Composing Powerstart: Difference between revisions
Wikispaces>d.schallert **Imported revision 400313208 - Original comment: ** |
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<h2>IMPORTED REVISION FROM WIKISPACES</h2> | <h2>IMPORTED REVISION FROM WIKISPACES</h2> | ||
This is an imported revision from Wikispaces. The revision metadata is included below for reference:<br> | This is an imported revision from Wikispaces. The revision metadata is included below for reference:<br> | ||
: This revision was by author [[User:d.schallert|d.schallert]] and made on <tt>2013-01-22 00: | : This revision was by author [[User:d.schallert|d.schallert]] and made on <tt>2013-01-22 00:46:07 UTC</tt>.<br> | ||
: The original revision id was <tt> | : The original revision id was <tt>400313590</tt>.<br> | ||
: The revision comment was: <tt></tt><br> | : The revision comment was: <tt></tt><br> | ||
The revision contents are below, presented both in the original Wikispaces Wikitext format, and in HTML exactly as Wikispaces rendered it.<br> | The revision contents are below, presented both in the original Wikispaces Wikitext format, and in HTML exactly as Wikispaces rendered it.<br> | ||
<h4>Original Wikitext content:</h4> | <h4>Original Wikitext content:</h4> | ||
<div style="width:100%; max-height:400pt; overflow:auto; background-color:#f8f9fa; border: 1px solid #eaecf0; padding:0em"><pre style="margin:0px;border:none;background:none;word-wrap:break-word;white-space: pre-wrap ! important" class="old-revision-html"> | <div style="width:100%; max-height:400pt; overflow:auto; background-color:#f8f9fa; border: 1px solid #eaecf0; padding:0em"><pre style="margin:0px;border:none;background:none;word-wrap:break-word;white-space: pre-wrap ! important" class="old-revision-html">//Musicians and composers just getting into the area of microtuning might, in an initial survey of the available resources on tuning around the web, encounter a barrage of intimidating jargon and mathematical concepts. Fortunately, a composer or player need not worry about the math side of things! This article suggests a number of ways to jump right in and start putting the products of tuning theory to work.// | ||
Musicians and composers just getting into the area of microtuning might, in an initial survey of the available resources on tuning around the web, encounter a barrage of intimidating jargon and mathematical concepts. Fortunately, a composer or player need not worry about the math side of things! This article suggests a number of ways to jump right in and start putting the products of tuning theory to work. | |||
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I'd like to write something for those people, but I'm beat for now. I'm personally in both of these groups, so I've written something for everyone but me. Till next time..."</pre></div> | I'd like to write something for those people, but I'm beat for now. I'm personally in both of these groups, so I've written something for everyone but me. Till next time..."</pre></div> | ||
<h4>Original HTML content:</h4> | <h4>Original HTML content:</h4> | ||
<div style="width:100%; max-height:400pt; overflow:auto; background-color:#f8f9fa; border: 1px solid #eaecf0; padding:0em"><pre style="margin:0px;border:none;background:none;word-wrap:break-word;width:200%;white-space: pre-wrap ! important" class="old-revision-html"><html><head><title>Composing Powerstart</title></head><body>< | <div style="width:100%; max-height:400pt; overflow:auto; background-color:#f8f9fa; border: 1px solid #eaecf0; padding:0em"><pre style="margin:0px;border:none;background:none;word-wrap:break-word;width:200%;white-space: pre-wrap ! important" class="old-revision-html"><html><head><title>Composing Powerstart</title></head><body><em>Musicians and composers just getting into the area of microtuning might, in an initial survey of the available resources on tuning around the web, encounter a barrage of intimidating jargon and mathematical concepts. Fortunately, a composer or player need not worry about the math side of things! This article suggests a number of ways to jump right in and start putting the products of tuning theory to work.</em><br /> | ||
Musicians and composers just getting into the area of microtuning might, in an initial survey of the available resources on tuning around the web, encounter a barrage of intimidating jargon and mathematical concepts. Fortunately, a composer or player need not worry about the math side of things! This article suggests a number of ways to jump right in and start putting the products of tuning theory to work.<br /> | |||
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Quoted from the Xenharmonic Alliance II, January 21 2013:<br /> | Quoted from the Xenharmonic Alliance II, January 21 2013:<br /> | ||
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<!-- ws:start:WikiTextHeadingRule: | <!-- ws:start:WikiTextHeadingRule:0:&lt;h3&gt; --><h3 id="toc0"><a name="x--Math: Use as much or as little as you'd like"></a><!-- ws:end:WikiTextHeadingRule:0 -->Math: Use as much or as little as you'd like</h3> | ||
<em>Mike Battaglia wrote:</em><br /> | <em>Mike Battaglia wrote:</em><br /> | ||
<!-- ws:start:WikiTextHeadingRule: | <!-- ws:start:WikiTextHeadingRule:2:&lt;h5&gt; --><h5 id="toc1"><a name="x--Math: Use as much or as little as you'd like--&quot;Tuning math is complex. But, if you're a composer, you don't need to ever worry about it. You don't ever need to know what a val is, or what a wedgie is, or what an epimorphic scale is, if you don't want. You don't need to learn how matrix multiplication works or deal with any of that. Those things are useful mathematical constructions which make it easier to communicate, program, and reason about the topic at hand, but they're not anything that a musician should ever, in general, have to know about to write microtonal music."></a><!-- ws:end:WikiTextHeadingRule:2 --><span class="userContent"> &quot;Tuning math is complex. But, if you're a composer, you don't need to ever worry about it. You don't ever need to know what a val is, or what a wedgie is, or what an epimorphic scale is, if you don't want. You don't need to learn how matrix multiplication works or deal with any of that. Those things are useful mathematical constructions which make it easier to communicate, program, and reason about the topic at hand, but they're not anything that a musician should ever, in general, have to know about to write microtonal music.</span></h5> | ||
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<!-- ws:start:WikiTextHeadingRule: | <!-- ws:start:WikiTextHeadingRule:4:&lt;h5&gt; --><h5 id="toc2"><a name="x--Math: Use as much or as little as you'd like--If, on the other hand, you DO want to learn tuning math, a basic undergraduate linear algebra course will enable you to understand about 90% of it if we phrase it a certain way."></a><!-- ws:end:WikiTextHeadingRule:4 --><span class="userContent"> If, on the other hand, you DO want to learn tuning math, a basic undergraduate linear algebra course will enable you to understand about 90% of it if we phrase it a certain way.</span></h5> | ||
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<!-- ws:start:WikiTextHeadingRule: | <!-- ws:start:WikiTextHeadingRule:6:&lt;h5&gt; --><h5 id="toc3"><a name="x--Math: Use as much or as little as you'd like--But if you don't, then you don't need to. Just ask here for a tuning system and we'll recommend you like a hundred to use, along with some associated scales, and some suggestions for using them. Then it's up to you to go nuts and write. That's all it requires.&quot;"></a><!-- ws:end:WikiTextHeadingRule:6 --><span class="userContent"> But if you don't, then you don't need to. Just ask here for a tuning system and we'll recommend you like a hundred to use, along with some associated scales, and some suggestions for using them. Then it's up to you to go nuts and write. That's all it requires.&quot;</span></h5> | ||
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<em><span class="userContent">Keenan Pepper wrote:</span></em><br /> | <em><span class="userContent">Keenan Pepper wrote:</span></em><br /> | ||
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<ul><li>Learn a reasonable amount about <a class="wiki_link" href="/just%20intonation">just intonation</a>. Things like &quot;<a class="wiki_link" href="/Harmonic%20Limit">prime limit</a>&quot; and &quot;<a class="wiki_link_ext" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otonality_and_Utonality" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">otonality</a>&quot; shouldn't scare you. Being familiar with the whole 11-limit <a class="wiki_link_ext" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonality_diamond" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">tonality diamond</a> is a good thing.</li><li>For each <a class="wiki_link" href="/Regular%20Temperaments">temperament</a> you're interested in, learn how the different tempered JI intervals relate to each other in that temperament. For example, in <a class="wiki_link" href="/porcupine">porcupine</a>, two 11/10s equals one 6/5, and that interval (11/10) also represents 12/11 and 10/9 at the same time.</li></ul>You can express this in a complicated mathematical way with linear alegbra, but that's completely unnecessary if you understand it in a musical way as relationships between intervals you're already familiar with.&quot;<br /> | <ul><li>Learn a reasonable amount about <a class="wiki_link" href="/just%20intonation">just intonation</a>. Things like &quot;<a class="wiki_link" href="/Harmonic%20Limit">prime limit</a>&quot; and &quot;<a class="wiki_link_ext" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otonality_and_Utonality" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">otonality</a>&quot; shouldn't scare you. Being familiar with the whole 11-limit <a class="wiki_link_ext" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonality_diamond" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">tonality diamond</a> is a good thing.</li><li>For each <a class="wiki_link" href="/Regular%20Temperaments">temperament</a> you're interested in, learn how the different tempered JI intervals relate to each other in that temperament. For example, in <a class="wiki_link" href="/porcupine">porcupine</a>, two 11/10s equals one 6/5, and that interval (11/10) also represents 12/11 and 10/9 at the same time.</li></ul>You can express this in a complicated mathematical way with linear alegbra, but that's completely unnecessary if you understand it in a musical way as relationships between intervals you're already familiar with.&quot;<br /> | ||
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<!-- ws:start:WikiTextHeadingRule: | <!-- ws:start:WikiTextHeadingRule:8:&lt;h3&gt; --><h3 id="toc4"><a name="x--Porcupine"></a><!-- ws:end:WikiTextHeadingRule:8 -->Porcupine</h3> | ||
<em>Mike Battaglia wrote:</em><br /> | <em>Mike Battaglia wrote:</em><br /> | ||
&quot;For starters, you might want to mess around with what's called &quot;<a class="wiki_link" href="/porcupine">porcupine</a>&quot; temperament in <a class="wiki_link" href="/22edo">22-EDO</a>. The base diatonic-sized scale is (as steps out of 22-EDO) 4 3 3 3 3 3 3, and you can chromatically alter anything in that scale you want by 1 step out of 22. For instance, if you flat the 7, you get the scale 4 3 3 3 3 2 4, which is nice because it has a 4:5:6:7:9:11 chord in it. There's another &quot;superdiatonic&quot; scale at 1 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 which you can morph the above into if you want, and a 15-note chromatic scale at 1 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2; feel free to not stick dogmatically to these exact scales but to change them as you desire.<br /> | &quot;For starters, you might want to mess around with what's called &quot;<a class="wiki_link" href="/porcupine">porcupine</a>&quot; temperament in <a class="wiki_link" href="/22edo">22-EDO</a>. The base diatonic-sized scale is (as steps out of 22-EDO) 4 3 3 3 3 3 3, and you can chromatically alter anything in that scale you want by 1 step out of 22. For instance, if you flat the 7, you get the scale 4 3 3 3 3 2 4, which is nice because it has a 4:5:6:7:9:11 chord in it. There's another &quot;superdiatonic&quot; scale at 1 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 which you can morph the above into if you want, and a 15-note chromatic scale at 1 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2; feel free to not stick dogmatically to these exact scales but to change them as you desire.<br /> | ||
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If you don't mind a bit less accuracy in representing harmonic ratios, the above temperament also exists in <a class="wiki_link" href="/15edo">15-EDO</a>, except the diatonic-sized scale is now 3 2 2 2 2 2 2, the superdiatonic is 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2, and the chromatic scale is all of 15-EDO. 15-EDO also has a really nice &quot;symmetrical diatonic&quot; scale, called the Blackwood-10 scale, which is 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1. Play around with major and minor chords in this scale a bit, and transpose them up and down the shape of the scale, and you'll see why it's so magical - the circle of fifths is only five steps long.&quot;<br /> | If you don't mind a bit less accuracy in representing harmonic ratios, the above temperament also exists in <a class="wiki_link" href="/15edo">15-EDO</a>, except the diatonic-sized scale is now 3 2 2 2 2 2 2, the superdiatonic is 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2, and the chromatic scale is all of 15-EDO. 15-EDO also has a really nice &quot;symmetrical diatonic&quot; scale, called the Blackwood-10 scale, which is 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1. Play around with major and minor chords in this scale a bit, and transpose them up and down the shape of the scale, and you'll see why it's so magical - the circle of fifths is only five steps long.&quot;<br /> | ||
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<!-- ws:start:WikiTextHeadingRule: | <!-- ws:start:WikiTextHeadingRule:10:&lt;h3&gt; --><h3 id="toc5"><a name="x--World Music Scales"></a><!-- ws:end:WikiTextHeadingRule:10 -->World Music Scales</h3> | ||
If you don't care about harmonic ratios at all, but perhaps instead care about world music, then you might enjoy <a class="wiki_link" href="/16edo">16-EDO</a>, which contains in it a wonderful extension of both gamelan music and Chopi timbila music; 5 2 2 5 2 is a great pelog and 3 3 3 4 3 works as slendro.<br /> | If you don't care about harmonic ratios at all, but perhaps instead care about world music, then you might enjoy <a class="wiki_link" href="/16edo">16-EDO</a>, which contains in it a wonderful extension of both gamelan music and Chopi timbila music; 5 2 2 5 2 is a great pelog and 3 3 3 4 3 works as slendro.<br /> | ||
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A really good paper on how 17-EDO offers a sort of bizarro-universe for the diatonic scale, which we might have gone with historically if things were different, can be found at <a class="wiki_link_ext" href="http://www.anaphoria.com/Secor17puzzle.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.anaphoria.com/Secor17puzzle.pdf</a>.<br /> | A really good paper on how 17-EDO offers a sort of bizarro-universe for the diatonic scale, which we might have gone with historically if things were different, can be found at <a class="wiki_link_ext" href="http://www.anaphoria.com/Secor17puzzle.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.anaphoria.com/Secor17puzzle.pdf</a>.<br /> | ||
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<!-- ws:start:WikiTextHeadingRule: | <!-- ws:start:WikiTextHeadingRule:12:&lt;h3&gt; --><h3 id="toc6"><a name="x--Historical Tunings and Extended Meantone"></a><!-- ws:end:WikiTextHeadingRule:12 -->Historical Tunings and Extended Meantone</h3> | ||
Some people are really interested in historic tunings for <a class="wiki_link" href="/meantone">meantone</a>, and perhaps extending them in ways that go beyond the <a class="wiki_link" href="/12edo">12-EDO</a> &quot;closure&quot; that we ended up going with. So if you really want to get away from the notion that C# has to equal Db, and want to explore extended meantone, there's a number of great options for you.<br /> | Some people are really interested in historic tunings for <a class="wiki_link" href="/meantone">meantone</a>, and perhaps extending them in ways that go beyond the <a class="wiki_link" href="/12edo">12-EDO</a> &quot;closure&quot; that we ended up going with. So if you really want to get away from the notion that C# has to equal Db, and want to explore extended meantone, there's a number of great options for you.<br /> | ||
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You can do all sorts of amazing stuff with 19-EDO if you want, and make it sound almost exactly like ordinary 12-EDO music too, but then depart from it into some rather mind-blowing stuff if you want.<br /> | You can do all sorts of amazing stuff with 19-EDO if you want, and make it sound almost exactly like ordinary 12-EDO music too, but then depart from it into some rather mind-blowing stuff if you want.<br /> | ||
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<!-- ws:start:WikiTextHeadingRule: | <!-- ws:start:WikiTextHeadingRule:14:&lt;h3&gt; --><h3 id="toc7"><a name="x--Higher Accuracy"></a><!-- ws:end:WikiTextHeadingRule:14 -->Higher Accuracy</h3> | ||
There are also the people who care about none of this, but really just want really well-intoned higher-limit chords. <span class="wiki_link_ext">Gene Smith</span> is certainly the person who's explored this style the most, though I also have a few things to say about it.<br /> | There are also the people who care about none of this, but really just want really well-intoned higher-limit chords. <span class="wiki_link_ext">Gene Smith</span> is certainly the person who's explored this style the most, though I also have a few things to say about it.<br /> | ||
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If you like the 72-EDO approach but like 17-EDO, you might try 68-EDO as a similar thing.<br /> | If you like the 72-EDO approach but like 17-EDO, you might try 68-EDO as a similar thing.<br /> | ||
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<!-- ws:start:WikiTextHeadingRule: | <!-- ws:start:WikiTextHeadingRule:16:&lt;h3&gt; --><h3 id="toc8"><a name="x--More accuracy"></a><!-- ws:end:WikiTextHeadingRule:16 -->More accuracy</h3> | ||
For people who don't care at all about EDOs, don't mind unequal chromatic scales and just want good harmony, there's a zillion options for you; Gene Smith will no doubt be able to add a lot to this, although I'm quite certain I've scared him off with this Margo-sized post here.<br /> | For people who don't care at all about EDOs, don't mind unequal chromatic scales and just want good harmony, there's a zillion options for you; Gene Smith will no doubt be able to add a lot to this, although I'm quite certain I've scared him off with this Margo-sized post here.<br /> | ||
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There are so many good unequal 11-limit temperaments that it's almost impossible for me to write about them all here; if this is really what you're after, post more about the things that you want specifically, and I'll answer specific questions.<br /> | There are so many good unequal 11-limit temperaments that it's almost impossible for me to write about them all here; if this is really what you're after, post more about the things that you want specifically, and I'll answer specific questions.<br /> | ||
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<!-- ws:start:WikiTextHeadingRule: | <!-- ws:start:WikiTextHeadingRule:18:&lt;h3&gt; --><h3 id="toc9"><a name="x--More info pending: Mind-bending tunings, non-octave tunings, subgroup tunings"></a><!-- ws:end:WikiTextHeadingRule:18 -->More info pending: Mind-bending tunings, non-octave tunings, subgroup tunings</h3> | ||
There are two more groups of people I have yet to address:<br /> | There are two more groups of people I have yet to address:<br /> | ||
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