source file: mills2.txt Date: Sun, 1 Jun 1997 22:35:32 +0200 Subject: My +/- 2 cents-worth From: DFinnamore@aol.com In a post from digest #1089 Daniel Wolf suggested: > [A] discussion of the benefits and disadvantages of out-of-tuneness might be > worthwhile for this list. Sounds good to me. Here's my 2 cents-worth, if you will. 1) When everything in a piece is justly tuned within 2 cents or so, the blend is so thorough that individual melodic lines are in danger of losing their identity. Too much homogeneity. This can be remedied to a certain extent by carefully using contrasting timbres between parts. However, a more musically useful solution can be to give the melody instrument, and any other part where its movement is melodically important, the freedom to use pitch inflections so that the attack phase is "out of tune" enough to provide the distinction of its part, then falls back into just tune. Psychologically, the listener can continue to "hear" the distinct note and its timbre even after its tone has blended into the harmony. 2) On a related note (oops!), when too many tones are representing too many partials of a given fundamental at once, the parts can completely lose their identity. I tried making a chord once that used the first 32 partials of a fundamental tone (my synth is 32-note polyphonic, so there ya go). It didn't sound like a chord at all - it sounded like one humongous note. A very powerful sound in its own right, like an orch hit in a way, but not providing any possibility of polyphonic function of the individual parts. Reminded of the Borg on Star Track (g). This technique appears to be an excellent sound-design tool, by the way. Try it with "wide" sounds (pitch-wise) like string-section or choir samples. Soundtrack city! To summarize, the choice between just and non-just tuning could be seen as an opportunity to strike a balance between the individual freedom of each part, and a sense of "community" and cooperation between the parts. Not trying to start any political arguments here! 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; Sun, 1 Jun 1997 23:08 +0200 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA06148; Sun, 1 Jun 1997 23:08:08 +0200 Date: Sun, 1 Jun 1997 23:08:08 +0200 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA06141 Received: (qmail 24945 invoked from network); 1 Jun 1997 21:07:58 -0000 Received: from localhost (HELO ella.mills.edu) (127.0.0.1) by localhost with SMTP; 1 Jun 1997 21:07:58 -0000 Message-Id: Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu