source file: mills3.txt Date: Fri, 5 Dec 1997 18:03:47 +0100 Subject: Arabic Tunings From: Polychroni Moniodis On recommendation I picked up the text, _The Music of the Arabs_, by Habib Hassan Touma. I must say that with regard to tuning, the book was a great disappointment. Only 6 pages, p. 17-22, were devoted to this topict--the amount of material was scant, and the analysis, anemic. Just a quick glance at the few intervals presented found errors: p. 19: 54/49 should be 50/49 p. 21: 19/9 should be 16/9 p. 21 253/243 should be 256/243 p. 21 32/22 should be 32/27 No explanation is given at the derivation of intervals such as 162/149 (p. 19) or how and why the ratios as 18/17 and 50/49 are deployed. One cannot even speak of a worthwhile historical analysis here at all. Conjecture compounds speculation. I have yet to find a good treatment of Arabic tunings in English. It appears as though I may have to attempt wading through the French six volume work of d'Erlanger, _La musique arabe_. Which, given that I have not studied French, leaves me divining from the mathematics (which is d'Erlanger usually involves complex fractions, i.e., 1+1/8 instead of 9/8) and reasoning out French words from Latin roots. If anyone knows of a decent treatment of this subject in English, in particular with regard to Zalzal, Al-Farabi, and Safi ad-Din, it would be most appreciated. Regards all, Polychroni Moniodis SMTPOriginator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu From: Polychroni Moniodis Subject: Re: Arabic Tunings PostedDate: 05-12-97 19:10:49 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: 05-12-97 19:09:08-05-12-97 19:09:09,05-12-97 19:08:59-05-12-97 19:08:59 DeliveredDate: 05-12-97 19:08:59 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 C1256564.0063B1B0; Fri, 5 Dec 1997 19:08:55 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA07309; Fri, 5 Dec 1997 19:10:49 +0100 Date: Fri, 5 Dec 1997 19:10:49 +0100 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA07302 Received: (qmail 21477 invoked from network); 5 Dec 1997 10:10:45 -0800 Received: from localhost (HELO ella.mills.edu) (127.0.0.1) by localhost with SMTP; 5 Dec 1997 10:10:45 -0800 Message-Id: <01IQTDY0DJFC90SKZ1@ONLINE.EMICH.EDU> Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu