Alternate tunings

I want you to break free of the status quo that has a stranglehold on may a musician.

I want you to see what you're missing when you limit your ears to one particular set of twelve notes, a set that even our European forefathers (e.g. Bach) didn't have to put up with, a set that perhaps even insults our ears' capacity for perceiving subtleties in pitch.

I want you to see what you're missing when you force your brain to only recognize these twelve traditional pitch classes because of the paradigm that our instruments and notation are mired in.

I want you to know that good music can be made in the almost infinite variety of scales that can be dreamed up.

Oh, and I want you to try it yourself, perhaps using this free software.

For an introduction to another paradigm of pitch called Just Intonation, I recommed Kyle Gann's page.

For mp3's and midi's of all the microtonal music that I can seem to find freely offered on the internet, try this list.

Let's discuss.

This is an interesting topic. :)

Listening to this music, I have an image in my mind of everything "opening up", with all of the new pitches filling in the gaps in the possible pitches of standard music which listening to microtonal music has now created. I can't help but think this could be the way forward for 21st century music. We've already had chromaticism, so now we need microtonalism - something even more extensive and free than chromaticism.

I couldn't manipulate the pitches of notes using the software - how's it done?

I couldn't manipulate the pitches of notes using the software - how's it done?

Neither could I. I found this intriguing, though, and I'd like to keep playing around with it...if for no other reason than employing historic temperaments, in which I believe wholeheartedly.

Jacob, I think you and I have had this discussion before, but I'm still having trouble seeing how, say, a 17-per-octave scale can be very practical. You're pretty much limited to fretless stringed instruments, electronics, and voices (if you can find any with good enough musicianship...most singers have trouble with the 12 tones we already have, I'm sorry to say). And how is something like that notated? Is there a system that doesn't require a completely different literacy?

Whatever the case, I believe that microtonalism and the further exploration of electronica to be the only new areas that remain to be explored in music. The rest of us, whether we like it or not, are looking backward, because there's noplace else to look.

That's true, performance is a problem. Especially, singing in between semitones is...well I just tried and failed miserably, let's leave it at that.

The free software Scala has an on-screen keyboard that allows you to click the notes (right-click to sustain), and also the capability for retuning midi files to any tuning. You might have to work at it a bit, but it is well-documented. I mention this software especially because a large part of the community here (potentially) works heavily in midi files and thus have a chance at much fewer practical qualms. Some midi work I like is that of Mats Öljare.

Certain equal tuning systems are more practical than others as a bridge from 12; they tend to be the ones with a similar circle of fifths. If you then treat our traditional notation in a chain-of-fifths fashion and apply it to other chains of fifths, you get some interesting insights. For example, in 17-EDO (equal divisions of the octave) C# is higher than Db, whereas in 19-EDO the reverse is true.

Incidentally, both 17 and 19 can be achieved by tuning two pianos to them, and 19 has actually been done. I'm dying to try 17. This is one aspect of microtonality that I like: while the sound world is freer than usual, the means have these additional constraints that cause you to use your imagination like you never would have before. I know I wouldn't be playing bottles otherwise.

As far as hearing, I have sort of trained myself to a 31-tone octave, which is easier than many (including quartertones) because so many of the pitches are close to just. If you want to sing just, I suggest experimenting on top of a drone.

Originally posted by J. Lee Graham@Jul 4 2005, 07:28 AM

Whatever the case, I believe that microtonalism and the further exploration of electronica to be the only new areas that remain to be explored in music.

Beyond this, most composers have traditionally been trained on piano, from which a relatively small number of sounds can be extracted.

Simulataneous improvisation... aka a jam?

Computer assisted composition has been around for donkey's years too. Someone does need to make more affecting music with it though. but it's just a matter of time. The problem is, I think that as soon as you start making 'nicer' music with computers, you put too many rules in place so it stops being as free - which is perhaps the whole point.

A problem I have with strange tunings, is perhaps the constraints which are still there... Ok, so you can now use 17 notes, but they have to be the same 17 notes throughout the piece... something doesn't rest easy, and it may well simply be my conservitism, but ... ... ... I don't know. It seems too conscious a decision. "What can be explored? - Microtonalism. Right, let's do that." The theory's fine, but the whole concept seems a little contrived. Maybe my history isn't what it should be, but something like minimalism seemed to evolve, while with microtonality, we already seem to have discovered its features, and just have to use them in composition... Hm. I doubt I'm making much sense.

Originally posted by stefan inglis@Jul 6 2005, 07:17 PM

Hm. I doubt I'm making much sense.

Quite a lot of sense, actually.

Don't forget though that microtonalism goes back centuries and actually, that which we know of as our "standard" scale is a relatively new invention. Take Indian Classical music, for instance, and have a look at the scales used there. Now go to places like Bali and hear the Slendro or Pelog scales.

Integration of these scales with Western music has also been around for a while: for example, Ravi Shankar has made some gorgeous music which mixes Indian musical influences with Western musical influences and created a fantastic hybrid. John Mayer, who I had the chance to meet but, sadly, died before I had a chat with him created similar fusions. It's quite amazing what you can do: especially on instruments that allow the scale to be changed macrotonally (eg. the Sitar); or on instruments with differing modes. Wonderful!

I think what I want to emphasize is awareness of the current paradigm. Paradigms are at their most powerful when they are most invisible, and I'd like to strip away the invisibility cloak of the 100-year-old Western scale system.

It is helpful for many things. It is helpful for supporting a seven-note "diatonic" scale and allowing you to modulate freely between such scales. (The traditional Thai scale does this with only 7 notes total.) It is helpful for Messiaen's symmetrical modes (e.g. octatonic, which I find to be wonderful), the wholetone scale, the symmetrical augmented and diminished chords, 12 being such a divisible number and all.

Stefan, I don't quite understand your position. If you don't like the over-consciousness of choosing a different tuning system, ...well, that's more preferable to me than uncritically accepting the inherited system. Free pitch (or no pitch at all) is another choice, another constraint. I'm just clamoring for increased awareness of that choice. It can be as valid and musically important a choice as choosing a key.

Be my guest in not staying tied to one tuning system in a piece. I've written a piece in 13 sections that uses 13 different tunings, and I hope to write one with a gradually sliding tuning soon.

I want to compose music instead of music composing me... Now it's my turn to wonder if I'm making sense...

What makes you say that the Western scale is only 100 years old? Also, don't forget that Messiaen didn't invent any of the modes he used: he merely used them and adopted them into his ways of writing music (to great effect, I must say). However, all of the modes he used had been used previously by other composers and other musics.

What makes you say that the Western scale is only 100 years old? Also, don't forget that Messiaen didn't invent any of the modes he used: he merely used them and adopted them into his ways of writing music (to great effect, I must say). However, all of the modes he used had been used previously by other composers and other musics.

1. The Western scale has only been able to be tuned accurately to equal temperament for about 100 years.

2. Messiaen didn't invent ANY of them? Even the proto-scales like C C# D F# G G# C? (Not sure if that's actually one of them) I know the octatonic scales were loved by many, and one of the Tcherepnins was big on the 9-tone scale.

3. Speaking of sliding tone music, this is an amazing 9-minute bunch of sliding sine waves: http://mysterybear.net/article/12

1. I was under the impression that J. S. Bach used the "accurately" tuned temperament and championed this by writing his two books of 24 Preludes and Fugues: namely 'Das Wohltemperierte Klavier'. J. S. Bach lived more than one hundred years ago, if I remember rightly. An interesting aside (and not proving any particular point of any argument) is that Pythagoras organised the tuning system that we now use.

2. As far as I know, Messiaen used only those modes fitting his 'non-retrogradable' system. I find it doubtful that, in the standard scale, a new mode would have been discovered relatively only a few years ago.

3. This extract is very interesting. The way in which it works is the same as how the Ondes Martenot produces its sound: heterodyning oscillators, by the produced sound being the result of two differently pitched sine waves. It's this interference that gives the Ondes Martenot its rich and wonderful sound even though it's essentially produced by sine waves.

I'd be interested to hear your "piece in 13 sections that uses 13 different tunings". Email it to my address if you wish.

1. I was under the impression that J. S. Bach used the "accurately" tuned temperament and championed this by writing his two books of 24 Preludes and Fugues: namely 'Das Wohltemperierte Klavier'. J. S. Bach lived more than one hundred years ago, if I remember rightly. An interesting aside (and not proving any particular point of any argument) is that Pythagoras organised the tuning system that we now use.

2. As far as I know, Messiaen used only those modes fitting his 'non-retrogradable' system. I find it doubtful that, in the standard scale, a new mode would have been discovered relatively only a few years ago.

3. This extract is very interesting. The way in which it works is the same as how the Ondes Martenot produces its sound: heterodyning oscillators, by the produced sound being the result of two differently pitched sine waves. It's this interference that gives the Ondes Martenot its rich and wonderful sound even though it's essentially produced by sine waves.

I'd be interested to hear your "piece in 13 sections that uses 13 different tunings". Email it to my address if you wish.

Bach championed the well tempering system, hence the title "Wohltemperierte Klavier," meaning "Well-tempered Klavier." He indeed lived more than a hundred years ago -- much more than a hundred years ago. Pythagoras lived even more hundreds of years ago -- about two thousand years ago, in fact -- and did not work with tempered scales at all but instead with perfect intervals on stringed instruments. The system we use today, that of equal tempering, has been around for somewhere in the vicinity of 150 years.

That piece with heterodyning oscillators sounds exactly like the coil heater in my bathroom heating up. I'm not sure I'd call that music.

Really? The piano has lots of different sounds - at least four registers that I can think of, each with a different effect (e.g. very high up for "tinkling" noises, and very low down for a growl to name but two). Then again, I'm a pianist and have spent many an hour seeing what I could make a piano sound like.

On a trumpet, you can get at least fifty or sixty distinct, named sounds out of the same note. On a piano, much of the timbre has to do with chords and the relations of different notes. Composing for the instruments is a completely different process, and a composer trained only in the piano and/or strings generally writes very dull wind/brass parts.

1. I was under the impression that J. S. Bach used the "accurately" tuned temperament and championed this by writing his two books of 24 Preludes and Fugues: namely 'Das Wohltemperierte Klavier'. J. S. Bach lived more than one hundred years ago, if I remember rightly. An interesting aside (and not proving any particular point of any argument) is that Pythagoras organised the tuning system that we now use.

1. Bach wrote Das Wohltemperierte Klavier for a well temperament, probably, which plays well in all 24 keys but not equally; that is, the keys have different characteristics because they have, for example, differently sized major thirds. More info here.

1a. I'll take the Pythagoras and run with it if I may :( . Pythagoras only tuned by octaves (2/1) perfect fifths (3/2) and fourths (4/3), regarding 3 as a limit. In other words, a circle or spiral of fifths as a way to create a scale. But doing this creates a major third that's gratingly sharp (81/64 = (3/2)^4 octave-reduced), whereas doing something as simple as going to the number 5 gives you a really warm, "in-tune" major third (5/4). Not to mention "blue" intervals involving 7 and unheard grating consonances using 11, 13, and higher, none of which are remotely approximatable in 12 tone equal. Page on Pythagorean.

It seems to me we are still stymied by Pythagoras' 3-obsession.

Hmm... well.. I'm a microtonalist... I took guitar lesson's from a guy who was college room mates with Mat Maneri who's dad, Joe, is a kind of famous avant guard Jazz microtonalist.. He's pretty amazing.. and has a website here: Joe Maneri's web site he was also instrumental in starting the Boston Microtonal Soceity....

some other links.. an electronic musician article on Microtonalism

and electornic musican article with an interview with Wendy Carlos on working with Microtonalsim

Yet another electronic musician aricle on Playing in the cracks (and on working with alternative tuning in Reaktor and Max and stuff)

A perhaps more interesting link would be the The Pod Cast's of Prent Rogers who plays microtonal pieces after saying a bit about them...

there's also a yahoo group.. whos website escapes me.. that focuses on microntal music... that might be help full...

And in all this I shouldn't resist a little self promotion.. I have some microtonal music on my myspace acount... at myspace.com/mattsearles And in deed I do talk a bit about it on my blogs zarmattathustra.blogspot.com and on my website (that I despritly need to update) Matt Searles . com

and one more shamelesss self promtoin: I'm planning on comming out with a free creative commons release of microtonal music soon..

Anyway....

Personally.. at the momment I'm mostly involved in working with electronic music.. I write largely monophonic lines.. in Reason, Cubase / etc... And pitch bend the indavidual notes.. (I normally set the pitch range of my instruments to about a semi tone) And then I just sort of explore what ever ideas might come along as I go along.. For instance... well I'll give you some of my ideas:

What's serial music all about? Well.. they are maximizing the time between repatitions of the same note in order avoid a key center right? Or I mean.. you could say they are doing that.. and doing that to achieve a variety of effects.. Well.. what if you wrote a traditionally diatonic composition but pitch bended all the notes that repeated.. so as to maximize the length of time between repatitions? I mean.. what of microtonal transposition?

I tend to dig working with microtonal music because it involves a higher tonal fidelity then conventional music.

You can instantly understand how microtones might be interesting for bluring the distinctions between various tradional harmonies.. say between minor / major / augmented / diminished traids and what not..

Of course there's the Justintonation buisness about.. from a physics perspective.. proper harmonies...

Another sort of interesting issue is that traditional music is microtonal.. through the magic of vibrato's and pitch bends.. Sure, you know that.. but if you where to make a study of the actual pitches found in a performance of whatever music.. you might be surprized to see just how micrtonal it was.. In a sense.. compositing with microtones, it seems to me.. is about being a more tyranical dictator then conventional composers.. in the sense that you are dicating things that would normally be in the domain of 'the expression of the performer.'

Also.. electronic music is gennerally not terribly microtonal in the senes of the above paragraph.. the reason being that that traditional input devise is the keyboard.. which is not expressive in terms of pitch.. which is, perhaps one reason, why it makes even more sense to work with microtonalism if you're in the habit of working in electronic music.

Also.. In my tools.. I can tell you that Cubase has a midi plugin that allows for special tunings.. and the Native Instruments instruments allow for special tunings to...

There clearly is tradition of making your own instruments.. for dealing with microtones.. I think this is a little on the complicated side... What I mean is.. if you go that route you are bucking the system is a significant kind of way... the trouble with this is that it takes more energy to travel the same distance.. that is.. if you go in a direction that 'the system' supports.. it's easier going.. So for instance.. most software isn't really meant for microtonalism.. so it takes a little more effort.. Certainly it takes a little more effort to beging working with alternative tunings / scales / etc...

When I did work with alternative scales I worked with an equal tempered 72 note to the octive scale.. (the same that Joe Maneri uses) This scale has the distinction of having just intonation intervals in it.. which quater tone scales lack...

It's also worth mentioning things like dronal music... La Monte Young.. and the like.. but I'm to tired to talk about that... Sonic Youth and the Velvet Underground do a bit with this.. I understand Black Flag did as well...

I should add that I like using microtonal music when I'm traveling in the sort of Ambient / noise art / minimalism directions of a Brian Eno, Philip Glass, John Cage, John Zorn, etc... Because I can make music that moves at smaller intervals.. I mean... it can get very interesting.. if you have two notes playing right next to each other in time.. and they are 1/6th of a semi tone a part.. or less.. you can bairly hear the difference.. but if you were doing a Metalica style muted 16th note thing... you would notice the pitch movement.. so that.. in a strange way.. you'll notice the music is moving tonally over time.. but in shorter periods of time.. you dont really notice.. wich is really kind of wierd... and interesting.. And of course.. if you're playing through a delay.. in the delay you'll have the older sound to compare the new sound to...

Another intersting thing is that sometimes.. in order to make a synth sound thicker.. folks will record multiple takes of it.. with it tuned up or down just a little bit.. this is a sort of production techneque... that well.. like in earlier multitrack days when they didn't bother to tune there instruments before they did the next take.. the resulting out of tune ness make the takes thicker.. well what is sort of interesting is that you can move these kinds of 'production technieques' over to the compositional level...

So I hope you can see from just this much.. that there's a whole interesting universe of ideas that people just haven't even begun to think about.. I mean.. just imagine the issue of 'higher tonal fidelity,' and what that could mean for your music!!! It's amazing stuff.. There's all sorts of colors the world hasn't even seen yet... Or only a few have...

Well.. I'm going to shut up now.. hope I haven't 'droned' on for too long... but I mean.. microtonalism is a 'scallop'n subject..'

When Jacob Barton reads this, he's gonna need to excuse himself to clean up. ;)

Hmm...

Don't tempt me. :happy:

err idk how to quote but um...

Not entirely. If I want to hear an interval of 11/8 in a within-the-12-system piece, I'm not going to get it by leaving it to the performer, and if I do get it, everyone including the performer will regard it as an error. Yes, just about all music performed by humans on string and wind instruments is slightly microtonal, interestingly. I draw a distinction as Crumb has between expressive and *structural* microtones.

well.. i didn't mean to suggest that there wasn't a qualitative difference between a traditional 12 tone music with pitch fluxing ornamentation and what happens when you compose stuff out microtonally... only that I think.. when you first aprouch the issues of microtonalism.. it probably makes sense to thinking of the microtonal aspects of traditional music.. and think about it in relationship to, like.. issues of psycho-acoustics.

On the other hand I'm all into.. well like issues of the division of labor and how we compartmentalize stuff.. that is.. we no that there's this western intelectual tradition that's all about how we compartmentalize informations, ideas, and whatever... But.. there are certain ways that the act of compartmentalization changes what your looking at.. this would be like a Buddhist idea... anyway.. often times the really great new innovations happen just by taking information from different compartments that where never combined before.. which is part of why I think it's interesting to look at psycho acoustics and the microtonalism of traditional music.. and the issue of the microtonal composer getting involved with issues that.. in some sense are normally the domaine of the performer.. and your point sorta speaks to that.. If I'm making myself clear....

On the other hand I'm all into.. well like issues of the division of labor and how we compartmentalize stuff.. that is.. we no that there's this western intelectual tradition that's all about how we compartmentalize informations, ideas, and whatever...

Zarma - hi.

I like you.

lol, thanks Stefan

I just happened to come upon this link.. that I thought was interesting: microtonal reviews

about the division of labor / compartmentalism thing: I've been reading a fair bit of progressive political stuff.. One of the more interesting folks in this are would be Foucualt.. a French philosopher.. died in the 80s of AIDS.. Anyway.. he was very interested in making a study of power relaitonships.. He did this in historical analsis of things like.. the history of mental health.. stuff like how we define what is healthy / what is sickness... He also did this with the legal system... and you see how this relates to the issue of compartmentalisation.. how power in society / the world.. effect how we think...

I think of music making as.. or music listening to... as a kind of search for transendence.. to have an experiance that transends the confines brought to us by the power systems.. there intrests / etc.. I try to get, in my music, to deeper needs of the human.. I mean.. take psychoanalisis... this idea of the super ego.. which is like the intigration of the taboo system / social vales / etc.. into the indavidual.. the trouble is that no society is really intersted in developing the potential of it's in habitents as it's greatest good.. thus the tabboo system tells us not to develop certain parts of our potential... because they might threatent the social order, or whatever... Now.. basically the super ego.. at least in a healthy society.. would be tied to the actual needs and issues of that society.. but.. there is a way where they sort of lag... like.. the moral system teaches you how to move through the known universe, but not the unknown universe... So.. in order to meet the demans of the unknown universe.. we must go about rediscovering those parts of our potential that we have forgetten....

An example of this kind of thing is... well there's this thing where some people are saying we are moving out of the information age and into the conceptual age.. were suddenly creativity ends up being more values.. so maybe now we'll, as a society, grow more artists...

Well.. I'm going on a long tangent.. and I have to run.. but.. Basically.. when we make art... when we beging to intigrate / resynthasize ideas from normally segrigated areas.. and subvert the moral order in a way that is in servase of higher goods... Well then I think our music gives this as a kind of gift to the listener... and um.. well that's the sort of contribution I'm trying to make anyway... That would be the logic behind my hunter thompson quote.. and also a reason why I hink microtonalism is just the Bees Knees...

Ok.. time for matt to shut up

Talk as much as you like, Matt. We like thoughtful people here.