source file: mills2.txt Date: Thu, 9 Jan 1997 22:18:12 -0800 Subject: Re: TUNING digest 951 From: Matt Nathan PAULE wrote: > Matt Nathan wrote, > > >If you had instruments which could provide you as easily with any pitch > >as any other, would you still do this? > > Well, in that case I might not necessarily use equal temperaments, but I > might not use just intonation either. For example, for diatonic triadic > music I would use meantone temperament, perhaps changing the exact amount of > temperament from one section of the piece to another, if it helped the mood > get across. Great. The play of deviation from gestalts is present in music as in other arts. Musical tension or at least aural interest is produced by slight deviation from the gestalt just intervals. People like a little phasing sometimes. Your idea of changing the temperament throughout a piece to increase and decrease this tension adds a level of expression. Nice. Your response resonates with the point I was trying to make, which is that one should choose pitches because they are the exact pitches required to produce the desired musical effect, and not because they are the closest available pitches drawn from an arbitrary set, such as from 41-et when what you really wanted was 9-limit (Partch sense) JI. For your adjustable meantone, the pitches are neither JI nor et, but are the exact pitches needed for the musical effect. > I prefer the deviations from just in 12-, 19-, 26-tet, or any > other meantone tuning to the comma difficulties of 15-, 22-, 27-tet, or pure > JI, when it comes to diatonic triadic music. This raises another interesting subtopic. I never understood why people consider commas a problem in pure JI. I think rather the idea of a "scale" as a limiter of pitch choices is the problem. Each just triad has its ideal pitches. Commas are not a problem in just triadic music if you allow yourself to use the pitches required by the triads, and not try to fake them with pitches from a small predetermined (say diatonic or chromatic) set. I personally like the sound of a slight pitch adjustment in an inner voice corresponding with a change in harmonic context. I find it almost a spiritual affirmation as the subtle correction is made; it sounds so right. Matt Nathan Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Fri, 10 Jan 1997 07:16 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA16018; Fri, 10 Jan 1997 07:19:13 +0100 Received: from eartha.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA16080 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id WAA00076; Thu, 9 Jan 1997 22:19:10 -0800 Date: Thu, 9 Jan 1997 22:19:10 -0800 Message-Id: <32D5DDDC.310D@ix.netcom.com> Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu