source file: mills3.txt Date: Sun, 7 Dec 1997 11:01:26 +0100 Subject: Re: La Musique Arabe From: mr88cet@texas.net (Gary Morrison) >In my experience the human ear >cannot reliably distinguish intervals closer than those of the 19-tone >equal, so the endless debates about minute distinctions between musical >ratios, or about equal temperaments with more than 19 tones in the >octave, seem to me rather beside the point. Wow. I personally have never noticed anything to even close to that. But perhaps that depends in what sense you're asking people to "distinguish" those intervals. For example, I have no doubt that almost anybody with even casual musical training could distinguish a chromatic scale in ... oh, say 31TET ... from a glissando. Perhaps that's too elementary of a distinguishing task though. But even among some more subtle tasks, like noticing 19TET's flat M3 and P5, and comparing that to 31's right-on M3 and slightly flat P5, or to 12TET's way-sharp M3 and almost exact P5, I have found that there are many musical settings where those factors are audible. I certainly do agree that there are many musical settings where the notes are just simply wizzing by too fast to hear those aspects of a tuning as such. If that's the sort of distinction exercise you're talking about, then I'd agree with your conclusion up to a point anyway. But there certainly are many other ways in which the nature of the tuning in which a composition is played can become apparent even if the notes are screaming by too fast to carefully evaluate the tuning of each one individually. For example, even a very fast melody, provided that it is at least somwhat scalar, played in a tuning that has a comparatively flat leading tone (like 19TET or 31TET), is easy to hear as having that characteristic. So, I guess I'd have to hear more about the nature of the limitation you've noticed before I can comment on it in greater detail. By the way, the fact that 22TET is not "cyclic" (I presume by that you mean specifically that its major scale and its modes are not cyclic), opens up some intriguing musical possibilities, like seemingly impossible modulations. SMTPOriginator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu From: mr88cet@texas.net (Gary Morrison) Subject: Re: Problems in Notation PostedDate: 07-12-97 11:02:02 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: 07-12-97 11:00:08-07-12-97 11:00:09,07-12-97 10:59:58-07-12-97 10:59:59 DeliveredDate: 07-12-97 10:59:59 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 C1256566.0036F0E1; Sun, 7 Dec 1997 11:00:06 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA08326; Sun, 7 Dec 1997 11:02:02 +0100 Date: Sun, 7 Dec 1997 11:02:02 +0100 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA08512 Received: (qmail 23982 invoked from network); 7 Dec 1997 02:01:39 -0800 Received: from localhost (HELO ella.mills.edu) (127.0.0.1) by localhost with SMTP; 7 Dec 1997 02:01:39 -0800 Message-Id: Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu