know. How well does 28 work? Retuning your 10edo piece to Pajara[10] sounds worth trying. As for lemba, I have no idea why you would rather do that in 16 than in 26.

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

> Probably. As for a better machine tuning, I don't know. How well does 28 work?

Uhhhh not very well. 9/4 gets marginally better at the expense of 7/4, and the more complex and sensitive 9/7 takes quite a hit. The mild hint of 5-limit in the form of 11-EDO's tenuous 5/3 and 6/5 are washed into the 18/11 and 11/9 in 28, so I think for 11-limit extensions 28 looks better...but I don't think I used much (if any) in the progression, so I'd say 28 is no improvement.

> Retuning your 10edo piece to Pajara[10] sounds worth trying.

I'll have to analyze it, it might turn out to be Beatles[10] or maybe Lemba[10] or who knows what else.

> As for lemba, I have no idea why you would rather do that in 16 than in 26.

Well, I didn't ever use the 3/2 approximation (which I think does not even show up in the 6-note MOS anyway), and 16 does a slightly better job at the prime-5-based harmonies and only a slightly worse job at the prime-7-based ones. In 16, 5/1 is about 12 cents flat, and 7/1 is about 6 cents sharp. In 26, 5/1 is about 17 cents flat and 7/1 is practically Just. 38 might be best, though I'm not sure if it's technically Lemba.

-Igs

Well in order to better grok where people's heads are at, does this:

http://soundcloud.com/cameron-bobro/progressionxampl-cbobro

sound functional and cadential?

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "cityoftheasleep" <igliashon@...> wrote:
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "genewardsmith" <genewardsmith@> wrote:
>
> > Probably. As for a better machine tuning, I don't know. How well does 28 work?
>
> Uhhhh not very well. 9/4 gets marginally better at the expense of 7/4, and the more complex and sensitive 9/7 takes quite a hit. The mild hint of 5-limit in the form of 11-EDO's tenuous 5/3 and 6/5 are washed into the 18/11 and 11/9 in 28, so I think for 11-limit extensions 28 looks better...but I don't think I used much (if any) in the progression, so I'd say 28 is no improvement.
>
> > Retuning your 10edo piece to Pajara[10] sounds worth trying.
>
> I'll have to analyze it, it might turn out to be Beatles[10] or maybe Lemba[10] or who knows what else.
>
> > As for lemba, I have no idea why you would rather do that in 16 than in 26.
>
> Well, I didn't ever use the 3/2 approximation (which I think does not even show up in the 6-note MOS anyway), and 16 does a slightly better job at the prime-5-based harmonies and only a slightly worse job at the prime-7-based ones. In 16, 5/1 is about 12 cents flat, and 7/1 is about 6 cents sharp. In 26, 5/1 is about 17 cents flat and 7/1 is practically Just. 38 might be best, though I'm not sure if it's technically Lemba.
>
> -Igs
>

On Wed, May 18, 2011 at 9:56 PM, genewardsmith
<genewardsmith@...> wrote:
>
> > The 13-EDO one could be tuned in 19-EDO for some improvement, the 11-EDO might be near optimal...can you think of a better tuning based on 4:7:9 harmonies for the 5L+1s scale? The 16-EDO one is Lemba, I could try POTE Lemba instead, and the 10-EDO one might work in POTE Pajara[10]. Would you like me to try more concordant tunings of these and see if that helps?
>
> Probably. As for a better machine tuning, I don't know. How well does 28 work? Retuning your 10edo piece to Pajara[10] sounds worth trying. As for lemba, I have no idea why you would rather do that in 16 than in 26.

I don't remember what we decided the canonical way to bring 3 into
machine was, but I remember there being two different ways to get to 3
which are equated in 17-equal. I've been treating machine a lot
recently as a 2.3.7.9'.11 planar temperament, in which 64/63'
vanishes. Or maybe what I'm doing is treating it as the
every-other-generator MOS of 11-limit superpyth, which sounds more
right to me. So what's optimal for these approaches, 22? 17?

Really what it is is that I think 3/2 is important enough to just use
as a consonance directly regardless of where it appears in the chain
of generators, so you can analyze that how you will.

-Mike

On Thu, May 19, 2011 at 4:35 AM, lobawad <lobawad@...> wrote:
>
> Well in order to better grok where people's heads are at, does this:
>
> http://soundcloud.com/cameron-bobro/progressionxampl-cbobro
>
> sound functional and cadential?

Yes, it sounds like I-V-I-V-I, played with dicot-tempered major
chords, and on a timbre that doesn't bode well with really flat major
chords. I'm guessing you're using 13-equal. Assuming that it really is
the dicot mapping for 13-equal that you're using here, it would be
interesting to do I-iii-V and see if it sounds like
major->minor->major, or maybe major->augmented->major, not sure.

-Mike

On Thu, May 19, 2011 at 8:02 AM, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
> On Thu, May 19, 2011 at 4:35 AM, lobawad <lobawad@...> wrote:
>>
>> Well in order to better grok where people's heads are at, does this:
>>
>> http://soundcloud.com/cameron-bobro/progressionxampl-cbobro
>>
>> sound functional and cadential?
>
> Yes, it sounds like I-V-I-V-I, played with dicot-tempered major
> chords, and on a timbre that doesn't bode well with really flat major
> chords. I'm guessing you're using 13-equal. Assuming that it really is
> the dicot mapping for 13-equal that you're using here, it would be
> interesting to do I-iii-V and see if it sounds like
> major->minor->major, or maybe major->augmented->major, not sure.

On second listen, the first time the chord came around it sounded like
some kind of altogether different thing, maybe it was augmented, and
then when it modulated to the V chord, it then snapped back into
I-V-I-V-I. This is a good example of what I'm talking about - I don't
really know what just happened, if this alternate way of perception
has anything to do with the harmonic series, or how any of this works
at all. I also wish I knew how to construct a -simple- system of
"alternate perception" that someone with a Western ear can easily be
nudged into experiencing.

If you have any additional insight then by all means enlighten me. How
did you end up hearing this?

-Mike

The chords making up what you're calling "I" and "V" are not the same type of chords- they differ in interval content (not just voicing) by a semitone. Compared to 12-tET, it's kind of like I+ - V , or I-v.
It can't and doesn't sound like I-V-I.

Ah- in the meantime, I see in another browser window, you've commented
to this effect already, cool.

I'd say it sounds not like I-V-I but like "tonic-dominant-tonic".

I think when you hear the rational version based on partials 7 and 13 you might agree that wildly and inconsistently mistuned 3rd and 5th partials are not the structural foundation here, gimme a bit to get it up. Hmm that didn't come out right did it, LOL.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> On Thu, May 19, 2011 at 4:35 AM, lobawad <lobawad@...> wrote:
> >
> > Well in order to better grok where people's heads are at, does this:
> >
> > http://soundcloud.com/cameron-bobro/progressionxampl-cbobro
> >
> > sound functional and cadential?
>
> Yes, it sounds like I-V-I-V-I, played with dicot-tempered major
> chords, and on a timbre that doesn't bode well with really flat major
> chords. I'm guessing you're using 13-equal. Assuming that it really is
> the dicot mapping for 13-equal that you're using here, it would be
> interesting to do I-iii-V and see if it sounds like
> major->minor->major, or maybe major->augmented->major, not sure.
>
> -Mike
>

On Thu, May 19, 2011 at 9:56 AM, lobawad <lobawad@...> wrote:
>
> The chords making up what you're calling "I" and "V" are not the same type of chords- they differ in interval content (not just voicing) by a semitone. Compared to 12-tET, it's kind of like I+ - V , or I-v.
> It can't and doesn't sound like I-V-I.

It did to me, how are you going to tell me it "can't?" What are the
chords, is this in 13-equal?

> Ah- in the meantime, I see in another browser window, you've commented
> to this effect already, cool.
>
> I'd say it sounds not like I-V-I but like "tonic-dominant-tonic".

What is the difference?

> I think when you hear the rational version based on partials 7 and 13 you might agree that wildly and inconsistently mistuned 3rd and 5th partials are not the structural foundation here, gimme a bit to get it up. Hmm that didn't come out right did it, LOL.

No, it didn't. But even if you give me a rational version that buzzes
nicely and all that, that still wouldn't prove that some perception of
5/4 and 3/2 are involved. I leave the issue open. It could be that
this comprises an additional semantic layer on top of the harmonic
series one, or it could turn out that the two are related.

-Mike

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> On Thu, May 19, 2011 at 9:56 AM, lobawad <lobawad@...> wrote:
> >
> > The chords making up what you're calling "I" and "V" are not the same type of chords- they differ in interval content (not just voicing) by a semitone. Compared to 12-tET, it's kind of like I+ - V , or I-v.
> > It can't and doesn't sound like I-V-I.
>
> It did to me, how are you going to tell me it "can't?" What are the
> chords, is this in 13-equal?

"I" and "V" indicate the same type of chord on a different scale degree (or on the same tone, which is a different scale degree relative to different centers, within a modulation). In the example, these are two different kinds of chords, and you can hear that they're two different kinds of chords, so it can't sound like "I-V-I" unless we accept sloppiness of definition or listening.
>
> > Ah- in the meantime, I see in another browser window, you've commented
> > to this effect already, cool.
> >
> > I'd say it sounds not like I-V-I but like "tonic-dominant-tonic".
>
> What is the difference?

i-v-i can sound like tonic-dominant-tonic, so can I-v and i-VM7, etc. "I-V-I" and "tonic-dominant-tonic" do not equate. Not historically, and certainly not reasonably if we're serious about extending concepts of "function" into new tuning worlds.

>
> > I think when you hear the rational version based on partials 7 and 13 you might agree that wildly and inconsistently mistuned 3rd and 5th partials are not the structural foundation here, gimme a bit to get it up. Hmm that didn't come out right did it, LOL.
>
> No, it didn't. But even if you give me a rational version that >buzzes
> nicely and all that, that still wouldn't prove that some perception >of
> 5/4 and 3/2 are involved.

You'd have to argue an almost magical power for 3:2 in order to claim that two immediately succesive intervals differing in magnitude by over 90 cents are "the same".

>I leave the issue open. It could be that
> this comprises an additional semantic layer on top of the harmonic
> series one, or it could turn out that the two are related.

Yes, that was kind of my point. You can suggest a "tonic-dominant-tonic" using different kinds of noise rhythmically, too, and was made in support of Igliashon's original contention that it isn't (solely) the harmonic series that lies at the heart of what we percieve as "function".

Oh- I'd like to hear some thoughts from others before saying the tuning and chords.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "lobawad" <lobawad@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@> wrote:
> >
> > On Thu, May 19, 2011 at 9:56 AM, lobawad <lobawad@> wrote:
> > >
> > > The chords making up what you're calling "I" and "V" are not the same type of chords- they differ in interval content (not just voicing) by a semitone. Compared to 12-tET, it's kind of like I+ - V , or I-v.
> > > It can't and doesn't sound like I-V-I.
> >
> > It did to me, how are you going to tell me it "can't?" What are the
> > chords, is this in 13-equal?
>
> "I" and "V" indicate the same type of chord on a different scale degree (or on the same tone, which is a different scale degree relative to different centers, within a modulation). In the example, these are two different kinds of chords, and you can hear that they're two different kinds of chords, so it can't sound like "I-V-I" unless we accept sloppiness of definition or listening.
> >
> > > Ah- in the meantime, I see in another browser window, you've commented
> > > to this effect already, cool.
> > >
> > > I'd say it sounds not like I-V-I but like "tonic-dominant-tonic".
> >
> > What is the difference?
>
> i-v-i can sound like tonic-dominant-tonic, so can I-v and i-VM7, etc. "I-V-I" and "tonic-dominant-tonic" do not equate. Not historically, and certainly not reasonably if we're serious about extending concepts of "function" into new tuning worlds.
>
> >
> > > I think when you hear the rational version based on partials 7 and 13 you might agree that wildly and inconsistently mistuned 3rd and 5th partials are not the structural foundation here, gimme a bit to get it up. Hmm that didn't come out right did it, LOL.
> >
> > No, it didn't. But even if you give me a rational version that >buzzes
> > nicely and all that, that still wouldn't prove that some perception >of
> > 5/4 and 3/2 are involved.
>
> You'd have to argue an almost magical power for 3:2 in order to claim that two immediately succesive intervals differing in magnitude by over 90 cents are "the same".
>
> >I leave the issue open. It could be that
> > this comprises an additional semantic layer on top of the harmonic
> > series one, or it could turn out that the two are related.
>
> Yes, that was kind of my point. You can suggest a "tonic-dominant-tonic" using different kinds of noise rhythmically, too, and was made in support of Igliashon's original contention that it isn't (solely) the harmonic series that lies at the heart of what we percieve as "function".
>

On Thu, May 19, 2011 at 10:50 AM, lobawad <lobawad@...> wrote:
>
> "I" and "V" indicate the same type of chord on a different scale degree (or on the same tone, which is a different scale degree relative to different centers, within a modulation). In the example, these are two different kinds of chords, and you can hear that they're two different kinds of chords, so it can't sound like "I-V-I" unless we accept sloppiness of definition or listening.

Who is "you?" It certainly wasn't "me." I didn't hear that they are
two different kinds of chords. I heard an "out of tune" I-V-I. My
initial guess as to the out of tuneness was dicot tempering.

Being as we're trying to study how existing human beings perceive
musical phenomena in novel tuning systems, I'd say that accepting
"sloppiness" of listening is exactly what we should do.

> > What is the difference?
>
> i-v-i can sound like tonic-dominant-tonic, so can I-v and i-VM7, etc. "I-V-I" and "tonic-dominant-tonic" do not equate. Not historically, and certainly not reasonably if we're serious about extending concepts of "function" into new tuning worlds.

In what sense do they not equate? What I heard was

1) out of tune major chord
2) out of tune major chord located a 3/2 away and with the third in the bass
3) back to the original out of tune major chord
4) out of tune major chord located a 3/2 away in root position this
time witha suspension
5) back to the original out of tune major chord

The original out of tune major chord sounded like the root, and the
other out of tune major chord sounded like it corresponded to what I
would normally call the V chord, although I don't know if that means
something different to you.

> > No, it didn't. But even if you give me a rational version that >buzzes
> > nicely and all that, that still wouldn't prove that some perception >of
> > 5/4 and 3/2 are involved.
>
> You'd have to argue an almost magical power for 3:2 in order to claim that two immediately succesive intervals differing in magnitude by over 90 cents are "the same".

They sounded the same to me, I didn't even know it had changed until
you told me above. That doesn't prove that 3/2 is involved but doesn't
rule it out either.

> >I leave the issue open. It could be that
> > this comprises an additional semantic layer on top of the harmonic
> > series one, or it could turn out that the two are related.
>
> Yes, that was kind of my point. You can suggest a "tonic-dominant-tonic" using different kinds of noise rhythmically, too, and was made in support of Igliashon's original contention that it isn't (solely) the harmonic series that lies at the heart of what we percieve as "function".

Some listening examples of the thing you laid out with noise would be
nice. Some feedback on my proposal to retune an existing work in
mavila (maybe) would also be nice.

-Mike

Oddly, I have to agree with Mike here--I can't actually a hear a difference in "quality" between the two chords being alternated between. They both sound more or less "major", although the first chord does sound almost augmented at first...but then something happens when the 2nd chord is played so that when the first chord is returned to, it just sounds like a beaty beaty major. I'd say it sounds basically functional and definitely cadential. Gene probably wouldn't, though.

-Igs

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "lobawad" <lobawad@...> wrote:
>
> Well in order to better grok where people's heads are at, does this:
>
> http://soundcloud.com/cameron-bobro/progressionxampl-cbobro
>
> sound functional and cadential?
>
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "cityoftheasleep" <igliashon@> wrote:
> >
> > --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "genewardsmith" <genewardsmith@> wrote:
> >
> > > Probably. As for a better machine tuning, I don't know. How well does 28 work?
> >
> > Uhhhh not very well. 9/4 gets marginally better at the expense of 7/4, and the more complex and sensitive 9/7 takes quite a hit. The mild hint of 5-limit in the form of 11-EDO's tenuous 5/3 and 6/5 are washed into the 18/11 and 11/9 in 28, so I think for 11-limit extensions 28 looks better...but I don't think I used much (if any) in the progression, so I'd say 28 is no improvement.
> >
> > > Retuning your 10edo piece to Pajara[10] sounds worth trying.
> >
> > I'll have to analyze it, it might turn out to be Beatles[10] or maybe Lemba[10] or who knows what else.
> >
> > > As for lemba, I have no idea why you would rather do that in 16 than in 26.
> >
> > Well, I didn't ever use the 3/2 approximation (which I think does not even show up in the 6-note MOS anyway), and 16 does a slightly better job at the prime-5-based harmonies and only a slightly worse job at the prime-7-based ones. In 16, 5/1 is about 12 cents flat, and 7/1 is about 6 cents sharp. In 26, 5/1 is about 17 cents flat and 7/1 is practically Just. 38 might be best, though I'm not sure if it's technically Lemba.
> >
> > -Igs
> >
>

On Thu, May 19, 2011 at 11:12 AM, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
> On Thu, May 19, 2011 at 10:50 AM, lobawad <lobawad@...> wrote:
>>
>> "I" and "V" indicate the same type of chord on a different scale degree (or on the same tone, which is a different scale degree relative to different centers, within a modulation). In the example, these are two different kinds of chords, and you can hear that they're two different kinds of chords, so it can't sound like "I-V-I" unless we accept sloppiness of definition or listening.
>
> Being as we're trying to study how existing human beings perceive
> musical phenomena in novel tuning systems, I'd say that accepting
> "sloppiness" of listening is exactly what we should do.

To add to this, you might say that my goal at the moment is to put
this "sloppiness of listening" on a pedestal, and see what it means,
and see how it works. I do believe that it is possible to learn to
hear this entire progression in a completely different way, but what
I'm concerned with is understanding the whole process of how listeners
interpret things like this to begin with.

How would a listener hear something like this given some degree of
Western conditioning? What if instead of Western conditioning, they
instead have a sophisticated and nuanced understanding of JI? And what
exactly does "Western conditioning" mean? What is it that I am
actually hearing when we say we hear I-V-I, and what are you hearing
when you say that you don't?

What I really want to find is some way to predict what sorts of
musical phenomena a certain listener will be able to most easily latch
onto as being "novel," yet "comprehensible." And I mean novel in the
semantic layer of music, not in the intonational layer. Too much
novelty will either lead to people hearing completely disordered and
random musical events (like bullets ricocheting off the wall or
something) or just cognizing it as an "out of tune" version of what
they're used to. Meanwhile, not enough novelty doesn't lead to
anything different.

Simply put, how can we present information to people in a way that
they have a radically different, yet pleasant experience, from what
they're used to? We are miles ahead of most people in terms of what we
can process. In fact, I think I'm miles ahead of myself in terms of
what I can process.

If you're familiar with the theories of Jean Piaget, I'm asking which
musical events are most likely to be met with schematic accommodation
rather than assimilation, for a specific listener
(http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/assimacc.htm). Either
way, these are the questions I've come up to now, and none of them are
compatible with the notion that there are "right" and "wrong" ways to
hear things, nor that there exists such a thing as "sloppiness." I
could likely become aware of the two different notes that you used
while still hearing them as intonational shifts of the same underlying
fundamental thing.

-Mike

> Well in order to better grok where people's heads are at, does this:
>
> http://soundcloud.com/cameron-bobro/progressionxampl-cbobro
>
> sound functional and cadential?

I'm not sure what people mean by "functional" exactly, but when I was
listening to Igs's examples they seemed to "wander". By this I meant
the opposite of the sense I get from Beethoven, where the next chord
always seems inevitable -- at least after-the-fact -- even when it's
surprising. So "functional" is continued logical direction throughout
a chord sequence.

If that's "functional", then by "cadential" I mean "functionally
closing a chord sequence."

This sounds both more functional and more cadential than the examples
that Igs gave.

Re-listening to Igs's examples, in a more relaxed atmosphere, made me
think I might waffle a little bit on my responses. Some of what I took
to be "wandering" when I first listened to them might be more related
to voice leading than to the chords themselves.

Regards,
Jake

> Compared to 12-tET, it's kind of like I+ - V , or I-v. It can't and doesn't sound like I-V-I.

I'll be interested in seeing what the notes are. My ears aren't the
best-trained on this list -- whether that's an asset or a problem is
up to you to decide -- but, with some weirdnesses going on in them, I
pretty much heard I-V-I, too. More specifically:

> What I heard was
>
> 1) out of tune major chord
> 2) out of tune major chord located a 3/2 away [snip]
> 3) back to the original out of tune major chord
> 4) out of tune major chord located a 3/2 away [snip] with a suspension
> 5) back to the original out of tune major chord

I'm not in a location where it's easy for me to listen well to the
music at a high volume, but this more-or-less seems right. I think the
out-of-tune-ness gets a little different between occurrences of the
various instances of the chords, and there's this tone that runs
through a lot of it that doesn't fit any traditional role I can think
of, but as a set of general impressions, what Mike says here is on
target.

Regards,
Jake

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "lobawad" <lobawad@...> wrote:
>
> Well in order to better grok where people's heads are at, does this:
>
> http://soundcloud.com/cameron-bobro/progressionxampl-cbobro
>
> sound functional and cadential?

It did for me.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> On Thu, May 19, 2011 at 11:12 AM, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
> > On Thu, May 19, 2011 at 10:50 AM, lobawad <lobawad@...> wrote:
> >>
> >> "I" and "V" indicate the same type of chord on a different scale degree (or on the same tone, which is a different scale degree relative to different centers, within a modulation). In the example, these are two different kinds of chords, and you can hear that they're two different kinds of chords, so it can't sound like "I-V-I" unless we accept sloppiness of definition or listening.
> >
> > Being as we're trying to study how existing human beings perceive
> > musical phenomena in novel tuning systems, I'd say that accepting
> > "sloppiness" of listening is exactly what we should do.
>
> To add to this, you might say that my goal at the moment is to put
> this "sloppiness of listening" on a pedestal, and see what it means,
> and see how it works. I do believe that it is possible to learn to
> hear this entire progression in a completely different way, but what
> I'm concerned with is understanding the whole process of how listeners
> interpret things like this to begin with.

I understand what you're saying. By the way, this "chord progression" approach is definitely not how I usually write microtonal music, this was just to illustrate a point.

And I think the point was made: the thing is worse than bad from a Just intonation harmonic point of view, for not only are the harmonic approximations off, the alleged 3:2 is markedly inconsistent. Yet the feeling of function and cadence is strong enough for at least some people to grok it as an out of tune I-V-I.

I'd say that the stong inconsistency of the "3:2" suggests how little the harmonic series influences function, but of course you could argue just the opposite, saying that the third partial is so strong that it enforces its single identity on two immediately successive and very distinct pitches.

Oh- in 13-equal, go 0-5-9 then 0-4-7, back and forth, that's all there is to it.

>
> How would a listener hear something like this given some degree of
> Western conditioning? What if instead of Western conditioning, they
> instead have a sophisticated and nuanced understanding of JI? And what
> exactly does "Western conditioning" mean? What is it that I am
> actually hearing when we say we hear I-V-I, and what are you hearing
> when you say that you don't?

I think you're really hearing something like tonic-dominant-tonic and mistakenly calling it I-V-I.
>
> What I really want to find is some way to predict what sorts of
> musical phenomena a certain listener will be able to most easily >latch
> onto as being "novel," yet "comprehensible." >And I mean novel in >the
> semantic layer of music, not in the intonational layer. Too much
> novelty will either lead to people hearing completely disordered and
> random musical events (like bullets ricocheting off the wall or
> something) or just cognizing it as an "out of tune" version of what
> they're used to. Meanwhile, not enough novelty doesn't lead to
> anything different.

I think the best way is to make music for live audiences whenever you can.

> I
> could likely become aware of the two different notes that you used
> while still hearing them as intonational shifts of the same underlying
> fundamental thing.

Could be. That would imply a heavy-duty grid you're snapping things to, though.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "lobawad" <lobawad@...> wrote:
> I'd say that the stong inconsistency of the "3:2" suggests how little the harmonic series
> influences function, but of course you could argue just the opposite, saying that the
> third partial is so strong that it enforces its single identity on two immediately successive > and very distinct pitches.

I think Mike's hypothesis on the matter is that "actual harmonics in the sound" and "harmonics perceived by the listener" are two very different things. It's not so much that the 3rd harmonic has this powerful field of attraction, it's more that it's just really easy to trick people into hearing it where it's not present because other familiar perceptual cues bias our hearing. Kind of like how if you see a red octagonal sign with a white border, with the letters "STOF" in the middle of it, you actually won't see the F but will see a P there instead (assuming you grew up in a country where stop signs look like what I just described). Also the same reason that if you a list of color names written out where the text of each name is colored (but a different color than the color the word corresponds to), and you are asked to give the colors of each of the words, you'll most likely get a lot of them wrong if given only a short duration of time to answer.

-Igs

On Thu, May 19, 2011 at 12:52 PM, lobawad <lobawad@...> wrote:
>
> I'd say that the stong inconsistency of the "3:2" suggests how little the harmonic series influences function, but of course you could argue just the opposite, saying that the third partial is so strong that it enforces its single identity on two immediately successive and very distinct pitches.

This implies that consistency of tempering is a cognitively important
cue for harmonic series detection. I'm not sure that's true. I'm also
not sure that these cognitively important cues vary or could change.
The pitches are also only "distinct" if you hear them that way.

> Oh- in 13-equal, go 0-5-9 then 0-4-7, back and forth, that's all there is to it.

OK, so then what I heard as the root of the first chord was "5,"
meaning the root position voicing would be 5-9-13, or 0-369-728, and
then the 0-4-7 seemed to be in root position. So the fact that you
used two different fifths wasn't immediately apparent to me; you hid
this fact pretty well.

> I think you're really hearing something like tonic-dominant-tonic and mistakenly calling it I-V-I.

Both chords have a "major" quality to me, so other than that I don't
know what the difference is. I could probably learn to hear this some
other way, and it's true that a native 13-tet listener could probably
learn to hear it my way.

> I think the best way is to make music for live audiences whenever you can.

Let's see what goes down in NYC.

> > I
> > could likely become aware of the two different notes that you used
> > while still hearing them as intonational shifts of the same underlying
> > fundamental thing.
>
> Could be. That would imply a heavy-duty grid you're snapping things to, though.

That's how I heard it.

-Mike

Okay, added reasonably-optimally-concordant tunings of #1, #3, and #4 to my files folder:

/tuning/files/IgliashonJones/

#1 is now in 19-EDO "Deutone" temperament, #3 is in 38-EDO Lemba (I think it's Lemba, anyway), and #4 is in 22-EDO Pajara. #2 is still pending a search for a more concordant tuning. I'm curious if these versions sound any more or less functional to anyone. FWIW, #4 was the most radically-retuned, I used the symmetric version of Pajara[10] that is ssLsssssLsss, which fits pretty well as far as I can tell but makes the 10-EDO neutral intervals into either major or minor ones. It seems to fit the bill, though.

To answer Carl's question about the progressions, here are the chords in cents in each progression except #2 (based on the original less-than-concordant tunings):

#1:
369-1385-2400
831-1200-2215
554-1015-1846
369-646-1754
185-646-1569
369-831-1846
185-554-1200
185-646-1385
0-369-1200

#3:
1200-1575-2175
975-1650-2250
825-1200-1800
375-825-1425
600-975-1575
225-600-1200
375-825-1425
600-975-1575
0-375-1200

#4:
1200-1560-2160
960-1440-1920
840-1440-1800
840-1320-1680
720-1200-1680
480-960-1440
600-960-1560
720-1080-1680
0-720-1200

The concordantized versions follow very similar root movements, as the retunings were actually fairly minor for the most part (especially the 16-EDO one). Carl, I think it's pretty obvious from these that while there are some similarities, they are definitely different progressions.

-Igs

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "cityoftheasleep" <igliashon@...> wrote:
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "genewardsmith" <genewardsmith@> wrote:
>
> > Probably. As for a better machine tuning, I don't know. How well does 28 work?
>
> Uhhhh not very well. 9/4 gets marginally better at the expense of 7/4, and the more complex and sensitive 9/7 takes quite a hit. The mild hint of 5-limit in the form of 11-EDO's tenuous 5/3 and 6/5 are washed into the 18/11 and 11/9 in 28, so I think for 11-limit extensions 28 looks better...but I don't think I used much (if any) in the progression, so I'd say 28 is no improvement.
>
> > Retuning your 10edo piece to Pajara[10] sounds worth trying.
>
> I'll have to analyze it, it might turn out to be Beatles[10] or maybe Lemba[10] or who knows what else.
>
> > As for lemba, I have no idea why you would rather do that in 16 than in 26.
>
> Well, I didn't ever use the 3/2 approximation (which I think does not even show up in the 6-note MOS anyway), and 16 does a slightly better job at the prime-5-based harmonies and only a slightly worse job at the prime-7-based ones. In 16, 5/1 is about 12 cents flat, and 7/1 is about 6 cents sharp. In 26, 5/1 is about 17 cents flat and 7/1 is practically Just. 38 might be best, though I'm not sure if it's technically Lemba.
>
> -Igs
>

On Thu, May 19, 2011 at 1:36 PM, cityoftheasleep
<igliashon@...> wrote:
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "lobawad" <lobawad@...> wrote:
> > I'd say that the stong inconsistency of the "3:2" suggests how little the harmonic series
> > influences function, but of course you could argue just the opposite, saying that the
> > third partial is so strong that it enforces its single identity on two immediately successive > and very distinct pitches.
>
> I think Mike's hypothesis on the matter is that "actual harmonics in the sound" and "harmonics perceived by the listener" are two very different things. It's not so much that the 3rd harmonic has this powerful field of attraction, it's more that it's just really easy to trick people into hearing it where it's not present because other familiar perceptual cues bias our hearing.

Uh, yeah. I guess you really do get what I'm saying after all. This
hypothesis makes more sense when you consider that it's likely that
there is no actual "harmonic series detector" in the brain. There is a
"periodicity" detector, and it just tries to break the signal down
into periodic components.

The chord I heard as major was, as I predicted, 0-369-728. I think
that the brain just did a quick search and found that those notes fit
loosely as periodic components of a hypothetical pitch two octaves
below the lowest note. I doubt that any actual process occurs whereby
the brain identifies these as specifically the "fourth, fifth, and
sixth harmonics" of the sound; I think it's just that -we- learn to
identify them as such as microtonal musicians. And if there is such a
process, I've never heard of it or seen evidence of it referred to in
the literature. Hence why this quality of "otonalness" can be shared
among different harmonics.

-Mike

On Thu, May 19, 2011 at 1:52 PM, cityoftheasleep
<igliashon@...> wrote:
>
> Okay, added reasonably-optimally-concordant tunings of #1, #3, and #4 to my files folder:
>
> /tuning/files/IgliashonJones/
>
> #1 is now in 19-EDO "Deutone" temperament, #3 is in 38-EDO Lemba (I think it's Lemba, anyway), and #4 is in 22-EDO Pajara. #2 is still pending a search for a more concordant tuning. I'm curious if these versions sound any more or less functional to anyone. FWIW, #4 was the most radically-retuned, I used the symmetric version of Pajara[10] that is ssLsssssLsss, which fits pretty well as far as I can tell but makes the 10-EDO neutral intervals into either major or minor ones. It seems to fit the bill, though.

#1: I can follow this mentally, but some of it seems a bit random. I
didn't expect the last chord to be the tonic in advance.

#3: Sounds like 4:5:7 triads moving around by major thirds and whole
tones. The last chord is distinguished by being voiced 4:5:8. It's
also the same as the first chord, although I had to listen to it a few
times to get that. The chords preceding the last chord didn't signal
to me that the last chord was coming.

#4: On first listen: sounds random, whoa there's a G7 -> C at the end, hmm.

On subsequent listens: C7 -> Gm/Bb in the beginning, meaning I7 -> v,
sounds Mixolydian and like the Flamingos "I Only Have Eyes For You."
The G# D F# chord immediately following sounded random on first
listen, but after the move to C#maj afterward it sounded like in
retrospect it was a Romantic-style Dmaj/G# -> C#maj/G# progression. It
sounded like the key had unexpectedly modulated to C#, emphasis on a
b2 being involved. Next is motion from C#maj to G-C-F, which is Gsus7.
It sounds like it might go G-C-F -> G-B-F -> G-C-E, which would have
said that the C#maj in retrospect was a well-placed modulation that
leads back to the original key via this clever harmonic arrangement.
Instead, it goes to Bbmaj, which violates that prediction and sounds a
bit pensive instead, it doesn't go where I think it will. Then it goes
to F#7, which seems to have no obvious logical connection to the last
chord, now instead of sounding pensive it sounds disconnected and
random. Then it goes to G7, holy shit, could the tonic be coming? C
major! Yes! It's here! Santa Claus is real after all!

On the second listen I knew that the role of the F#7 was not a random
motion signifying that the composer is an emotionless robot or has a
personal hangup and needs to eschew regularity in his composition, but
rather just a clever chromatic preparation myself for the G7
forthcoming, so my perception of it changed. Now it just sounds like a
normal floaty composition, no randomness at all. I now realize that I
was looking for some immediately apparent regularity in it, but the
regularity ended up revealing itself on subsequent listens. I resolve
to go back and listen to the other two examples again, but have no
time right now.

-Mike

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "cityoftheasleep" <igliashon@...> wrote:
>
> Okay, added reasonably-optimally-concordant tunings of #1, #3, and #4 to my files folder:
>
> /tuning/files/IgliashonJones/
>
> #1 is now in 19-EDO "Deutone" temperament,

Much improved, and vaguely functional.

> #3 is in 38-EDO Lemba (I think it's Lemba, anyway),

Improved, and it also sounds more functional.

> and #4 is in 22-EDO Pajara.

Vastly improved, and fairly functional.

Not that I have a definition for "functional".

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> On Thu, May 19, 2011 at 1:36 PM, cityoftheasleep
> <igliashon@...> wrote:
> >
> > --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "lobawad" <lobawad@> wrote:
> > > I'd say that the stong inconsistency of the "3:2" suggests how little the harmonic series
> > > influences function, but of course you could argue just the opposite, saying that the
> > > third partial is so strong that it enforces its single identity on two immediately successive > and very distinct pitches.
> >
> > I think Mike's hypothesis on the matter is that "actual harmonics in the sound" and "harmonics perceived by the listener" are two very different things. It's not so much that the 3rd harmonic has this powerful field of attraction, it's more that it's just really easy to trick people into hearing it where it's not present because other familiar perceptual cues bias our hearing.

Well that's what I've been suggesting as well. "So strong" can mean "so strong" by virtue of familiarity, too. That's the point of presenting two distinctly different alleged "3:2"s in rapid fire: if you maintain that the "field of attraction" of the 3:2 is due to the harmonic series, you're making a pretty dubious claim about the magic power of the third partial. Such a claim would make a mockery of the whole idea of "micro" tuning. 90+ cents? Come on.

No, scanning these two intervals as "the same" must be the result of other forces.

And, you can easily demonstrate that 3:2 does not have a magic power. Just juggle some enharmonic tetrachords so that you have micro intervals at the 3:2 or on either side of where the 3:2 would be, and you'll find that far from making the micro intervals more difficult to discern and sing because they're drawn into 3:2, they are actually easier to distinguish and sing.
>
> Uh, yeah. I guess you really do get what I'm saying after all. This
> hypothesis makes more sense when you consider that it's likely that
> there is no actual "harmonic series detector" in the brain. There is a
> "periodicity" detector, and it just tries to break the signal down
> into periodic components.
>

I would imagine that there is some kind of simplifying mechanism for pattern recognition, and one thing that makes things "simple" is plain old "familiar".

> The chord I heard as major was, as I predicted, 0-369-728. I think
> that the brain just did a quick search and found that those notes fit
> loosely as periodic components of a hypothetical pitch two octaves
> below the lowest note. I doubt that any actual process occurs whereby
> the brain identifies these as specifically the "fourth, fifth, and
> sixth harmonics" of the sound; I think it's just that -we- learn to
> identify them as such as microtonal musicians. And if there is such a
> process, I've never heard of it or seen evidence of it referred to in
> the literature. Hence why this quality of "otonalness" can be shared
> among different harmonics.
>
> -Mike
>

But you also heard 0-369-646, within a fraction of a second afterward, as major. Try not making the alteration: go 0-5-9, 0-4-8. Doesn't the 0-4-8 take on in this context a dare I say "minor" quality for you, too?

I don't find that the "regular" in regular temperament works in these tunings of little accurate harmonic content- I think these tunings work in their own strange logics. Working in things like 23, I find myself using things like unprepared "quarter-tone" augmented and diminished octaves. I like these intervals anyway, use piles of them in things like Wuerschmidt temperament, but there they are prepared and "explained" by staked thirds etc. and in the "exotemperaments" as Igs calls them, these intervals, dissonant as all hell on their own, seem to work, against expectation, as softening factors, or paradoxically maintain a feeling of continuity by breaking it (or something).

I do find that with microtemperaments, the "regular temperament paradigm" works just like it says on the box.

As far as what "we" hear, I haven't discovered any real difference in
how I hear and how the "civilians" I talk to hear. Sometimes I get downright embarrassingly perceptive responses to pieces of music, or descriptions of sensations eerily, even uncomfortably, similar to my own. Of course it's the people who feel a connection who approach you, though, maybe everyone else just heard one great big out of tune version of "Karma Chameleon" or something. :-)

On Thu, May 19, 2011 at 4:30 PM, lobawad <lobawad@...> wrote:
>
> > > I think Mike's hypothesis on the matter is that "actual harmonics in the sound" and "harmonics perceived by the listener" are two very different things. It's not so much that the 3rd harmonic has this powerful field of attraction, it's more that it's just really easy to trick people into hearing it where it's not present because other familiar perceptual cues bias our hearing.
>
> Well that's what I've been suggesting as well. "So strong" can mean "so strong" by virtue of familiarity, too. That's the point of presenting two distinctly different alleged "3:2"s in rapid fire: if you maintain that the "field of attraction" of the 3:2 is due to the harmonic series, you're making a pretty dubious claim about the magic power of the third partial. Such a claim would make a mockery of the whole idea of "micro" tuning. 90+ cents? Come on.

I no longer think that bare fields of attraction have anything to do
with anything, except for babies who don't have a lifetime of learned
cues that tell them in advance to look for this VF under this set of
notes or whatever. Or rather, I think it's that learned cues "warp"
the fields of attraction of each interval in a way that is dependent
on musical context and makes reference to a system that I don't
understand. HE doesn't model learned factors to keep it simple, and
it's worked well so far, but I haven't ever used it as anything other
than an interesting proof-of-concept model.

So you're saying then, if I understand you correctly, that when I hear
the chord as "major," I am, in fact, hearing it as a 4:5:6, but that
there are learned factors that push my "harmonic series detector" into
that configuration, and these learned factors don't just involve a
Gaussian-shaped field of attraction around 4:5:6 a la HE but could
include potentially anything. Right? If so, then I agree. Or, are you
instead saying that this "majorness" I'm hearing has nothing to do
with the perception of 4:5:6 or otonality at all?

> And, you can easily demonstrate that 3:2 does not have a magic power. Just juggle some enharmonic tetrachords so that you have micro intervals at the 3:2 or on either side of where the 3:2 would be, and you'll find that far from making the micro intervals more difficult to discern and sing because they're drawn into 3:2, they are actually easier to distinguish and sing.

But if these intervals sound like "flat fifths" vs "sharp fifths,"
does this mean that we're hearing them as (perceived) 3:2's? Or are
you saying there is something that "fifthness" is, other than an end
configuration for the periodicity detector in the brain? Keep in mind
- ! - that I am distinguishing between 3:2 as a reference to what the
frequency ratios actually are, and 3:2 as an end perception of what
you think they are.

> > Uh, yeah. I guess you really do get what I'm saying after all. This
> > hypothesis makes more sense when you consider that it's likely that
> > there is no actual "harmonic series detector" in the brain. There is a
> > "periodicity" detector, and it just tries to break the signal down
> > into periodic components.
>
> I would imagine that there is some kind of simplifying mechanism for pattern recognition, and one thing that makes things "simple" is plain old "familiar".

The notion that all of this periodicity detection business is actually
just a specific instance of pattern recognition has been thrown around
as a serious hypothesis in the psychoacoustics literature. The
fundamental question at work is whether or not we'd learn to hear
other timbres as "fused" other than perfectly harmonic ones, if we'd
been exposed to such timbres from birth (or even while in the womb). I
don't know the answer. But either way, there is clearly a difference
in the way we perceive sound when listening to "music" vs when
listening to the sounds of a city, so there's multiple levels of
"familiarity" involved either way, and nothing stopping us from
connecting one to the other short of an understanding of how to do it.

I've also been considering that this whole process could also be more
psychoacoustic cues that we haven't figured out yet. Consider: melodic
motion by half step seems to have a special power in causing your
intervallic perception to shift from place to place. Father
temperament makes a masterful use of this, as Igs keeps pointing out.
0-2-4-5-7 sounds like C-D-E-F-G, and 13-11-10-8 sounds like C-Bb-A-G,
except the two G's are different. Then, if you put them together to
form the scale 0-2-4-5-7-8-10-11-13, the two types of G (or fifth)
start to take on their own identity, except they can still sound like
two types of "fifth" (meaning mistuned 3/2?). You just learn how the
two types of "fifth" relate to one another. You can use the half step
cue to make these intervals function differently in different contexts
as well. However, this is what makes Father -awesome-. This is part of
why it rules so much. (The first time I heard porcupine, I found it
woefully confusing - despite that my perception was flipping around
LESS. So we need an explanation for why that might be.)

A purely psychoacoustic explanation might be that the half step is
spectrally a maximally dissonant interval, and that it "cues" the HSD
to fire for the following note in a certain way - e.g. the lack of
overlap between the partials is so strong that it acts as a cue for
the HSD to fire differently than it would have otherwise. This
wouldn't be represented in a model like HE, which assumes that you are
a baby that is listening to a sound out of the blue with no previous
sounds influencing the perception of this one. Anyway, this might be
total bullshit, I just threw it out there as the sort of thing that
might be going on.

> But you also heard 0-369-646, within a fraction of a second afterward, as major.

I hear them as two different types of major chord, one with a really
flat fifth and one with a really sharp fifth.

> Try not making the alteration: go 0-5-9, 0-4-8. Doesn't the 0-4-8 take on in this context a dare I say "minor" quality for you, too?

I can flip my brain around to hear it either way. It's hard to say
what I'd have naturally heard it like if you hadn't told me what to
listen for. I think minor is probably right.

> As far as what "we" hear, I haven't discovered any real difference in
> how I hear and how the "civilians" I talk to hear. Sometimes I get downright embarrassingly perceptive responses to pieces of music, or descriptions of sensations eerily, even uncomfortably, similar to my own. Of course it's the people who feel a connection who approach you, though, maybe everyone else just heard one great big out of tune version of "Karma Chameleon" or something. :-)

I certainly do. I can't tell you how many times I've played something
I really like for people who just hear it as creepy and out of tune.

-Mike

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> On Thu, May 19, 2011 at 4:30 PM, lobawad <lobawad@...> wrote:
> >
> > > > I think Mike's hypothesis on the matter is that "actual harmonics in the sound" and "harmonics perceived by the listener" are two very different things. It's not so much that the 3rd harmonic has this powerful field of attraction, it's more that it's just really easy to trick people into hearing it where it's not present because other familiar perceptual cues bias our hearing.
> >
> > Well that's what I've been suggesting as well. "So strong" can mean "so strong" by virtue of familiarity, too. That's the point of presenting two distinctly different alleged "3:2"s in rapid fire: if you maintain that the "field of attraction" of the 3:2 is due to the harmonic series, you're making a pretty dubious claim about the magic power of the third partial. Such a claim would make a mockery of the whole idea of "micro" tuning. 90+ cents? Come on.
>
> I no longer think that bare fields of attraction have anything to do
> with anything, except for babies who don't have a lifetime of learned
> cues that tell them in advance to look for this VF under this set of
> notes or whatever. Or rather, I think it's that learned cues "warp"
> the fields of attraction of each interval in a way that is dependent
> on musical context and makes reference to a system that I don't
> understand. HE doesn't model learned factors to keep it simple, and
> it's worked well so far, but I haven't ever used it as anything other
> than an interesting proof-of-concept model.
>
> So you're saying then, if I understand you correctly, that when I hear
> the chord as "major," I am, in fact, hearing it as a 4:5:6, but that
> there are learned factors that push my "harmonic series detector" into
> that configuration, and these learned factors don't just involve a
> Gaussian-shaped field of attraction around 4:5:6 a la HE but could
> include potentially anything. Right? If so, then I agree. Or, are you
> instead saying that this "majorness" I'm hearing has nothing to do
> with the perception of 4:5:6 or otonality at all?

You hear step 7 of 17-equal as more "M3" than step 6, don't you? Yet step six is closer to 5/4, and like 5/4, it is not found immediately on a chain of fifths. Step 7 is a (sharp) Pythagorean ditone. But I also hear step 7 as "more M3" than step 6 (I generally use step 6 in my music, because I want the mellow middle third and don't want to temper out 81/80, but whatever).

Our perception of "M3" is a conditioned thing. Not only does it not conform, in this case, to what a harmonic-series based view says it should be, it gleefully violates that prediction. 5/4 is a piece of crap M3 if you want brilliant and striving, 81/64 garbage if you want content and sweet: "M3" is beholden to neither. It can be created within a broad field, but is defined by relative position, usage, context, etc.

This should be QED, for look at 12-tET. The same exact pitch can be heard as an augmented second or a minor third, depending on context. It is impossible that intervallic identity is based on frequency ratio.

>
> > And, you can easily demonstrate that 3:2 does not have a magic power. Just juggle some enharmonic tetrachords so that you have micro intervals at the 3:2 or on either side of where the 3:2 would be, and you'll find that far from making the micro intervals more difficult to discern and sing because they're drawn into 3:2, they are actually easier to distinguish and sing.
>
> But if these intervals sound like "flat fifths" vs "sharp fifths,"
> does this mean that we're hearing them as (perceived) 3:2's? Or are
> you saying there is something that "fifthness" is, other than an end
> configuration for the periodicity detector in the brain? Keep in mind
> - ! - that I am distinguishing between 3:2 as a reference to what the
> frequency ratios actually are, and 3:2 as an end perception of what
> you think they are.

The chords are in "inversions". From e-g-c-e a fifth must be derived, and that's a learned thing. 3:2, in tune or not, just isn't jumping out at you. Two different intervals, derived not heard directly, both signally the same section of the harmonic series? That sounds so dubious. Whereas identity derived from chords and scales is right there, and obviously very flexible (otherwise we wouldn't recognize tunes when they're played out of tune).

"Fifthness" is "So", like "M3ness" is "Mi".

In the case of enharmonic tetrachords, try it and see.

>
> > > Uh, yeah. I guess you really do get what I'm saying after all. This
> > > hypothesis makes more sense when you consider that it's likely that
> > > there is no actual "harmonic series detector" in the brain. There is a
> > > "periodicity" detector, and it just tries to break the signal down
> > > into periodic components.
> >
> > I would imagine that there is some kind of simplifying mechanism for pattern recognition, and one thing that makes things "simple" is plain old "familiar".
>
> The notion that all of this periodicity detection business is actually
> just a specific instance of pattern recognition has been thrown around
> as a serious hypothesis in the psychoacoustics literature. The
> fundamental question at work is whether or not we'd learn to hear
> other timbres as "fused" other than perfectly harmonic ones, if we'd
> been exposed to such timbres from birth (or even while in the womb).

Fusion must be a different issue altogether. I don't think we'd ever hear as "fused" things that aren't fused (though obviously we can learn to hear unfused as "consonant"). "M3" obviously doesn't have anything to do with fusion, for fusion even diminishes the feeling of "M3" when our M3 is a ditone, as it is in 12-tET.

>I
> don't know the answer. But either way, there is clearly a difference
> in the way we perceive sound when listening to "music" vs when
> listening to the sounds of a city, so there's multiple levels of
> "familiarity" involved either way, and nothing stopping us from
> connecting one to the other short of an understanding of how to do it.

Yes I think you're right to consider the different ways of listening. Making ambient soundscapes is completely different than making songs, for example- the audience goes right into a different frame of mind. That kind of state of mind is more ready for "acoustic truths" and less concerned with "social truths", I have found.

>
> I've also been considering that this whole process could also be more
> psychoacoustic cues that we haven't figured out yet. Consider: melodic
> motion by half step seems to have a special power in causing your
> intervallic perception to shift from place to place. Father
> temperament makes a masterful use of this, as Igs keeps pointing out.
> 0-2-4-5-7 sounds like C-D-E-F-G, and 13-11-10-8 sounds like C-Bb-A-G,
> except the two G's are different. Then, if you put them together to
> form the scale 0-2-4-5-7-8-10-11-13, the two types of G (or fifth)
> start to take on their own identity, except they can still sound like
> two types of "fifth" (meaning mistuned 3/2?). You just learn how the
> two types of "fifth" relate to one another. You can use the half step
> cue to make these intervals function differently in different contexts
> as well. However, this is what makes Father -awesome-. This is part of
> why it rules so much. (The first time I heard porcupine, I found it
> woefully confusing - despite that my perception was flipping around
> LESS. So we need an explanation for why that might be.)

I'll have to check out this "father". So far, in temperaments, I've found things of value (to me) in the grievously "bad" and in the "excellent", but not much in the "good".

Whew I'm tired of typing, but I did read your whole post and do think about everything I read here.
>
> A purely psychoacoustic explanation might be that the half step is
> spectrally a maximally dissonant interval, and that it "cues" the HSD
> to fire for the following note in a certain way - e.g. the lack of
> overlap between the partials is so strong that it acts as a cue for
> the HSD to fire differently than it would have otherwise. This
> wouldn't be represented in a model like HE, which assumes that you are
> a baby that is listening to a sound out of the blue with no previous
> sounds influencing the perception of this one. Anyway, this might be
> total bullshit, I just threw it out there as the sort of thing that
> might be going on.
>
> > But you also heard 0-369-646, within a fraction of a second afterward, as major.
>
> I hear them as two different types of major chord, one with a really
> flat fifth and one with a really sharp fifth.
>
> > Try not making the alteration: go 0-5-9, 0-4-8. Doesn't the 0-4-8 take on in this context a dare I say "minor" quality for you, too?
>
> I can flip my brain around to hear it either way. It's hard to say
> what I'd have naturally heard it like if you hadn't told me what to
> listen for. I think minor is probably right.
>
> > As far as what "we" hear, I haven't discovered any real difference in
> > how I hear and how the "civilians" I talk to hear. Sometimes I get downright embarrassingly perceptive responses to pieces of music, or descriptions of sensations eerily, even uncomfortably, similar to my own. Of course it's the people who feel a connection who approach you, though, maybe everyone else just heard one great big out of tune version of "Karma Chameleon" or something. :-)
>
> I certainly do. I can't tell you how many times I've played something
> I really like for people who just hear it as creepy and out of tune.
>
> -Mike
>

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

> I'll have to check out this "father". So far, in temperaments, I've found things of value (to me) in the grievously "bad" and in the "excellent", but not much in the "good".

What are these awkwardly mediocre temperaments? What are examples of good but not excellent, in other words?

Tunings, I probably should have said. Pajara in 22 is probably the most half-assed thing I've ever heard- close enough to indicate what it's pretending to be, but not enough to actually sound "organically" good. Temperaments based on roots of 3 or 6 (hanson, wuerschmidt) tuned to tunings that render them into meantones, like 31-edo. Wha-huh? 19 as a meantone: soggy (it's cool as a tuning of other schemes though).

:-)

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "genewardsmith" <genewardsmith@...> wrote:
>
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "lobawad" <lobawad@> wrote:
>
> > I'll have to check out this "father". So far, in temperaments, I've found things of value (to me) in the grievously "bad" and in the "excellent", but not much in the "good".
>
> What are these awkwardly mediocre temperaments? What are examples of good but not excellent, in other words?
>

On Thu, May 19, 2011 at 6:01 PM, lobawad <lobawad@...> wrote:
>
> You hear step 7 of 17-equal as more "M3" than step 6, don't you? Yet step six is closer to 5/4, and like 5/4, it is not found immediately on a chain of fifths.
> Step 7 is a (sharp) Pythagorean ditone. But I also hear step 7 as "more M3" than step 6 (I generally use step 6 in my music, because I want the mellow middle third and don't want to temper out 81/80, but whatever).

6\17 is closer to 5/4, but to my ears 6/5 starts to jump into it and
color the sound and bring it down. Step 7 of 17-equal I hear as being
more M3, yes, and 9/7 also starts to color the sound a bit. But I'm
asking if, after all of these factors, and all of the learned factors,
and everything else, if what it is that we hear as a major third is
related to some kind of skewed perception of 5/4.

I would also suggest that it has something to do with accessibility
via the circle of fifths, but as I've spent much of the last few weeks
totally immersed in Blackwood and porcupine, I don't think so.

> Our perception of "M3" is a conditioned thing. Not only does it not conform, in this case, to what a harmonic-series based view says it should be, it gleefully violates that prediction. 5/4 is a piece of crap M3 if you want brilliant and striving, 81/64 garbage if you want content and sweet: "M3" is beholden to neither. It can be created within a broad field, but is defined by relative position, usage, context, etc.

OK, but what I'm wondering about is whether "M3" actually has to do
with some kind of deep psychoacoustic cue for "otonal interval with a
relatively strong virtual pitch 'presence' that is two octaves down
from the lowest note"

> This should be QED, for look at 12-tET. The same exact pitch can be heard as an augmented second or a minor third, depending on context. It is impossible that intervallic identity is based on frequency ratio.

I keep hearing people say this, but the fact is that we use the
altered scale, which is C Db Eb Fb Gb Ab Bb C, over dominant 7 chords
all the time. We've been doing that for a century now. Despite that
the major third is now a "diminished fourth," it still works as a
dominant 7 chord. This suggests to me that this is NOT the perception
of the interval flipping from an "augmented second" to a "minor
third," nor does it have anything to do with its position in the
diatonic scale. In fact, we also use the diminished scale over
dominant 7 chords, and the addition of this extra note doesn't seem to
break anything.

It suggests to me that there is something else going on, which only
sometimes correlates with this "augmented 2nd"/"major 3rd"
distinction, but that this distinction is not the cause of the
percept.

> > But if these intervals sound like "flat fifths" vs "sharp fifths,"
> > does this mean that we're hearing them as (perceived) 3:2's? Or are
> > you saying there is something that "fifthness" is, other than an end
> > configuration for the periodicity detector in the brain? Keep in mind
> > - ! - that I am distinguishing between 3:2 as a reference to what the
> > frequency ratios actually are, and 3:2 as an end perception of what
> > you think they are.
>
> The chords are in "inversions". From e-g-c-e a fifth must be derived, and that's a learned thing. 3:2, in tune or not, just isn't jumping out at you.

What do you mean by "3:2" here?

> Two different intervals, derived not heard directly, both signally the same section of the harmonic series? That sounds so dubious. Whereas identity derived from chords and scales is right there, and obviously very flexible (otherwise we wouldn't recognize tunes when they're played out of tune).

I was suggesting more like this whole system of cues and logic and
derivation that you lay out above, derives 3/2 in both cases at the
end of the day. Identity derived from scales is not "right there"
until someone explains to me my objections about the altered scale and
diminished scales above.

> "Fifthness" is "So", like "M3ness" is "Mi".

Surely you don't mean that "fifthness" derives from "fifth position in
the diatonic scale?" Because the altered scale thing invalidates that.

> > The notion that all of this periodicity detection business is actually
> > just a specific instance of pattern recognition has been thrown around
> > as a serious hypothesis in the psychoacoustics literature. The
> > fundamental question at work is whether or not we'd learn to hear
> > other timbres as "fused" other than perfectly harmonic ones, if we'd
> > been exposed to such timbres from birth (or even while in the womb).
>
> Fusion must be a different issue altogether. I don't think we'd ever hear as "fused" things that aren't fused (though obviously we can learn to hear unfused as "consonant"). "M3" obviously doesn't have anything to do with fusion, for fusion even diminishes the feeling of "M3" when our M3 is a ditone, as it is in 12-tET.

The idea is that chords don't cause the fusion entirely, but sort of
just imply it.

> I'll have to check out this "father". So far, in temperaments, I've found things of value (to me) in the grievously "bad" and in the "excellent", but not much in the "good".

Blackwood's 13-tet etude is where it's at. I feel like I'm some kind
of deep ocean fish or something.

-Mike

On Thu, May 19, 2011 at 6:25 PM, lobawad <lobawad@...> wrote:
>
> Tunings, I probably should have said. Pajara in 22 is probably the most half-assed thing I've ever heard- close enough to indicate what it's pretending to be, but not enough to actually sound "organically" good. Temperaments based on roots of 3 or 6 (hanson, wuerschmidt) tuned to tunings that render them into meantones, like 31-edo. Wha-huh? 19 as a meantone: soggy (it's cool as a tuning of other schemes though).

Second Pajara. So that's three of us now.

Ironically enough, the 5-limit diaschismatic/srutal/whatever it's
called today/version of Pajara I think actually sounds amazing. Petr's
comma pump on it was some kind of transcendental experience for me;
you end up with these two tonal centers that are worlds apart (or at
least a tritone apart), but they're somehow harmonized together due to
the comma pump. Debussy hints at a similar effect here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWAyFw98RLM&t=0m58s

First he plays Cm, and in the melody we have a lick that's in D
harmonic minor. After moving to Bb briefly, the chord then moves to
F#maj (!) and the same thing happens again. The end result is that you
get the sound of F#7 and F#maj7 fused together. The whole thing kind
of fleshes out an 8:10:14:15:17:19 structure in 12-tet.

This new crazy F# quality and the Cm are worlds apart, but harmonized
by what to my ears seems to be some kind of abstract 17-limit
relationship, in which the G in the melody and in the Cm becomes some
sort of otonal interval on top of the F#.

So that's awesome. The 2.3.5.17.19 Pajara blows my mind consistently.
But for some reason the 7-limit Pajara didn't do much for me. It
sounds like the blues with limitations put on it. Maybe someone just
hasn't used it right yet.

-Mike

Bumping this for Carl's benefit, I know how he hates to comb.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "cityoftheasleep" <igliashon@...> wrote:
>
> Okay, added reasonably-optimally-concordant tunings of #1, #3, and #4 to my files folder:
>
> /tuning/files/IgliashonJones/
>
> #1 is now in 19-EDO "Deutone" temperament, #3 is in 38-EDO Lemba (I think it's Lemba, anyway), and #4 is in 22-EDO Pajara. #2 is still pending a search for a more concordant tuning. I'm curious if these versions sound any more or less functional to anyone. FWIW, #4 was the most radically-retuned, I used the symmetric version of Pajara[10] that is ssLsssssLsss, which fits pretty well as far as I can tell but makes the 10-EDO neutral intervals into either major or minor ones. It seems to fit the bill, though.
>
> To answer Carl's question about the progressions, here are the chords in cents in each progression except #2 (based on the original less-than-concordant tunings):
>
> #1:
> 369-1385-2400
> 831-1200-2215
> 554-1015-1846
> 369-646-1754
> 185-646-1569
> 369-831-1846
> 185-554-1200
> 185-646-1385
> 0-369-1200
>
> #3:
> 1200-1575-2175
> 975-1650-2250
> 825-1200-1800
> 375-825-1425
> 600-975-1575
> 225-600-1200
> 375-825-1425
> 600-975-1575
> 0-375-1200
>
> #4:
> 1200-1560-2160
> 960-1440-1920
> 840-1440-1800
> 840-1320-1680
> 720-1200-1680
> 480-960-1440
> 600-960-1560
> 720-1080-1680
> 0-720-1200
>
> The concordantized versions follow very similar root movements, as the retunings were actually fairly minor for the most part (especially the 16-EDO one). Carl, I think it's pretty obvious from these that while there are some similarities, they are definitely different progressions.
>
> -Igs
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "cityoftheasleep" <igliashon@> wrote:
> >
> > --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "genewardsmith" <genewardsmith@> wrote:
> >
> > > Probably. As for a better machine tuning, I don't know. How well does 28 work?
> >
> > Uhhhh not very well. 9/4 gets marginally better at the expense of 7/4, and the more complex and sensitive 9/7 takes quite a hit. The mild hint of 5-limit in the form of 11-EDO's tenuous 5/3 and 6/5 are washed into the 18/11 and 11/9 in 28, so I think for 11-limit extensions 28 looks better...but I don't think I used much (if any) in the progression, so I'd say 28 is no improvement.
> >
> > > Retuning your 10edo piece to Pajara[10] sounds worth trying.
> >
> > I'll have to analyze it, it might turn out to be Beatles[10] or maybe Lemba[10] or who knows what else.
> >
> > > As for lemba, I have no idea why you would rather do that in 16 than in 26.
> >
> > Well, I didn't ever use the 3/2 approximation (which I think does not even show up in the 6-note MOS anyway), and 16 does a slightly better job at the prime-5-based harmonies and only a slightly worse job at the prime-7-based ones. In 16, 5/1 is about 12 cents flat, and 7/1 is about 6 cents sharp. In 26, 5/1 is about 17 cents flat and 7/1 is practically Just. 38 might be best, though I'm not sure if it's technically Lemba.
> >
> > -Igs
> >
>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "cityoftheasleep" <igliashon@...> wrote:
>
> Bumping this for Carl's benefit, I know how he hates to comb.
>

We have Kodos in a booth backstage where he can't hear us.

I HEAR ALL!!!

-Carl

on some days that has to be a frightful experience.

On Thu, May 19, 2011 at 10:57 PM, Carl Lumma <carl@...> wrote:

>
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "cityoftheasleep" <igliashon@...> wrote:
> >
> > Bumping this for Carl's benefit, I know how he hates to comb.
> >
>
> We have Kodos in a booth backstage where he can't hear us.
>
> I HEAR ALL!!!
>
> -Carl
>
>
>
>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> On Thu, May 19, 2011 at 6:01 PM, lobawad <lobawad@...> wrote:
> >
> > You hear step 7 of 17-equal as more "M3" than step 6, don't you? Yet step six is closer to 5/4, and like 5/4, it is not found immediately on a chain of fifths.
> > Step 7 is a (sharp) Pythagorean ditone. But I also hear step 7 as "more M3" than step 6 (I generally use step 6 in my music, because I want the mellow middle third and don't want to temper out 81/80, but whatever).
>
> 6\17 is closer to 5/4, but to my ears 6/5 starts to jump into it and
> color the sound and bring it down.

Digging the sound of the "neutral" intervals is a huge part of what this whole tuning business is about, for me. I don't know how your listeners are, but in my experience neutral intervals + harmony is basically a sure-fire recipe for that "strange, yet familiar, and attractive" you were talking about.

I can see that if the "neutral" intervals don't work for you as independent entities, and intonational "flavors" don't present a solid and satisfying opportunity for your vision of microtonal exploration, and your gomf (grid of musical function) will snap intervals of a semitone's difference to the same place, and you're not up for cheerfully annoying the folk with grating sounds or soothing them with harmonic series trippiness, then the take on microtonal music which you seem to have chosen must be your only real choice. The approach you seem to have chosen is that of addressing the language of chord progressions.

>Step 7 of 17-equal I hear as being
> more M3, yes, and 9/7 also starts to color the sound a bit. But I'm
> asking if, after all of these factors, and all of the learned factors,
> and everything else, if what it is that we hear as a major third is
> related to some kind of skewed perception of 5/4.

I don't think that's something we can ever know for sure.

>
> OK, but what I'm wondering about is whether "M3" actually has to do
> with some kind of deep psychoacoustic cue for "otonal interval with a
> relatively strong virtual pitch 'presence' that is two octaves down
> from the lowest note"

I'd suggest that you lose the term "otonal", it's like dropping "engram" or "e-meter" into a philosophical conversation. Obviously "M3" doesn't have anything to do with "otonal interval with a
relatively strong virtual pitch 'presence' that is two octaves down
from the lowest note", as even a 9/7 works very nicely when "M3" is concieved of as high, bright and driving.

>
> > This should be QED, for look at 12-tET. The same exact pitch can be heard as an augmented second or a minor third, depending on context. It is impossible that intervallic identity is based on frequency ratio.
>
> I keep hearing people say this, but the fact is that we use the
> altered scale, which is C Db Eb Fb Gb Ab Bb C, over dominant 7 chords
> all the time. We've been doing that for a century now. Despite that
> the major third is now a "diminished fourth," it still works as a
> dominant 7 chord. This suggests to me that this is NOT the perception
> of the interval flipping from an "augmented second" to a "minor
> third," nor does it have anything to do with its position in the
> diatonic scale. In fact, we also use the diminished scale over
> dominant 7 chords, and the addition of this extra note doesn't seem to
> break anything.
>

Good response- it's the same counterargument I thought of when typing that. It's a good response because, although I'm sure I could cook up an example in 12-tEt in which the dim4/M3 false relation is audible, I can't hear it in my head, off the top of my head. However this doesn't invalidate the easily audible difference between aug2 and m3, which every metaller making songs about Egyptian mummies rising from the tomb knows.

> It suggests to me that there is something else going on, which only
> sometimes correlates with this "augmented 2nd"/"major 3rd"
> distinction, but that this distinction is not the cause of the
> percept.
>

That's possible- it's easy as pie to hide the thing after all (otherwise we couldn't have such a mutable upper tetrachord in common practice music).

As far as the remainder of this post, I was thinking about it last night and I think we're getting into "chicken or egg?" kinds of things.

Igliashon's earlier point was essentially that if intervals we're used to really are skewed versions of some ideal, isn't it reasonable to assume that people would swoon in ecstasy when the trenchcoat of tradition is flashed open to expose the real thing au naturel? and yet we find quite a lack of swooning.

more later

> > > But if these intervals sound like "flat fifths" vs "sharp fifths,"
> > > does this mean that we're hearing them as (perceived) 3:2's? Or are
> > > you saying there is something that "fifthness" is, other than an end
> > > configuration for the periodicity detector in the brain? Keep in mind
> > > - ! - that I am distinguishing between 3:2 as a reference to what the
> > > frequency ratios actually are, and 3:2 as an end perception of what
> > > you think they are.
> >
> > The chords are in "inversions". From e-g-c-e a fifth must be derived, and that's a learned thing. 3:2, in tune or not, just isn't jumping out at you.
>
> What do you mean by "3:2" here?
>
> > Two different intervals, derived not heard directly, both signally the same section of the harmonic series? That sounds so dubious. Whereas identity derived from chords and scales is right there, and obviously very flexible (otherwise we wouldn't recognize tunes when they're played out of tune).
>
> I was suggesting more like this whole system of cues and logic and
> derivation that you lay out above, derives 3/2 in both cases at the
> end of the day. Identity derived from scales is not "right there"
> until someone explains to me my objections about the altered scale and
> diminished scales above.
>
> > "Fifthness" is "So", like "M3ness" is "Mi".
>
> Surely you don't mean that "fifthness" derives from "fifth position in
> the diatonic scale?" Because the altered scale thing invalidates that.
>
> > > The notion that all of this periodicity detection business is actually
> > > just a specific instance of pattern recognition has been thrown around
> > > as a serious hypothesis in the psychoacoustics literature. The
> > > fundamental question at work is whether or not we'd learn to hear
> > > other timbres as "fused" other than perfectly harmonic ones, if we'd
> > > been exposed to such timbres from birth (or even while in the womb).
> >
> > Fusion must be a different issue altogether. I don't think we'd ever hear as "fused" things that aren't fused (though obviously we can learn to hear unfused as "consonant"). "M3" obviously doesn't have anything to do with fusion, for fusion even diminishes the feeling of "M3" when our M3 is a ditone, as it is in 12-tET.
>
> The idea is that chords don't cause the fusion entirely, but sort of
> just imply it.
>
> > I'll have to check out this "father". So far, in temperaments, I've found things of value (to me) in the grievously "bad" and in the "excellent", but not much in the "good".
>
> Blackwood's 13-tet etude is where it's at. I feel like I'm some kind
> of deep ocean fish or something.

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

> To answer Carl's question about the progressions, here are
> the chords in cents in each progression except #2 (based on
> the original less-than-concordant tunings):

Actually I was hoping for the root motion. That is, the
pitches of the roots of these chords relative to a fixed
concert pitch according to the root assignment I gave
for the chords earlier (and/or your interpretation).

-Carl

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

> Actually I was hoping for the root motion. That is, the
> pitches of the roots of these chords relative to a fixed
> concert pitch according to the root assignment I gave
> for the chords earlier (and/or your interpretation).

All of the cents values are relative to the tonic of each progression, i.e. the root note of the ending chord (represented by the value of 0 cents). So if C2 is the root of the ending chord, C2 is 0 cents, C3 is 1200, etc. The chords are usually voiced with the root on the bottom, though there are a couple exceptions and in #4 the roots are sometimes ambiguous (at least in the 10-EDO version). So for the most part the root motion can be gleaned from the left-most column. Try the more concordant versions, too; I think they make the differences a little clearer.

-Igs