source file: mills2.txt Date: Sun, 2 Feb 1997 15:33:11 -0800 Subject: LucyTuning clarifications From: clucy@cix.compulink.co.uk (Charles Lucy) Thank you Gary, for your balanced critique of LucyTuning. I appreciated the irony of your reply in relation to JI advocates. There are a few points which I would like to clarify. >Harrison John "Longitude" Harrison lived earlier than you guessed. (1693-1776). The biography of his life was recently in the US & UK best-sellers list. "Longitude" by Dava Sobel It's a good (non-musical) read, about 18th century British scientific politics and navigation. In my search for a unified tuning theory, I was led to Harrison's writings, and by building instruments and modelling his solution, I realized that he had already solved the problem which I was working on, yet more than two hundred earlier. >LucyTuning built open a circle (sic) of fifths. If this were to be the case LucyTuning would be an equal temperament, as the steps would eventually return to the starting point. I would have described it as a spiral (sic) of fifths [producing sharps]; and fourths [producing flats]. Yes, 44 LucyTuning steps in each direction is close to 88TET, although LucyTuning will continue to generate more new intervals infinitely. My differences with the Just Intonation dinosaurs are really a question of perspective and intention. As I see/hear it "harmonics" beat. The JI advocates seem to be aiming for zero beating. To hear and appreciate this beating, it is crucial that instruments should be tuned as precisely as possible. Unfortunately tuned samplers and synthesisers, which are currently available, fail to provide the accuracy necessary to hear these subtle, yet significant, beat frequencies. At our current level of technology, I prefer to use acoustic instruments, although the MIDI tuning dump is a good move in the right direction. The significance of beating is becoming more widely appreciated by music lovers and tuning enthusiasts, so attitudes are moving in the right direction from our microtonal point of view. Wilson's "metameantone" and "phi" tunings are interesting, although my intent was to avoid the significance of any particular integers in a mapping of intervals and harmonics. (BTW Phi is particularly related to the integer 5 - consider the equation commonly used to derive it). "Pitch, Pi," ..... $330. I am pleased to supply a hardcopy of my book about LucyTuning plus on-line support to those who are willing to pay me for my time and work. After all, $330 is a small part of the complete budget to explore and use microtuning, and "Pitch, Pi,...." can save many valuable hours of research, and is a handy reference book. [Some people, I hear, have actually ENJOYED reading it.] For rules on legally making LucyTuned instruments see one of our Internet sites, or EMail: lucy@hour.com or phone me US (808) 965-0170 here in Hawaii. For those researchers who have more time than $$$, I suggest that you visit one of our websites or EMail/ftp from lucytune@zz.com, for most of the book is now freely available on the Internet in various locations. BTW. We now have another new website, which is being currently being assembled from Tokyo. Please visit our sites - www.WonderlandInOrbit.com/project/lullaby and/or http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/lullaby Thanks again Gary. Charles Lucy lucy@hour.com Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Mon, 3 Feb 1997 08:20 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA23297; Mon, 3 Feb 1997 08:20:41 +0100 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA23287 Received: from by ella.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) id XAA05858; Sun, 2 Feb 1997 23:19:08 -0800 Date: Sun, 2 Feb 1997 23:19:08 -0800 Message-Id: <32F5A655.11E6@dnvr.uswest.net> Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@ella.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@ella.mills.edu