source file: mills2.txt Date: Tue, 14 Jan 1997 03:40:46 -0800 Subject: Re: TUNING digest 955 From: Matt Nathan PAULE wrote: > Matt Nathan, > > I have heard too much music from around the world performed vocally and > on continuous-pitch instruments which nonetheless gravitates toward a small > set of pitches to dismiss this as a result of the practicalities of > instrument making or other temporal or geographic biases. These pitch sets > are often very idiosyncratic and rarely contain any semblances of small > integers beyond the 3-limit. Yeah, I hear that too. Perhaps it is more a phenomenon of the melody and the pitch set developing together rather than one generating or limiting the other. Either way, I hear in my own imagination, music which is not limited by a pitch set, but is more guided by intervalic connection, especially in regards to chord progressions and continuous modulations. I also get the sense that there's more to the expressive nature of melody than picking from a set. Starting with just a wail, which is a glissando with a curvature which evokes emotion, there's something going on there with regards to shape and time which is transcendent of the idea of a "scale". > >> ...I have written a (mostly) triadic piece where successive shifts of > >> chromatic semitones, 36/35s, 49/48s, and a limma, adding up to a perfect > >> fourth, have a certain melodic integrity, but only in 22-tet because all > >> these intervals are represented by 55 cents! > > >I'm not sure quite what you mean, those 3 intervals don't add up to 4/3. > >I'd like to hear your piece though. Is there any way I can? > > Which 3 intervals? I mentioned 4, I see. > and I did not specify the number of times > each occurs, Ah. > except to say that the last occurs once. Well, numbering the > four intervals in question from 1 to 4, they go like this: 1 2 3 2 1 4 2 3 > 2. That adds up to a 4/3. Or to 22tet's approximation of 4/3. > I play this piece so much that people are humming > long sequences of successive 55-cent intervals, which tells me it's good > enough to include on my first tape of 22-tone music (I'm still waiting for > the guitar, though) despite its having nothing to do with my theories. So > I'll keep it to myself for now. Ok. Matt Nathan Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Tue, 14 Jan 1997 13:35 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA12091; Tue, 14 Jan 1997 13:38:20 +0100 Received: from eartha.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA12152 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id EAA20868; Tue, 14 Jan 1997 04:38:14 -0800 Date: Tue, 14 Jan 1997 04:38:14 -0800 Message-Id: <199701140736_MC2-EB6-F54D@compuserve.com> Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu