source file: mills2.txt Date: Mon, 23 Jun 1997 11:08:51 +0200 Subject: Octaves not exactly 2^N From: Daniel Wolf In the past year I have measured twelve Javanese Gamelan in Germany. While this is not a large sample, I have not detected a preference for stretched over diminished octaves in the tuning of the gamelan as a whole. Exceptionally, slendro instruments with both a low and a high pitch one will almost always have stretched octaves, while those with two pitch sixes almost always diminish the octave. Marc Perlman reports from his tuner that the octaves can be stretched to cover singers who tend to go sharp in the upper octaves - a rationale entirely different from the acoustical explainations most often given. Using the spectrum analysis feature of Pitch Perfect (which is admitedlybuggy), I have been unable to obtain very consistant patterns in the frequency ratios of the partial tones. Yes, they are stretched from an integer series but in a rather haphazard way depending largely on the shape of the key, and so I would be very hesitant to endorse any explaination of the tuning based upon the timbre of the instruments other than one in which the general inharmonicity allows a greater degree of latitude. A difference tone theory like that of Wilson remains, to my ears at least, plausible. Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Mon, 23 Jun 1997 11:49 +0200 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA07381; Mon, 23 Jun 1997 11:49:54 +0200 Date: Mon, 23 Jun 1997 11:49:54 +0200 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA07377 Received: (qmail 5721 invoked from network); 21 Jun 1997 13:09:49 -0000 Received: from localhost (HELO ella.mills.edu) (127.0.0.1) by localhost with SMTP; 21 Jun 1997 13:09:49 -0000 Message-Id: Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu