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User:Mousemambo/Workbench

< User:Mousemambo
Revision as of 18:59, 2 August 2023 by Mousemambo (talk | contribs) (All user sub-pages section with Special:Prefixindex template)

Mousemambo's workbench for ideas and projects. Questions? Please use his Talk page or contact him through XenHarmonic Alliance's Discord server #wiki channel.

Project Ideas

  • User:Mousemambo/Tuning file. Add this new page. What are tuning files, what do they do, what are some formats? This will expand on the brief descriptions elsewhere, and link to the Anamark v2 page appropriately. Alternatively, create a User:Mousemambo/Tuning methods page with Tuning Files as one section, within which there might be some complete descriptions and others could have brief ones but links to a separate page with a more complete description. This might be a more future-proof approach. I need to think a little more before beginning.
  • Add "See: Tuning file" (or See: Tuning methods) as appropriate in the articles that currently reference them.
  • User:Mousemambo/Indian music. Replace the existing article "Indian" which, by the way, has a strange and dismaying page title (see below). Provide some history and current usage of tuning selections in the various branches of Indian music, and links to outside information.
  • Add some "how to" information for people just beginning their journey, either as additions to existing pages or by creating new ones as appropriate. E.g. How to use tuning files, how to select which ones, how to get your electronic or software instrument to use one. These types of pages live in Category:Guides.
  • Category: Tuning mechanisms. Probably not that category name, but something that would encompass all articles about how electronic instruments are made to adhere to alternative (non-12-EDO) tunings. "Practical tuning" or "Tuning practices" or Tuning methods" or "Tuning technique" (currently in use but deprecated with redirect) or "Tuning practice" perhaps? I note that the current Category:Tuning is about the theoretical side and not at all the practical side. However, it might instead be best to stick everything in there, practical and theoretical, although that's not the direction I currently lean toward.

Practical Tuning for Beginners Pages

Below is a list of existing pages (still expanding by search, as of August 2023) relevant to beginners who want to set their electronic instruments to other than 12-EDO tuning. Synth/sampler manuals frequently don't provide enough background information, instead assuming you already know something about tuning files.

It's useful to consider the trajectory of beginners newly arriving at the wiki. The wiki's front page has a section "If you are new to musical tuning" that doesn't get into practical how-to issues, but the page also has a very appropriate and helpful section "Practical xenharmonics" (Useful Tools, List of microtonal software plugins, Microtonal instruments). "Useful tools" simply redirects to the "List of music software" page, which seems sensible if inconsistent.

Related to that visitor's initial likely trajectory, note that the wiki's main sidebar also includes a section "Practice" with links underneath to some essential starting points for people seeking practical tuning guidance, especially "Software" and (of less relevance to this work) "Pedagogy." Also in that sidebar, "Useful Tools" (redirects to List of music software) is listed under "Theory" which is odd unless you know how useful the "practice" tools are for better understanding theory.

Indian Music

Existing pages addressing microtonality in Indian music:

I note that under Category:Traditions all the cultural traditions (not just Indian) are named with strange and somewhat dismaying names that omit the word "music" that should follow. E.g. Indian, Arabic and Greek should sensibly be Indian music, Arabic music, and Greek music. The words "Indian," "Arabic," and "Greek" by themselves can mean a people, a culture, or (except for Indian) a language. These page names and category names should specify "music" or "microtonality" or something else specific. Otherwise they feel very much like they are exoticizing and generalizing traditional cultural musics, much like how 20th century academic Western music theory tends to treat all music outside those by dead Germans as somehow lesser.

Toolkit

All User Sub-Pages

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