------------------------------

Topic No. 2

Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998 10:34:24 -0800 (PST)
From: Mark Nowitzky
To: monz@juno.com
Cc: Tuning Forum
Subject: Re: visiting LA again (Digest 1590, Topic 11)
Message-ID: <2.2.16.19981123103109.33d7809a@pacificnet.net>

Hi Joe,

At 01:12 PM 11/23/98 -0500, you wrote (Digest 1590, Topic 11):

From: monz@juno.com
Subject: visiting LA again

McLaren and I will be visiting LA again later this week. We expect to see Erv Wilson, and hopefully a whole gang of xenharmonicists can congregate. So this time there's a little more notice.

Not sure what day yet - probably Friday or Saturday. If interested in meeting, email me.

Count me in! (and have a safe trip, happy T-day, etc.)

--Mark

+------------------------------------------------------+
| Mark Nowitzky                                        |
| email:  nowitzky@alum.mit.edu    AIM:  Nowitzky      |
| www:    http://www.pacificnet.net/~nowitzky          |
|         "If you haven't visited Mark Nowitzky's home |
|         page recently, you haven't missed much..."   |
+------------------------------------------------------+

------------------------------

Topic No. 3

Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998 14:08:19 -0800
From: Carl Lumma
To: Tuning Forum
Subject: Erlich's Contest
Message-ID: <4.0.1.19981120150038.00e04f00@lumma.org>

Those of you who have read my paper or followed my posts know that I suggest replacing the 7-out-of-12 scale, which has defined most Western music for centuries if not millenia, with a 10-out-of-22 scale.

I think it's rather inaccurate to say that the 7-out-of-12 scale has "defined" Western music for centuries. What's "Western" music? The 7 tone MOS is one of the most commonly used scales in the world. Always has been.

If we do recognize a "Western Music", then we'll notice that it's been using to awesome effect the 12 tone MOS for over 100 years, and I do not mean serialism. It's also made ample use 5, 6, and 8 tone scales.

While the argument for the 10-of-22 scale is thorough, well-presented, and very compelling, it remains to be proven or disproven only through a body of music, since that is what the theory is *for*. Unfortunately, the only reasonable instrument for decatonic music that exists at the moment is the guitar, which is simply not my can of worms...

I haven't proven that something significantly different from 10 of 22 can't work, but I doubt it.

Can't work for what? The specific set of rules you chose to generalize diatonicity? There must be other sets of rules that capture the essence of G.D. just as well:

I think that as long as we keep propriety in mind, and make so that the set of intervals (scale steps) can rotate through the set of acoustic magnitudes in some systematic way with the scale's circular permutations, and keep everything to a digestable yet challenging size (see discussion of cognitive limits below), we have "got it".

I know of no 9-limit or 11-limit generalized-diatonic scales, but they might exist (I don't know how important that would be, since the 9-limit and especially 11-limit analogues of the minor chord sound pretty dissonant to me, despite Partch's excellent use of them).

The 9-limit utonalities sound good to me. The 11's work with the right (especially electronic) timbres, and/or tasteful amplitude balance and voicing. And I don't think that we have to rotate through major and minor to achieve diatonicity. We could rotate through higher and lower identities, or all sorts of things.

But if we insist on complete chords, and I don't think we have to, higher-limit generalized diatonic scales run into another problem: many of the desirable effects of diatonicity drop off as the number of tones in the scale increases. Some will drop off because of the Miller limit (which has to do with tracking events over time), and some will drop off due to the Subitizing limit (which has to do with tracking multiple, simultaneous events).

1. Miller limit

(a) I don't believe in just one point-of-no-return Miller limit, at least not in the application of how listeners experience melodic symmetries. Rather, I think that there may be several types of memory effects that fall in and out as the number of tones in a melody changes. Exact numbers would depend to some extent on how much practice the subject has had at this stuff, but here's a rough idea of what I'm thinking (we assume octave equivalence)...

tones   effect                      propriety            music
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  2-4   too easy                    little importance    chant
        less interesting                                 ritual song
        more "join in" potential

 5-12   tracking starts to slip     most important       polyphony
        mind has fun trying to                           parallel harmony
        keep its place                                   melody over chords

11-22   tracking the entire scale   some importance      parallel harmony
        impossible: mind "chunks"                        melody over chords
        scale into proper subsets                        melody over drone
        and tracks within/between
        those

23-34   inability to focus or       no importance        conceptualism     
and up  mind begins to fuse 
        individual simuli and
        re-interprets as if
        hearing 5-9 tone scale

(b) I'd say that the Miller limit has claimed all it will from generalized diatonicity by 12 notes. This would seemingly nix anything higher than the 9 limit, whose smallest possible G.D. scale has 11 members. But I suspect that most listeners will need quite a bit of practice (and maybe a few Millers...) before getting the most out of even a 9 tone G.D. scale.

(c) Miller complained that he couldn't explain the performance of those subjects with absolute pitch. There are some very good reasons to believe that almost everyone is capable of very accurate absolute pitch. But I do not believe that the ability to remember the tones (as measured in Miller's experiments) using absolute pitch means that we are not experiencing a loss of some type of experience. For example, someone with a well-developed sense of absolute pitch may not have a problem correctly tracking 34 tones/oct. However, I believe she would suffer the same loss of ability at tracking melodic symmetries at this number of tones as someone without absolute pitch. With this I admit to some difficulty defining and measuring "melodic symmetries".

(d) I list "mind begins to fuse individual tones and re-interprets as if hearing a 5-9 tone scale" as one of the effects of a melody with over 23-34 tones. I list "conceptualism" as the kind of music you'd make with it. Here, I am insulting "conceptualist" music (the idea behind a work of music is extremely important to me as a listener and composer, and "conceptualism" belittles this). But there is a way to profit from the brain's tendency to fuse tones when they are this close in size and this many in number -- the performance of generalized diatonic music in just intonation! Choirs have been doing it for centuries.

2. Subitizing limit

(a) It's been shown that average dudes from all over can count how many stones you toss on the ground almost instantly- so long as you don't toss more than six stones at a time. Since a good deal of the interest of G.D. scales comes from the interaction between parts in polyphonic composition, it seems that we'll lose something if we go above the 11-limit.

(b) While this ability should be more easily improved with training than the Miller limits discussed above (remember Rainman and the toothpicks?), its carry-over to the tracking of simultaneous parts in a polyphonic music is not entire. This is due to the fact that our psychoacoustic bandwidth (keeping notes with their respective parts) is not as great as our visual bandwidth (as used for counting stones) -- especially when listening to music produced on speakers, which lacks the spatial cues of acoustic performance. I think six parts is a good practical upper limit for polyphony. Parallel harmony shouldn't have a limit so long as we stick to otonalites.

Carl

------------------------------

Topic No. 4

Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998 14:00:44 -0800
From: Carl Lumma
To: Tuning Forum
Subject: reply to Kraig Grady
Message-ID: <19981123190902265.AAB494@nietzsche>

This tuning [Centaur] was given to Poole

An appropriate way to say it, if I'm right about who gave it to him!

The construction of Centaur (1977) fulfills the property that each interval that occurs is subtended by the same number of steps. This preserves and allows the possibility of recognizable melodic transpositions.

Could you explain more? You have got my interst up.

Canwright [sic] picked up on this scale ... In turn his Fibonaccis rhythms i got from him.

Canright's Fibonacci stuff is really cool!

Look at the 1-3-5-7-9 double dexany and you will see a 14 tone scale that is truly a scale.

I'm not familiar with the double dekany. I am familiar with dekany and pentadekany. Perhaps you could be more specific?

Both Myself and Erv are already aware of how many tetrads are contained in the stellated hexanies.

Never said you didn't. I did say that the 12-out-of Stellated Hexany tuning has the greatest number of consonant intervals of any possible 12-tone subset of the 7-limit. Did you know this? Or is it incorrect? I have no proof...

Anyway you can take the tetradic diamond and omit a tone and still have 3 harmonic and 3 subharmonic tetrads

Yes, and I never said otherwise. I just said it was damaged more by cutting one tone than the Stellated Hexany is damaged by cutting two. And this is quite true, if you count the number of consonant 7-limit dyads in each.

Carl

------------------------------

Topic No. 5

Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998 14:58:23 -0500
From: "Paul H. Erlich"
To: Tuning Forum
Subject: RE: Bells, groups, and sets
Message-ID: <85B74BA01678D211ACDE00805FBE3C050B6524@MARS>

Carl Lumma wrote,

First-order combination tones, and the fundamentals themselves, give a very nice effect in JI with most bells, at least up to the 9-limit. It's a different effect than the zero-beating stuff heard on Setheras' Cd's, but I like it at least as much.

I agree (if by "the fundamentals themselves" you include virtual pitch effects) if you're using otonal chords. Utonal chords will not have these factors to support them and will only "work" if the bell overtones happen to line up for some of their intervals (this often happens in the 5-limit, as many bells have minor third overtones).

I think agree, but isn't propriety a different measure than yours, rather than a "stronger" one? That is, a scale could be proper without having a 1:1 relationship between its consonances and scale steps?

A 1:1 relationship is not what I meant, but your later message indicates that you then understood me but your objection remained. Well, it wouldn't be strictly proper, unless the consonant interval had two different approximations (which is not true in any of the scales I've considered). But it could be proper, if the consonance was approximated by the largest version of one step size and the smallest version of another step size. So you're right, my condition is not weaker, it's different.

Stephen Soderberg replied in a flattering way to my posts. I would reply that I do indeed have a deep philosophical difference with Clough, as e-mail correspondence with him revealed. The maximally even scales I have mentioned, 10 out of 22, 19 out of 31, and 22 out of 41, are indeed maximally even according to the Clough/Douthett definition, but that doesn't mean I put much importance on maximal evenness. In fact, if you read my paper, you'll know that I prefer the non-maximally even 10 out of 22 scale to the maximally even one, even though the latter has the advantage of 8 consonant tetrads to the former's 6.

------------------------------

Topic No. 6

Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998 15:17:54 -0500 (EST)
From: Stephen Soderberg
To: Tuning Forum
Subject: Re: TUNING digest 1589
Message-ID:

Joe Monzo:

The "subharmonic scale" can be characterized as a utonal progression, in Partch's terms. It is the exact inverse of the "harmonic series" of overtones above a fundamental. In the case of subharmonics, the "fundamental" is the highest note in the series, with the subharmonics in reciprocal integer ratios below it.

I keep forgetting to bring this up to see if any of you can shed some light, so now is as good a time as any... It's my understanding that in the 19th century Riemann, partly as an effort to acoustically justify the minor triad, postulated the "undertone series" which, of course, was attacked as being a strictly theoretical (non-acoustic) construct. I haven't got a copy of Partch handy, but does he credit Riemann at any point, or is Partch's version a "rediscovery"? Or am I missing a significant distinction?

Johnny Reinhard:

I had an interesting discussion with a Bulgarian bagpiper Stoyan Boshnakov (staying with me on an arts exchange). ... He seemed to confuse materials with theoretical understanding. He positively flinched when I suggested having the 2 drones at a 5/4 major third.

I wasn't aware that bagpipes could be tuned -- aren't they a fixed-pitch percussion instrument? ;-) Seriously, I like your phrase "confuse materials with theoretical understanding." You may have something different in mind, but I think this describes a common problem and causes unnecessary misunderstanding and arguments. It's true that, say, 12tET describes a *tuning* -- i.e., 12 physical pitches distributed equally across an octave -- and there certainly are acoustical problems with such an arrangement to many ears. But it's also true that "12-tone" describes an abstract musico-mathematical space, what the literature often refers to as the mod 12 "universe" or 12-space and what mathematicians label simply Z(subscript)12. In effect, 12tET is a tuning of 12-space, and of course there's no reason that 12-space can't be tuned in many other ways. So to malign 12tET (so I assume) is to malign its effects on the ear, not its 12-space compositional-theoretic properties, which are quite potent regardless of how you tune it. Likewise, arguments about how the diatonic scale should *really* be tuned (for psycho-acoustic or historical or any other reason) are mostly irrelevant to its basic 7-space (compositional-theoretic) properties which carry over to *any* tuning that closes (or pretends to close) at the octave. In the end, things like n-tone theory or ME theory or hyperdiatonic theory are abstract and have nothing to do with tuning. E.g., there's nothing to say you can't have a 12-tone row embedded in 19-space or 24-space in a variety of ways -- the "geometry" would change (in some possibly interesting and colorful ways), but the 12-tone invariants would be lifted (or "warped") into the new domain. This is probably not real news to most on the list, but there have been some discussions that seem to ignore this very important distinction.

Daniel Wolf:

[Paul Erlich:]

"but it must have taken them some compositional ingenuity to avoid the tonal implications of simple intervals in order to make these other features reign"

I agree entirely, and indeed, throughout most of his career Babbitt has avoided the appearance of tonal passages in his surfaces, although his late works play with tonal relationships in ways which project (as they say in Princeton) the underlying intervallic structures. I don't dispute that Babbitt's music is unlikely ever to find a wide audience, or that even a large part of the tiny audience that does listen to the music is able to parse these features, but saturation of the music by these structures leads to a overall coherence that is more widely appreciable.

Daniel Wolf and others may be interested to know that the papers delivered at the Babbitt Symposium at the Library of Congress this past May will be published in the next issue of Perspectives of New Music. One interesting paper which relates directly to what is at issue here is on just how important is "12-tone-ishness" in listening to "12-tone" music (it's by Joseph Dubiel) and makes some interesting points regarding listening strategies in general.

Steve Soderberg

------------------------------

Topic No. 7

Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998 15:26:47 -0500
From: "Paul H. Erlich"
To: Tuning Forum
Subject: reply to Carl Lumma
Message-ID: <85B74BA01678D211ACDE00805FBE3C050B6526@MARS>

Carl wrote,

any sensitivity to mistuning in melody (making comma adjustments) must be at least an order of magnitude rougher than the acoustic pleasure tolerance of 1-4 cents.

Carl, did you miss my post to TD 1585, on Tuesday Nov. 17th, where I wrote,

Ken Overton's page Distinctions Between Just-tuned Key Areas Within Musical Contexts (http://music.dartmouth.edu/~kov/lerdahl/tuningPaper.html) states:

Rasch's study (1985) of large sequences of simultaneous tones found that mistuning of the intervals of the melody was more disturbing than mistuning of simultaneous intervals. This suggests that listeners compare melodic intervals to an abstract interval standard.

This is a very interesting statement but unfortunately the Rasch paper does not appear in the list of references. Anyone know which study this refers to? Anyway, this (Rasch's conclusion) is a statement I've wanted to make for some time but I kept quiet because of an apparantly contradictory fact: the fact that much finer deviations are perceptible in the tuning of simultaneous tones (harmonic intervals) than in the tuning of successive tones (melodic intervals). However, these facts are not contradictory at all. What is more perceptible is not necessarily more disturbing. And I knew this, as a musician, but I just couldn't rationalize it because of the apparant contradiction. The upshot of this is that I unequivocally prefer meantone to standard just intonation for 5-limit diatonic music. The reason is that all the melodic intervals of a given type (using traditional musical nomenclature) are all the same size in a given meantone tuning (and quite close to the same size in a given key of a circulating temperament), so they can form an abstract interval standard in the mind of the listener. The worst harmonic error in a range of different meantones is under 6 cents. In just intonation, two different sizes exist for the unison, major second, minor third, and perfect fourth (and their inversions), and the differences are 21.5 cents. The point is that although a 6-cent harmonic error may be easier to hear than a 21.5-cent melodic error, the latter may in fact be more disturbing.

------------------------------

Topic No. 8

Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998 16:16:14 -0500
From: "Paul H. Erlich"
To: Tuning Forum
Subject: reply to Daniel Wolf on Balzano/Clough/Douthett
Message-ID: <85B74BA01678D211ACDE00805FBE3C050B6527@MARS>

I will have to read Clough more closely to defend him,

For example, Clough and Douthett explain Indian scales as second-order ME, 7 out of 12 out of 22. Without the acoustical arguments, the numbers 7, 12, and 22 are left unexplained, which makes for a pretty poor explanation, as far as I'm concerned. With acoustical arguments, the basic scales can be understood on their own and speculation into their relationship to hypothetical superstructures becomes unnecessary. As long as such speculation is going on, the most likely Indian 12 out of 22 seems not to be the maximally even one but rather the one I would call "hexachordal", in analogy with tetrachords in heptatonic scales.

but knowing Balzano's in more detail, I suspect that these properties could be considered to be as true for 12tet as for a 12-tone MOS subset of 19 or 31.

I don't think that is too relevant, as such subsets would not have been very important in the formative years of the tonal system, except perhaps in isolated keyboard works. 7 out of 19 or 31 stands on its own at least as well as 7 out of 12 for triadic diatonic music, but Balzano's theory singles out 12 since it is 3*4 (major third times minor third). The symmetrical, 12-based relations you mention that were adopted by composers after the tonal system had already been firmly established and the 12-tone compromise had been accepted. No doubt 19th century composers would have found other relations valuable, such as 7-limit ones, had 31 been adopted instead of 12.

When Mr. Erlich says

I prefer to build cognition upon, rather than reject, the biases of the psychological system,

I believe that he is confusing the cochlear apparatus with psychology and introducing a division between cognition and psychology that is not clear.

I don't believe you're right.

------------------------------

Topic No. 9

Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998 16:23:07 -0500
From: "Paul H. Erlich"
To: Tuning Forum
Subject: RE: Ambiguous or Contradictory?
Message-ID: <85B74BA01678D211ACDE00805FBE3C050B6528@MARS>

Carl Lumma wrote,

Isn't it amazing how many definitions the word "interval" has? Here, I meant a (number of scale steps, acoustic magnitude) pair. So no, the usual diatonic is not an example; the tritone is not a type of fifth in the natural minor.

What do you mean?

What's a Keenan-type scale?

Dave Keenan posted a scale recently that has two different "generating" fifths. It will come up again, I promise.

------------------------------

Topic No. 10

Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998 16:34:42 EST
From: Ed Foote
To: Tuning Forum
Subject: Mozart Tuning
Message-ID: <5664360b.3659d4f2@aol.com>

Gary writes:

That's interesting. I'm sure you know better than I do, but I would have guessed that Mozart was firmly in the age of well temperament. That because J.S. Bach was of course a advocate of well temperament, and if my memory serves Bach died about 10 years before Mozart was born (1750 and 1760).

Actually, I don't know better than anybody. There is evidence that meantone was around a lot longer than the birth of well temperaments. At one time, (mid 1700's) it seems possible that there was no domination, but rather a mix of all sorts of tunings.

There is no definitive answer, but we can look at what Mozart composed for the keyboard. I don't think there are any compositions of his that would have snared a wolf in 1/6 comma MT. Could this indicate some limitations that he was writing within? Or did he really prefer a lot of pure thirds? Or does his music sound better with the key color spread over a well temperament than built on the solid thirds of Meantone?

These are questions that we get to answer, today, by trial. So listening, and making musical decisions within the historical realm of possibilities is the only way I know to resolve the best tuning for Mozart. I so far, have preferred the Kirnberger III, (Jorgensen calls it the Prinz).

Regards,

Ed Foote

------------------------------

Topic No. 11

Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998 16:47:43 -0500
From: "Paul H. Erlich"
To: Tuning Forum
Subject: reply to Kraig Grady
Message-ID: <85B74BA01678D211ACDE00805FBE3C050B652A@MARS>

The notion of accepting intervals because they are not any worst than the triad in 12 et is absurd. why not stay with 12 then!

Because I wanted consonant tetrads, not just triads. The 7-limit seems to be the way to go, and 12-tET has poor 7-limit tetrads. In fact, were it not for this "absurd" desire, I would probably not have developed an interest in alternate tunings at all!

------------------------------

Topic No. 12

Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998 17:19:47 -0500
From: "Paul H. Erlich"
To: Tuning Forum
Subject: RE: 12 tone subsets of the 7-limit
Message-ID: <85B74BA01678D211ACDE00805FBE3C050B652D@MARS>

Carl wrote,

(Me screwing up Erlich's diagram ... what ASCI number you got on those neato semi-colon-like things?)

I thought I had typed everything with standard typewriter symbols.

------------------------------

Topic No. 13

Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998 22:14:22 -0800 (PST)
From: "M. Schulter"
To: Tuning Forum
Subject: Re: Just words from Bill Alves
Message-ID:

One of the more embarrassing predicaments of electronic communication is for me to post something which prompts an apology from another when in fact the apology is more properly mine.

In addition to giving due recognition to the most gracious response of Bill Alves to some not-so-well-considered words in my initial reply, I would like to present my misadventure as an example of what can happen when one reacts to a phrase without considering the context.

Dave Hill, considering the reported response of an indigenous community to hearing their monophonic songs played on a piano in 19th-century style harmony, drew a parallel to other situations where listeners encounter new and "richer" sonorities, including the development of regular Western European compositions for three and four voices around 1200 (e.g. Perotin).

Bill helpfully noted that these examples were in fact quite varied:

One might also point out that the Medieval music refered to in those accounts certainly did not have "full chordal harmony" as we think of it.

Unfortunately, I reacted without fairly weighing the context:

One complication here is that some of "us" may have different conceptions of just what "full chordal harmony" implies.

Very fortunately, and graciously, Bill through his great courtesy showed me what I should have recognized in the first place:

My apologies for the royal first person plural. I was refering to the context in which the term "full chordal harmony" appears in Dave Hill's original post, that is, a 19th-century missionary harmonizing indigenous melodies on the piano. To that missionary, "full chordal harmony" would clearly mean triadic, common-practice harmony.

Precisely, and my fault was in letting Bill's helpful observation set off reactions to prose passages in textbooks and articles which speak of how "we" find medieval music so "strange" or "incomprehensible," etc. -- a totally different issue. Especially in the context of Dave's discussion, "full chordal harmony" would mean a triadic style, and even out of such a context, the term "chordal" often carries this connotation (for better or worse).

Later on in that post, I recognized this very prevalent connotation -- would that I had then reconsidered and moderated my earlier words.

My point was that the sound of that kind of harmony was clearly very different from the medieval polyphony that Dave Hill had refered to as evidence for the ideal of harmony. Of course 12th-century polyphony had "chords," "harmony," and sounded "full," but it was not triadic.

Of course, Bill contributed greatly to the discussion by making just this distinction, which opened the way for my own post -- but would that I had saved my mixed feelings about the "musicological 'we'" for another occasion!

Thank you, Bill, for redeeming my fault with your friendly and eloquent response, and for your many contributions to this list and to just intonation theory.

Most appreciatively, with warm apologies,

Margo Schulter
mschulter@value.net

------------------------------

Topic No. 14

Date: Tue, 24 Nov 98 11:16:39 GMT
From: John ffitch
To: Tuning Forum
Subject: realtime synthesis
Message-ID:

Message written at 24 Nov 1998 08:20:20 +0000

Information on the Analog Devices Extended Csound card is:

Scotty Vercoe
XTCsound Applications Consultant
Analog Devices Software & Systems Technology Division
Tel: (781) 461-3569 FAX: (781) 461-4291
Support: Csound.support@analog.com
Website: http://www.analog.com/support/systems/audio/csound.html

It is in some sense a developer's card, but it does do what you asked, realtime synthesis on a card.

I am not saying it is necessarily a solution to your needs, but it is a data point. I declare a mild interest in that I have assisted in the software for this card, and taken airfares etc from Analog Devices.

==John ffitch

------------------------------

Topic No. 15

Date: Tue, 24 Nov 1998 04:26:26 -0800
From: Joe Monzo
To: Tuning Forum
Subject: Dowland webpage update
Message-ID: <19981124.043034.-248573.2.monz@juno.com>

I've improved my webpage on John Dowland's Lute Fretting:

http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/fngrbds/dowland/dowland.htm

- Joe Monzo
monz@juno.com
homepage

------------------------------

Topic No. 16

Date: Tue, 24 Nov 1998 04:29:34 -0800
From: Joe Monzo
To: Tuning Forum
Subject: definitions
Message-ID: <19981124.043034.-248573.3.monz@juno.com>

The tuning dictionary is now the Incredible Growing Thing.

http://www.ixpres.com/interval/dict/index.htm

I was speaking with John Chalmers tonight about the concept of "proper scales". Would someone please offer a definition of "proper" (how about Erlich or Op de Coul?)

- Joe Monzo
monz@juno.com
homepage

------------------------------

Topic No. 17

Date: Tue, 24 Nov 1998 04:55:53 -0800
From: monz@juno.com
To: Tuning Forum
Subject: Mozart's tuning
Message-ID: <19981124.045557.-248573.4.monz@juno.com>

From: Ibo Ortgies
To: Gary Morrison , PErlich@Acadian-Asset.com, A440A@aol.com, Ascend11@aol.com, monz@juno.com, curley@ucla.edu, Paul-Hahn@library.wustl.edu
Cc: 100407.2266@CompuServe.COM
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998 21:10:45 +0000
Subject: Re: Mozart's tuning

Please send this alos to the tuning list, since nothing works properly. Thanks

TUNING Digest 1590

Topics covered in this issue include:

1) Re: Mozart's tuning
by Gary Morrison

When I tried to find a message from me back I didn't find that, but I found the following message in a newsgroup rec.music.early. Independently about two years ago I posted the complete paragraph from Gall in German to some list and got an english translation back. If I find it, I'll send it to te tuning-list.

Re: Temperaments: request for references 

Author: Paul Poletti
Email: 100407.2266@CompuServe.COM
Date: 1995/09/30
Forums: rec.music.early

... "equal temperament was becoming the norm for tuning during the second half of the eighteenth century". Evidently Mr. Rasch has never read the tuning/repair handbook published by Gall in Vienna in 1805. Gall says there are two basic tempering systems: meantone and equal (he describes the qualitites of the thirds). But he continues that the problem with equal is that the thirds are too harsh, thus people don't like it. He concludes by saying between these two extremes there are many possibilities (thanks a bunch, Mr. Gall!).

 -- 
	Paul Poletti                   :   There is no Excellent Beauty
	Poletti & Tuinman Fortepianos  :   which hath not
	Utrecht, NL                    :   Some Strangeness
	tel/fax 31 30 2545626          :   in the proportion - Francis Bacon
	

Kind regards

Ibo Ortgies

Homepage

NEU: Zeichnung der neuen Orgel /NEW: drawing of the new organ

Weitere links für die neue mitteltönige Orgel mit Subsemitonien in Bremen-Walle
further links for the new meantone-organ (with split keys)in Bremen-Walle (Germany)

Disposition / Specification:
=============================================
Organs with subsemitones / Orgeln mit Subsemitonien

- Joe Monzo
monz@juno.com
homepage

------------------------------

Topic No. 18 [same as # 17]

------------------------------

Topic No. 19

Date: Tue, 24 Nov 1998 09:11:19 -0500
From: Daniel Wolf
To: Tuning Forum
Subject: Babbitt and Wilson, reply to Kraig Grady
Message-ID: <199811240911_MC2-613B-E1F8@compuserve.com>

KG:

I think you missed my point. Above and beyond my caveat that it wasn't exactly my line of work, my idea was simply that Babbitt's idea of using other parameters (metre, instrumentation, registration, dynamics) to project aspects of the underlying set structure was equally applicable to a CPS.

One thing I admire about a lot of your own music is the rigorous -- but completely audible -- way you move around your sets. In some of your pieces the rhythmic patterns are parallel to the pitch structures, so you are in fact already doing something along these lines.

I have no deep attachment to Babbitt's music -- I find All Set to be just as annoying as Darreg's Prelude to an Afternoon at the Dentist -- but the ideas are rich ones. I mean, where would we be if Babbitt hadn't invented the term pitch class?

DJW

------------------------------

Topic No. 20

Date: Tue, 24 Nov 1998 10:26:01 -0600 (CST)
From: Paul Hahn
To: Tuning Forum
Subject: Re: Mozart Tuning
Message-ID:

On Mon, 23 Nov 1998 A440A@aol.com wrote:

Gary writes:

That's interesting. I'm sure you know better than I do, but I would have guessed that Mozart was firmly in the age of well temperament. That because J.S. Bach was of course a advocate of well temperament, and if my memory serves Bach died about 10 years before Mozart was born (1750 and 1760).

Actually, I don't know better than anybody. There is evidence that meantone was around a lot longer than the birth of well temperaments. At one time, (mid 1700's) it seems possible that there was no domination, but rather a mix of all sorts of tunings.

I think it's been mentioned on this list before (or was it on HPSCHD-L, where we have frequent temperament wars also?) that organs were built which were tuned in meantone well into the 19th century, particularly in England.

--pH  http://library.wustl.edu/~manynote
    O
   /\        "'Jever take'n try to give an ironclad leave to
  -\-\-- o    yourself from a three-rail billiard shot?"

             NOTE: dehyphenate node to remove spamblock.          <*>

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End of TUNING Digest 1591

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