source file: mills2.txt Date: Fri, 16 May 1997 15:28:16 +0200 Subject: which tuning is best/tuning in 34 eq From: Aline Surman Once again, Finnamore's comments are very interesting, but to me, the point is NOT which tuning resonates best with humanity (I am paraphrasing his comments). Sure, that is an issue, but once we have a tuning we like, can we COMPOSE something in it that is meaningful and profound? For example, and I hope I do not insult anyone here, I have an album by a pianist named Michael Harrison...he plays a piano tuned purely, and has 24 notes to the octave. In the liner notes, he talks very profoundly about the effects of pure tuning, and about his studies with various people in the field of pure tunings, etc. Only problem for me is this: on a musical, technical, compositional level, the album is incredibly boring because of the lack of interesting compositions and playing. The album seems to be composed of a few simple chordal motifs, with song structures that sound, to me, like ideas a beginning guitarist would come up with as he/she is discovering the harmonized major scale. And again, I am only trying to be honest here...I do not want to insult a fellow musician out of spite, or whatever...if I write something less than inspiring, I would expect someone to say so as well. OK...so the tuning is marvelous, in tune, and all that...now, write some music that is challenging, profound, and interesting on deep levels. I, at this stage of my career, am not impressed by basic chordal structures that sound like a beginning musician. The craft of composition is deep and challenging, and is a subject that many folks have not done a whole lot with. Simplicity is fine, but simple music does not necessarily mean cliched or unimaginative. Again, that is my main complaint about a lot of "just" music...it sounds like the composer is more fascinated with the purity of the tuning, rather than the final result of the composition. As far as tuning my 34 tone guitar...I approach this stuff fairly intuitively, so here's what I do. I tune it like a regular 12 tone instrument (as I do all of my guitars, 19 and 31 as well). This means the following: the B string is in tune with the two E strings, and is the 5th of said strings. When I play a G chord, the open B string is one increment sharp (comma) to the G, so I have to flat this B by one fret to be in tune on the G chord. Because of my background in blues (32 years), many of the things I like to do involve riffs/patterns that are based off of the "standard" 12 tone tuning...I don't want to mess with changing that phenomenon at this stage of my career, so I work within that framework...on 34, this is really tricky because of said comma, but it is a personal choice, and works well for me...others may have better luck with alternative ways of tuning...and what DOES Catler do, by the way, when he tunes his axe?...Hstick Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Fri, 16 May 1997 16:27 +0200 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA03868; Fri, 16 May 1997 16:27:23 +0200 Date: Fri, 16 May 1997 16:27:23 +0200 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA03866 Received: (qmail 18923 invoked from network); 16 May 1997 14:27:19 -0000 Received: from localhost (HELO ella.mills.edu) (127.0.0.1) by localhost with SMTP; 16 May 1997 14:27:19 -0000 Message-Id: Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu