source file: mills3.txt Date: Wed, 1 Oct 1997 12:17:27 +0200 Subject: Ben Denckla's Masters Thesis From: Mark Nowitzky Hey Ben (fellow MIT alum!), Thank you for "shamelessly plugging" your thesis, "Dynamic Intonation for Synthesizer Performance", at: http://theremin.media.mit.edu/~bdenckla/thesis/main.html I started reading it, and "couldn't put it down" (the laptop PC, that is). It got to be 2:00 am, so I added a link to it from one of my pages (http://www.pacificnet.net/~nowitzky/justint), so I wouldn't lose it among my thirteen gazillion bookmarks. I did get as far as the name of your computer program, "Helm". I take it that stood for "Helmholtz" (My hero!). Easley Blackwood's book, "The Structure of Recognizable Diatonic Tunings", is on my list of things to read too, but it ain't machine-readable, so it'll have to wait. About your 30 Sep 1997 post to the TUNING list - As far as the idea that a lot of music relies on the "blurring provided by temperament" (courtesy James Kukula's phraseology), I'm still not convinced. Here's my line of thought: What if you "blurred" the distinctions between pitches even more? Suppose, as an example, a melody, first played in major, then in minor. (It happens a lot in those "variations on a theme".) You could blur this melody into a "7tET" (7 equal intervals per octave), which would wipe away the distinction between major and minor. But you'd definitely lose something in the translation. In simplistic terms, you would no longer have that "happy the first time, sad the second" feel to it. That's all for now (since it's now past 3:00 am). I look forward to reading the rest of your thesis. --Mark Albin Nowitzky (MIT BS EECS '79) +------------------------------------------------------+ | Mark Nowitzky | | email: nowitzky@pacificnet.net | | www: http://www.pacificnet.net/~nowitzky | | "If you haven't visited Mark Nowitzky's home | | page recently, you haven't missed much..." | +------------------------------------------------------+ SMTPOriginator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu From: Manuel.Op.de.Coul@ezh.nl Subject: dynamic JI PostedDate: 01-10-97 17:17:26 SendTo: CN=coul1358/OU=AT/O=EZH ReplyTo: tuning@eartha.mills.edu $MessageStorage: 0 $UpdatedBy: CN=notesrv2/OU=Server/O=EZH,CN=coul1358/OU=AT/O=EZH,CN=Manuel op de Coul/OU=AT/O=EZH RouteServers: CN=notesrv2/OU=Server/O=EZH,CN=notesrv1/OU=Server/O=EZH RouteTimes: 01-10-97 17:17:03-01-10-97 17:17:04,01-10-97 17:15:59-01-10-97 17:16:00 DeliveredDate: 01-10-97 17:16:00 Categories: $Revisions: Received: from ns.ezh.nl ([137.174.112.59]) by notesrv2.ezh.nl (Lotus SMTP MTA SMTP v4.6 (462.2 9-3-1997)) with SMTP id C1256523.0053F220; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 17:16:54 +0200 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA03857; Wed, 1 Oct 1997 17:17:26 +0200 Date: Wed, 1 Oct 1997 17:17:26 +0200 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA03852 Received: (qmail 4437 invoked from network); 1 Oct 1997 08:17:24 -0700 Received: from localhost (HELO ella.mills.edu) (127.0.0.1) by localhost with SMTP; 1 Oct 1997 08:17:24 -0700 Message-Id: Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu