source file: mills2.txt Date: Sun, 9 Mar 1997 04:14:22 -0800 Subject: Re: AD3 ? From: rtomes@kcbbs.gen.nz (Ray Tomes) Daniel Wolf wrote: >I spoke with one of the better tuners in Frankfurt today. It seems that >chamber music players can range from 435 to 442, western German orchestras >and new music groups are at 442/443 and eastern orchestras (include the >Berlin Phil) are up around 444/445. Early music groups are all over the >place (although 415 and 440 have the largest following), but most pop and >commercial recording is done at 440 (if they wish to push the pitch theygo >ahead and transpose). >I hesitate to subscribe to Ray Tomes' extraction of pitches from naturally >occuring frequencies (which do vary - sometimes in regular patterns, but >often eccentrically - from the values he gives(most reference books give >rounded-off values, anyways)), This is true. The exact theoretical Schumann frequency is 7.49 Hz but it certainly is not a steady hum. > but La Monte Young's pragmatic use of house >current frequencies does have something to recommend itself (even if he >does have to modulate when he crosses the ocean). Use 300 Hz, that fits in with both and the earth resonance :-) >It is curious that Tomes claims a fixed pitch for Ni. Besides the fact that >singers and instrumentalists vary widely in their choice of Sa (I have >heard everything from (in terms of 440A) G to Eb with C# the most frequent >), Ni can have several levels and would seem, from a musical-functional >viewpoint, to be an odd choice for a pitch standard. My information comes from the book "An Introduction to the Study of Indian Music" by E Clements 1912. Note that there are 7 different frequencies used for ni depending on the harmonic meaning. Clements uses a very nice notation (I don't know if this is standard) with flats that have a little 7 in them for the 7/4 ratio ones (Hi Robert :-) See the diagram at http://www.kcbbs.gen.nz/users/rtomes/in_music.gif which shows all the notes and the harmonic relationships including ratios of 2, 3, 5 and 7. The ni I refer to is the ni natural. This may explain the points made by Lydia Ayers . It may be that this is just a typical scheme and that others also exist. I don't know about that, but the detail and consistency of Clements scheme is very sound to me. Note that the diagram is not his structure just the note names and frequencies. However in my bid for A=450 I have yet to play my master card... Billy Joel! I will write a post about Harmony and Rhythm which will explain this. -- Ray Tomes -- rtomes@kcbbs.gen.nz -- Harmonics Theory -- http://www.kcbbs.gen.nz/users/rtomes/rt-home.htm Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Sun, 9 Mar 1997 13:20 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA10216; Sun, 9 Mar 1997 13:20:52 +0100 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA10164 Received: from by ella.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) id EAA23886; Sun, 9 Mar 1997 04:14:53 -0800 Date: Sun, 9 Mar 1997 04:14:53 -0800 Message-Id: <335ba386.760091939@kcbbs.gen.nz> Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@ella.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@ella.mills.edu