source file: mills2.txt Date: Fri, 30 May 1997 21:14:37 +0200 Subject: JI puns with candystripes From: DFinnamore@aol.com The question of whether JI composers can use puns was batterred half-to-death here not long ago but never resolved. As I fancy myself a budding JI composer, I thought I'd offer some proof: 1) It so happens that in 12-tET, the 7/4 of any pitch falls in between the 9th and 10th chromatic notes above it. E.g., in the key of C, "fa" in a justly tuned dominant-7 chord falls between "mi" and "fa" as the piano is ordinarily tuned. It's actually not quite 1/3 the way down from "fa" to "mi" - 31.2 cents below "fa." But I find it's not too fa down for mi. 2) A funny thing happened on the way to the studio. I saw a middle-Rennaissance composer hauling a broken portativ down the sidewalk - he said he'd lost the key to his modercycle therein!? and finally, 3) A perfect octave (2/1) is obtained by doubling the frequency, which, physically, is halving the waveform. Well, you can halve your waveform, but you don't have to ET it, too! But seriously, folks... I've been talking barbershop quartet music with an avid fan of it, and he has demonstrated to me that true bbshoppers strive for a form of 7-limit JI as a conscious goal. No joke. I tell you, these guys are aware of what they're doing. Now, certainly, much of bbshop harmonic movement is pun-based. Yet they tune their chords as justly as their vocal-control abilities will allow. If JI can't support puns, how can this phenomenon be explained? Unnoticable comma-slippage in free pitch-space? Oh, did you hear the one about the retired composer who had one foot in the grave and the other on a syntonic comma?... David J. Finnamore Just tune it! Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Fri, 30 May 1997 21:53 +0200 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA05177; Fri, 30 May 1997 21:53:36 +0200 Date: Fri, 30 May 1997 21:53:36 +0200 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA05194 Received: (qmail 432 invoked from network); 30 May 1997 18:48:17 -0000 Received: from localhost (HELO ella.mills.edu) (127.0.0.1) by localhost with SMTP; 30 May 1997 18:48:17 -0000 Message-Id: <199705301437_MC2-178E-6CF3@compuserve.com> Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu