source file: mills2.txt Date: Fri, 30 May 1997 14:53:55 +0200 Subject: Re: modes and tuning From: Johnny Reinhard Certain important musical terms regularly employed by microtonalists have multiple meanings, including mode, pentatonic, and enharmonic. Though coming off the recent AFMM series, the above distinctions are a welcome diversion. (I'm really enjoying David Beardsley's report.) Re: modes with Greek-area names, they have changed mightily since the dawn of Greek culture. Phrygian, Lydian, Aeolian, etc. were distinct peoples with cultural models for their modes. This information is lost. The Greeks recognized a healthy diversity in combining the characteristics of these prehistoric ethnic scales into a modulating 2-octave infrastructure, a scalar system. The Church modes of the middle ages looking backwards over a spate of centuries relabelled modes in practice with earlier nomenclature (e.g. Phrygian, Lydian, etc.) Modern useage is limited to 12-TPO well-temperaments. Pentatonic tuning can be in just intonation, pythagorean tuning, 12ET, 5-ET, and presumeably any other 5-note scale (including auxillaries). Might we not include Indonesian Pelog, quartertone deriveatives, and any other series of relationships of 5 notes that can modulate to any one of its members? Enharmonic meant an ancient Greek genus that primarily featured a just major third (5/4) and 2 distinct, but different "quartertones." Euripides was said to favor it in his tragedies, for which he composed music. It lost out historically to more equally spaced Diatonic scales. Composers like Nicolo Vicentino in the Renaissance revisited it. By the Baroque, enharmonic intervals were a comma in size, this reflecting a distinction between a C# and a Db. G.F. Handel is reported to have had split-black keys on his organ, allowing for 14 note per octave capability. Gradually, the enharmonic difference transmuted into an identity, thanks largely to the piano's tuning compromise. It may be best for the list to be very clear on the above distinctions. Harry Partch's "monophony" as the fabric of his O- and U-tonality is certainly a stretch from the homophonic or heterophonic lines of the Middle Ages. Johnny Reinhard Director American Festival of Microtonal Music - MicroMay '97 (May 16, 21-23) 318 East 70th Street, Suite 5FW New York, New York 10021 USA (212)517-3550/fax (212) 517-5495 reinhard@idt.net http://www.echonyc.com/~jhhl/AFMM/ Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Fri, 30 May 1997 21:14 +0200 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA05169; Fri, 30 May 1997 21:14:37 +0200 Date: Fri, 30 May 1997 21:14:37 +0200 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA05173 Received: (qmail 24336 invoked from network); 30 May 1997 18:27:04 -0000 Received: from localhost (HELO ella.mills.edu) (127.0.0.1) by localhost with SMTP; 30 May 1997 18:27:04 -0000 Message-Id: <970530141713_-495766259@emout05.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu