source file: mills3.txt Date: Mon, 22 Dec 1997 23:52:29 +0100 Subject: RE: Gibson Digest 1272 From: "Paul H. Erlich" >Gregg Gibson: >}> >}Of >}> >}course the centre of 22-tone equal in India is nowadays supposed to be >}> >}the South. > >Paul Ehrlich: >}> > >}> >Where did you get this idea? > >}I am uncertain what you mean. This is a matter of elementary knowledge. >}Look in any elementary text on the subject. > >No text I have seen, elementary or otherwise, has made this claim. Neil >Haverstick is quite right (if I may interpret "chord changes" as "key >changes") that equal temperament arises only in response to the need to >modulate (change key) extensively. Two cultures make extensive use of >modulation: the West and Thailand. The solutions they have arrived at are >12-equal and 7-equal, respectively. Meantone temperament was the preferred >system in the West before modulations became too extensive; Thailand may have >been influenced by Chinese Pythagorean theories before modulation became a >major feature of that music. The most widely accepted interpretations of the >Indian 22-sruti system place no note more than a comma away from a 12-equal >pitch. No wonder that Indian musicians, both North and South, have accepted >12-equal far more readily than some 22-equal harmoniums, etc. that some >ill-informed Westerners have provided them. > >}Your definition of the syntonic comma is one definition, but it is >}irrelevant to a discussion of precisely how the consonant cycles are to >}be reconciled in an equal temperament. > >Hmm. Your reconcilability criterion is that four fifths add up to a major >third (octaves ignored). In other words, the difference between a major third >and four fifths is zero. Using my definition of a syntonic comma, this >translates to: the syntonic comma is zero. Far from irrelevant -- it is >equivalent to the whole "discussion." > >}Your assertion that you have never denied 22-tone equal to be unfit for >}diatonicism comes strangely from someone who has proclaimed this system >}the salvation of music, but perhaps you mean to preserve 12-tone equal >}for diatonicism. I have heard this sort of thing before - it always >}reduces to "something special for ME" and 12-tone equal for everybody >}else. > >If I didn't want it to be for everyone I would have patented a keyboard >layout for the decatonic scale. The salvation of music -- hardly. I merely >feel that, if the next generation of musicians is given a wide variety of >tuning systems to play with, and only one of them succeeds in producing a >wealth of music that is not diatonic or pentatonic but is tonal, or at least >carries on in some sense the popular tradition in Western music of an >interplay between melody and harmony, there is a chance that that tuning will >be 22-equal. > >}The modern Arab theorists have done their utmost to impose the 24-tone >}equal for instrumental music. But Arab singers cheerfully (if that is >}the right word) go their own way, and certainly do not regularly, >}deliberately use intervals as close as 50 cents > >No, but they use intervals close to 150 and 250 cents, the reason for >24-equal. 31-equal, containing 155- and 348-cent intervals, will clearly be >much more succesful for reproducing Arabic music than 19-equal, which has >absolutely nothing in the way of neutral seconds or thirds. > >}I think I have mentioned that this interval of about 150 cents occurs in >}the 31-tone equal, where it corresponds to a 4/5 tone. Note however that >}this interval is perfectly unadapted to harmony, which the modern Arabs >}and Indians often seek to imitate. > >In your opinion, then, whatever is unique about Arabic music is less >important to Arabic musicians than Western features that they seek to >imitate? > >}My own personal opinion is that Arab >}(and Indian) vocal melodies are far, far more likely to be exactly >}recognizable in the 19-tone equal than in the 17- 22- or 24-tone >}divisions, in despite of the troublesome matter of the 150-cent >}interval. > >Not only 24, but also 17, would be better for Arabic music than 19. Just take >the step sizes of the various seven-tone scales in Arabic music in 24-equal, >subtract 1 form the size of each step, and you have serviceable 17-equal >approximations, including 141- and 353-cent intervals. I am not sure if the >dissonant thirds of 17-equal would matter to the sound of the music or if >consonant thirds are a concern only proper to certain other musical cultures. SMTPOriginator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu From: Steven Rezsutek Subject: The Intonational Preferences of Irish Setters PostedDate: 22-12-97 23:58:46 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: 22-12-97 23:56:38-22-12-97 23:56:38,22-12-97 23:56:10-22-12-97 23:56:10 DeliveredDate: 22-12-97 23:56:10 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 C1256575.007E0556; Mon, 22 Dec 1997 23:58:25 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA22896; Mon, 22 Dec 1997 23:58:46 +0100 Date: Mon, 22 Dec 1997 23:58:46 +0100 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA23988 Received: (qmail 24339 invoked from network); 22 Dec 1997 14:58:42 -0800 Received: from localhost (HELO ella.mills.edu) (127.0.0.1) by localhost with SMTP; 22 Dec 1997 14:58:42 -0800 Message-Id: <199712222256.RAA20388@doghouse.hq.nasa.gov> Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu