source file: m1419.txt Date: Mon, 18 May 1998 15:43:26 -0400 Subject: RE: An Evening with Erlich From: "Paul H. Erlich" OK, I guess this one was directly addressing me as well! >You do go up to 210 TET or something at one point in the paper, searching >for a better tuning for the decatonic scales. But you don't say much on >what means you used to search this tunings. A computer. Is there anything else that seems ambiguous? >>Well, the only real problem in ET's over 34/oct is that consistency is >>not really relevant anymore, since there might be an adequate >>approximation for a given interval which is not the closest >>approximation. >This is the real meat of my question about the 1% thing. What does it mean >"adequate"? Certainly you don't claim that all scales over 35 sound alike... No, certainly not alike. But I guess I should have said something in the paper about how in 12-tone equal temperament there is one and only one way of approximating any consonant ratio, and that is a property that adds a degree of simplicity that musicians mayt be happy to give up.