Ukulele

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This page will explore a different approach to xenharmonics and micro-tonality than anyone else has attempted. Whereas a lot of people make and use micro tonal Guitars, I have felt that simply beginning with Ukulele instead will make a symbolic and real difference- after all, the Uke is fun, whereas the Guitar is 'serious', right? Not to mention, a hackable Uke can be had for far less than all but the trashiest of guitars. Here's my project in question, a little thing I like to call the Micro-Uke...[[image:IMG_2072.JPG width="800" height="600"]]

My apologies if things look weird, I am just beginning to learn editing. I will be posting more on the history of the MicroUke (currently at 1.1) in the future

As for a quick intro to me, I am Cenobyte, a new member around here. My musical influences include Nobuo Uematsu, Erik Satie, Claude Debussy, Jacob Borshard, Herb Ohta, Miles Davis, Weather Report just to name a fraction...

As far as my ideology goes, I am a strong copyleftist, especially since a lot of Microtonal music is not immediately commercially viable. I believe that copy-lefting Jacky Ligon's Galunlati, for instance would solve his obsurity problem at least though probably not his money problem... I am a supporter of many things-Free-culture, like Free audio formats/codecs, making source or steps available, etc. So, obviously, I run the Gnu/Linux OS on my PC's

In my adventures with this humble Uke I hope to make "the other side" of music more accessible, and fun to curious people. I also hope to make music that while being foreign at first, expresses a genuine human sentiment that could NOT easily be done in 12TET.

I also hope my music and ideas can resound with elegance and simplicity.

Tue-July 26 2011:

Here is a sample sound byte from the MicroUke (currently tuned to 7edo) [[file:tidbitforwiki.ogg]]
Now I do apologise because the quality is not the best; it was done with my internal laptop mic and had to have a lot of amplification and noise removal, but hopefully at this price you get a good glimpse of how the uke sounds tonally and a sample of my style of playing. The files I post are all intended to be downloadable, remixable, and sharable, (creative commons license) though I am not sure how to license content on this wiki. Since so little is posted, that's not a problem right now.

Another note is that somehow the recording cuts off a lot, so sorry about that.

Thurs Aug4 2011

I thought I would post an update of how things are going. I am still trying out tunings on the Uke, I have completed preliminary 5 and 7 edo testing and have the songs I've recorded as souvenirs on my journeys. Note that I am not 'micro' tonal YET, that doesn't happen until 13 edo upwards, but I AM xenharmonic at this point. This is how things have been going in terms of recordings
5EDO: There are 10 songs total including original pieces and re-workings of cultural favorites (such as auld langes syne) I recorded each song in 3 tunings, which is not a different tuning SYSTEM, but just refers to a pitch center. So if the pitch center is C, that means that my 0 note is about 261 HZ in frequency, and so forth. So I did a 240hz, C, and D version.

7-EDO: I found this system drastically more rife with possibility with just 2 more notes. As a result, I was able to record 15 familiar tunes (some of dubious legality, though, but I doubt I will be found out, let alone punished for being creative) which I thought merited a separate "album", or at least folder on my hard drive. In addition to the tunes, I have about 6 original tunes, but I just used one pitch center. ( I want to preserve my somewhat delicate stock strings...)

Currently all songs are HUGE Flac files (about 10+ MB ea.) and are just solo Uke,which I might like to add ambient sounds to later, so they are unreleased. I may post a list of the names later though, I have about 30 songs so far (not including 20 which are alternate pitches)

That's about it for now, if anyone (all 2 of you) is following this page, I'll try to update soon, but of course this is not a high traffic area of a high traffic site anyway, so peace out...

Late Nite Sun Aug 8:
I am having a bit of trouble getting 8EDO to be in tune on the Micro Uke, so I decided to do some visual hacking. Here is a remixed Public Domain Ukulele picture adapted to show the micro uke
[[http://www.openclipart.org/detail/154309/ukulele-remix-by-cenobyte|Micro-Uke-Clipart]] ([[http://www.openclipart.org/image/480px/svg_to_png/micro-uke.png|png version]])

Download and edit as you please, the work is public domain.

UPDATE: as of about midnight on August 11, 2011 the Exmi Fret Calculator site is down and has reamained so until now. Thankfully, I found FretFind2d, the only other such calculator I know of which can also give you graphics of your fretboard! This is nothing new, as there IS a link elsewhere on this site that I had not seen to FretFind, but I am expressing my personal discovery just the same. So even if the other site never comes back up, fretfind is there for me, and it can do JI

as of 3:16 AM Mon aug 15, I have officially reached 8 EDO! It is likely the Micro-Uke will be getting another version number update for 1 or 2 reasons. 1 is after tightening an unnoticed but loose screw on the gear winder of the 3rd string, its tuning issues (being sharp) almost all but vanished. This is a major improvement. the 2nd is that I tuned 8edo by "ear", with the ear being my infallible tuner,[[http://www.nongnu.org/lingot/| Lingot]]. which is a great boon and allows me to greatly improve what would have otherwise been a "trash" ukulele. As an odd feature of this tuning method of going by how in tune the uke was, it seems a number of the nylon frets are tied on in a non-perpendicular way to the neck, slanted a little. By my new method, it is not the looks that matter though, just the tuning. It's actually a sort of Just Intonation way of doing equal temperament.

Needless to say I have probably made enough discoveries to call it MicroUke 1.2 now, or at least 1.1.1

by the way I have made a decal for the uke, which I will picture once I get my camera back...

ah yes, and before i go for now, I got my new ProArte strings and am amazed- they make everything sound better!

Original HTML content:

<html><head><title>Fun With Microtones</title></head><body>This page will explore a different approach to xenharmonics and micro-tonality than anyone else has attempted. Whereas a lot of people make and use micro tonal Guitars, I have felt that simply beginning with Ukulele instead will make a symbolic and real difference- after all, the Uke is fun, whereas the Guitar is 'serious', right? Not to mention, a hackable Uke can be had for far less than all but the trashiest of guitars. Here's my project in question, a little thing I like to call the Micro-Uke...<!-- ws:start:WikiTextLocalImageRule:0:&lt;img src=&quot;/file/view/IMG_2072.JPG/242696155/800x600/IMG_2072.JPG&quot; alt=&quot;&quot; title=&quot;&quot; style=&quot;height: 600px; width: 800px;&quot; /&gt; --><img src="/file/view/IMG_2072.JPG/242696155/800x600/IMG_2072.JPG" alt="IMG_2072.JPG" title="IMG_2072.JPG" style="height: 600px; width: 800px;" /><!-- ws:end:WikiTextLocalImageRule:0 --><br />
<br />
My apologies if things look weird, I am just beginning to learn editing. I will be posting more on the history of the MicroUke (currently at 1.1) in the future<br />
<br />
As for a quick intro to me, I am Cenobyte, a new member around here. My musical influences include Nobuo Uematsu, Erik Satie, Claude Debussy, Jacob Borshard, Herb Ohta, Miles Davis, Weather Report just to name a fraction...<br />
<br />
As far as my ideology goes, I am a strong copyleftist, especially since a lot of Microtonal music is not immediately commercially viable. I believe that copy-lefting Jacky Ligon's Galunlati, for instance would solve his obsurity problem at least though probably not his money problem... I am a supporter of many things-Free-culture, like Free audio formats/codecs, making source or steps available, etc. So, obviously, I run the Gnu/Linux OS on my PC's<br />
<br />
In my adventures with this humble Uke I hope to make &quot;the other side&quot; of music more accessible, and fun to curious people. I also hope to make music that while being foreign at first, expresses a genuine human sentiment that could NOT easily be done in 12TET.<br />
<br />
I also hope my music and ideas can resound with elegance and simplicity.<br />
<br />
Tue-July 26 2011:<br />
<br />
Here is a sample sound byte from the MicroUke (currently tuned to 7edo) <!-- ws:start:WikiTextFileRule:1:&lt;img src=&quot;http://www.wikispaces.com/site/embedthumbnail/file/tidbitforwiki.ogg?h=52&amp;w=320&quot; class=&quot;WikiFile&quot; id=&quot;wikitext@@file@@tidbitforwiki.ogg&quot; title=&quot;File: tidbitforwiki.ogg&quot; width=&quot;320&quot; height=&quot;52&quot; /&gt; --><div class="objectEmbed"><a href="/file/view/tidbitforwiki.ogg/242958127/tidbitforwiki.ogg" onclick="ws.common.trackFileLink('/file/view/tidbitforwiki.ogg/242958127/tidbitforwiki.ogg');"><img src="http://www.wikispaces.com/i/mime/32/empty.png" height="32" width="32" alt="tidbitforwiki.ogg" /></a><div><a href="/file/view/tidbitforwiki.ogg/242958127/tidbitforwiki.ogg" onclick="ws.common.trackFileLink('/file/view/tidbitforwiki.ogg/242958127/tidbitforwiki.ogg');" class="filename" title="tidbitforwiki.ogg">tidbitforwiki.ogg</a><br /><ul><li><a href="/file/detail/tidbitforwiki.ogg">Details</a></li><li><a href="/file/view/tidbitforwiki.ogg/242958127/tidbitforwiki.ogg">Download</a></li><li style="color: #666">1 MB</li></ul></div></div><!-- ws:end:WikiTextFileRule:1 --><br />
Now I do apologise because the quality is not the best; it was done with my internal laptop mic and had to have a lot of amplification and noise removal, but hopefully at this price you get a good glimpse of how the uke sounds tonally and a sample of my style of playing. The files I post are all intended to be downloadable, remixable, and sharable, (creative commons license) though I am not sure how to license content on this wiki. Since so little is posted, that's not a problem right now.<br />
<br />
Another note is that somehow the recording cuts off a lot, so sorry about that.<br />
<br />
Thurs Aug4 2011<br />
<br />
I thought I would post an update of how things are going. I am still trying out tunings on the Uke, I have completed preliminary 5 and 7 edo testing and have the songs I've recorded as souvenirs on my journeys. Note that I am not 'micro' tonal YET, that doesn't happen until 13 edo upwards, but I AM xenharmonic at this point. This is how things have been going in terms of recordings<br />
5EDO: There are 10 songs total including original pieces and re-workings of cultural favorites (such as auld langes syne) I recorded each song in 3 tunings, which is not a different tuning SYSTEM, but just refers to a pitch center. So if the pitch center is C, that means that my 0 note is about 261 HZ in frequency, and so forth. So I did a 240hz, C, and D version.<br />
<br />
7-EDO: I found this system drastically more rife with possibility with just 2 more notes. As a result, I was able to record 15 familiar tunes (some of dubious legality, though, but I doubt I will be found out, let alone punished for being creative) which I thought merited a separate &quot;album&quot;, or at least folder on my hard drive. In addition to the tunes, I have about 6 original tunes, but I just used one pitch center. ( I want to preserve my somewhat delicate stock strings...)<br />
<br />
Currently all songs are HUGE Flac files (about 10+ MB ea.) and are just solo Uke,which I might like to add ambient sounds to later, so they are unreleased. I may post a list of the names later though, I have about 30 songs so far (not including 20 which are alternate pitches)<br />
<br />
That's about it for now, if anyone (all 2 of you) is following this page, I'll try to update soon, but of course this is not a high traffic area of a high traffic site anyway, so peace out...<br />
<br />
Late Nite Sun Aug 8:<br />
I am having a bit of trouble getting 8EDO to be in tune on the Micro Uke, so I decided to do some visual hacking. Here is a remixed Public Domain Ukulele picture adapted to show the micro uke<br />
<a class="wiki_link_ext" href="http://www.openclipart.org/detail/154309/ukulele-remix-by-cenobyte" rel="nofollow">Micro-Uke-Clipart</a> (<a class="wiki_link_ext" href="http://www.openclipart.org/image/480px/svg_to_png/micro-uke.png" rel="nofollow">png version</a>)<br />
<br />
Download and edit as you please, the work is public domain.<br />
<br />
UPDATE: as of about midnight on August 11, 2011 the Exmi Fret Calculator site is down and has reamained so until now. Thankfully, I found FretFind2d, the only other such calculator I know of which can also give you graphics of your fretboard! This is nothing new, as there IS a link elsewhere on this site that I had not seen to FretFind, but I am expressing my personal discovery just the same. So even if the other site never comes back up, fretfind is there for me, and it can do JI<br />
<br />
as of 3:16 AM Mon aug 15, I have officially reached 8 EDO! It is likely the Micro-Uke will be getting another version number update for 1 or 2 reasons. 1 is after tightening an unnoticed but loose screw on the gear winder of the 3rd string, its tuning issues (being sharp) almost all but vanished. This is a major improvement. the 2nd is that I tuned 8edo by &quot;ear&quot;, with the ear being my infallible tuner,<a class="wiki_link_ext" href="http://www.nongnu.org/lingot/" rel="nofollow"> Lingot</a>. which is a great boon and allows me to greatly improve what would have otherwise been a &quot;trash&quot; ukulele. As an odd feature of this tuning method of going by how in tune the uke was, it seems a number of the nylon frets are tied on in a non-perpendicular way to the neck, slanted a little. By my new method, it is not the looks that matter though, just the tuning. It's actually a sort of Just Intonation way of doing equal temperament.<br />
<br />
Needless to say I have probably made enough discoveries to call it MicroUke 1.2 now, or at least 1.1.1<br />
<br />
by the way I have made a decal for the uke, which I will picture once I get my camera back...<br />
<br />
ah yes, and before i go for now, I got my new ProArte strings and am amazed- they make everything sound better!</body></html>