source file: mills2.txt Date: Mon, 28 Oct 1996 10:47:49 -0800 Subject: An easy introduction to tuning From: PAULE Common in music pedagogy is pentatonic improvisation, as on the black keys of a piano. I find that the choice of Pythagorean vs. Zarlinan (meantone) tuning for the pentatonic scale has a profound effect on the result. I first experienced this using an organ timbre and the two sounded so different that I was convinced that the timbre, not the tuning, was being changed (I was wrong). There is no way to decide which sounds better for a random pentatonic improvisation, but the difference is striking, and the difference in the resulting compositional choices is likely to prove striking as well. Therefore I think this might just be the best way to introduce newcomers to the issues of tuning. Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Mon, 28 Oct 1996 21:17 +0200 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA06350; Sun, 27 Oct 1996 03:31:52 +0100 Received: from eartha.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA05609 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id TAA07410; Sat, 26 Oct 1996 19:31:49 -0700 Date: Sat, 26 Oct 1996 19:31:49 -0700 Message-Id: Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu