source file: mills2.txt Date: Thu, 22 May 1997 10:20:03 +0200 Subject: Re: JI modes From: Daniel Wolf Bill Alves' classification of modes based upon ''Number of pitches in the tuning system/number of pitches in the subset/number of commonly used auxiliary tones.'' is very useful, and recalls Wilson's MOS scheme. However, the first number in the classification applies only to temperaments. If the diatonic scale is in pythagorean intonation, there is a convenient MOS at 12, but the number of pitches available through modulations by fifths in either direction is potentially infinite. The Javanese modes are similar in that the temperament of the metallophones settles on 5 or 7 pitches (or pitch areas - as the instruments tend not to be tuned to exact unison or octaves, which must affect the ''digestability'' (thank you, Klaerentz Barlough) of the temperament), but this restriction need not be applied to voices and instruments of variable pitch. I would classify the auxillary tones differently for the Javanese modes as well with Slendro as 5/4/1 + 4 miring (in between) pitches. I hear pelog as 7/5/0 with the use of pitches 3 and 4 in pelog nem/lima being heard as real modulations and the gender bem (which has no key 4) being an example of idiomatic instrumental realization and not a modal auxillary pitch (there is something similar in Gagaku when the wind instruments play ''wrong'' pitches when the core melody contains a tone not available on the instrument). In pelog barang, the use of pitch 1 in place of 7 is similar. If the first number in the classification can be taken as nominal pitch areas with exact intonation unspecified, then the Karnatic 72 melakarta scheme gives 72 modes in the form 12/7/0, or, with the raised ma modes taken as auxillaries (which does not conform to practice, however) 36 modes of 12/7/1. Interestingly, consecutive pieces in Karnatic recitals - or between sections of a single Raga Malaka - often stand at one ''key signature'' distance from one another thus reinforcing the ''12-ness'' of the system, and some recitalists like to include one strategic disjunction in the series (i.e. to a mode two or more accidentals away or to one that doesn't correspond to a diatonic possibility). Thus you will often hear Kalyani (with Ma #) next to Sankarabharanam (no sharps or flats). The subject of the consecutive ragas in a program or within a Raga Malaka seems not to have received any attention. What have others observed? (I should note that the ragas whose pitch content corresponds to our diatonic modes make up the majority of the ragas found in frequent use, but students all begin studying the music with the mode s rb g m p db n s - with two augmented seconds. K.S. Subramanian explained that the augmented intervals made it more ''unnatural'' and thus more difficult to control, and so it was considered important to master such a raga first, before learning those with easier intervals. In fact, however, I found it fairly easy to sing because the ''difficult pitches'' were all neighbors of tones in a major triad, which is easy to sing against a drone, and all of the gamakas (ornaments) reflected this. This made an intonationally interesting effect however, in that three pitches were well defined as consonant to the drone, and the remaining were defined by their melodic distance from these pitches, not by their harmonic consonance or dissonance. Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Thu, 22 May 1997 15:42 +0200 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA07733; Thu, 22 May 1997 15:42:27 +0200 Date: Thu, 22 May 1997 15:42:27 +0200 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA07738 Received: (qmail 21150 invoked from network); 22 May 1997 13:42:23 -0000 Received: from localhost (HELO ella.mills.edu) (127.0.0.1) by localhost with SMTP; 22 May 1997 13:42:23 -0000 Message-Id: <97052121352506/0005695065PK2EM@mcimail.com> Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu