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smueske
Joined: May 02, 2007
Posts: 98
Location: Minnesota, USA
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 Posted: Mon Jun 08, 2009 7:50 am Post subject:
Microtonal composition |
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Where can I find resources on the theory involved with microtonal composition (books, websites, whatever). This is a topic that interests me and I'm not really sure where to begin because traditional theory really doesn't apply here (that's not really the case, but you know what I mean.  ).
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seraph
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smueske
Joined: May 02, 2007
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Location: Minnesota, USA
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| Posted: Mon Jun 08, 2009 8:48 am Post subject:
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Thanks! I'll work my way through the list.
The link to Scala needs to be updated.
http://www.huygens-fokker.org/scala/
Also the Boelen Pierce link is not working (or I should say the site is no longer there).
I guess I'm hoping to find some sort of even temper vs [scale] keyboard chart. Obviously it would be difficult to use note names, but it would be helpful to have rough equivalents of where the "common" intervals are. Maybe this is something I need to make myself.
Maybe I should be clearer. I find it difficult, using a standard keyboard, to visualize the scale(s), when I'm so locked into the halftone, whole tone concept that the black and white keys represent. It's a symbolic problem, I think, a sort of necessary evil when each successive key represents the next tone up. I still "hear" what the interval, visually, should sound like instead of what it does (if that makes any sense).
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Steve
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smueske
Joined: May 02, 2007
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| Posted: Mon Jun 08, 2009 9:21 am Post subject:
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I've downloaded Scala and that looks to be exactly what I need. Many thanks for the resources.
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Steve
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seraph
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| Posted: Mon Jun 08, 2009 11:55 am Post subject:
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| smueske wrote: |
The link to Scala needs to be updated.
http://www.huygens-fokker.org/scala/
Also the Boelen Pierce link is not working (or I should say the site is no longer there). |
thanks Steve
both fixed now 
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ramechling
Joined: Dec 20, 2006
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Location: Temporarily Humbolt County
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Posted: Mon Jun 08, 2009 11:57 am Post subject:
Subject description: Microtonal software |
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Steve, has anyone told you about Jeff Scott's software ?
www.nonoctave.com
Just to put things in perspective, I just purchased my FIRST computer.  ...and the first software I bought was LMSO.
Jeff and I travelled down from his farm to CitySkies a few weeks ago and as I was driving he installed his LMSO software into my new laptop.
During the three days of the Festival in Decatur, he showed me how to attach the Kurzweil PC3 (that I'd also brought along) to the laptop and retune it with LMSO.
Lo and behold, it worked !! 
He includes a great sounding software synth, Cupcake, which uses all of the laptop's keys rather than just two rows as GarageBand does.
Just thought I'd tell you and please feel free to ask Jeff anything about compatibility with whatever keyboards you use.
He even wrote retuning for Mr. Lainhart's Continuum controller. 
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seraph
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| Posted: Mon Jun 08, 2009 11:59 am Post subject:
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| smueske wrote: | | I find it difficult, using a standard keyboard, to visualize the scale(s) |
Steve
don't worry, you are not alone , that's the price to pay for being a tuning explorer using a standard user interface built for 12tET.
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seraph
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Posted: Mon Jun 08, 2009 12:00 pm Post subject:
Subject description: Microtonal software |
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| ramechling wrote: | Steve, has anyone told you about Jeff Scott's software ?
www.nonoctave.com
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I love LMSO but you forgot to say that it is Mac only
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smueske
Joined: May 02, 2007
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| Posted: Mon Jun 08, 2009 12:40 pm Post subject:
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Yeah, Mac would be a problem.
I built my computer myself so I had to go PC.
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seraph
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Posted: Mon Jun 08, 2009 1:00 pm Post subject:
Subject description: Microtonal software |
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| ramechling wrote: |
Just to put things in perspective, I just purchased my FIRST computer. ...and the first software I bought was LMSO. |
LMSO by itself is a good reason to buy a Mac 
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Octahedra
Joined: Nov 29, 2008
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Location: Cheshire, UK
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| Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 10:14 am Post subject:
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| smueske wrote: | | Obviously it would be difficult to use note names, but it would be helpful to have rough equivalents of where the "common" intervals are. Maybe this is something I need to make myself. |
Some microtonal scales work fine with the traditional note names A to G, if you don't mind having single/double/triple/etc. versions of your sharps and flats. So you can get major and minor scales similar to what you're used to, with lots of extra notes in between.
You can get scales like this by starting with the number 7 (or alternatively 5) and adding a multiple of 12. Then you divide the octave into that number of notes. There's a lifetime's supply of ultra-heavy-duty reading on that subject here - see the Superscales section and especially the Equal Divisions page.
The downside is that they don't map at all well to a piano keyboard. 
| smueske wrote: | | I find it difficult, using a standard keyboard, to visualize the scale(s), when I'm so locked into the halftone, whole tone concept that the black and white keys represent. It's a symbolic problem, I think, a sort of necessary evil when each successive key represents the next tone up. I still "hear" what the interval, visually, should sound like instead of what it does (if that makes any sense). |
There are keyboards out there with hexagonal layouts or with a lot more keys. They're expensive, and I was still worried about the learning curve for each new scale, so I decided to build my own keyboard to concentrate my efforts on one scale for the moment (31 equal temperament). For other tunings I'll carry on working completely in the piano roll of my sequencer.
I hope you find a way you like, that keeps your options open. Do you want to perform finished music with your keyboard (live or recorded) or is it more of a composition tool?
Gordon |
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smueske
Joined: May 02, 2007
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Location: Minnesota, USA
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| Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 10:49 am Post subject:
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| Quote: | | Do you want to perform finished music with your keyboard (live or recorded) or is it more of a composition tool? |
I think mostly a composition tool, though who knows? This is all new to me (the microtonal thing and I've only been experimenting with it for a week or so). One thing I might do is use a pad controller -- that way I can at least remove the white and black hegemony. My Akai has 4 banks of 16 pads, so it would still be weird, but I could put a bank of 9 and a bank of 10 (or 7 and 10 or whatever) and then program a knob to transpose octaves. There are a lot of different workarounds, I suppose, and maybe I'll even get used to the keyboard -- it was just such an odd roadblock that I hadn't anticipated. I guess you get so used to visualizing and hearing that your brain just sort of works on auto-pilot sometimes.
I checked out some of your stuff and I like it a lot. There's a lot of talent here.
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smueske
Joined: May 02, 2007
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| Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 11:50 am Post subject:
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Oh, and thank you for the link, Octahedra (sorry, don't know your name). I've bookmarked the two pages (the electro-music link page and the link you provided).
My brain hurts! I appreciate the help. It looks like a formidable challenge.
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xjscott
Joined: Apr 25, 2007
Posts: 232
Location: Appalachia
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| Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 5:00 pm Post subject:
Re: Microtonal composition |
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| smueske wrote: | | Where can I find resources on the theory involved with microtonal composition (books, websites, whatever). This is a topic that interests me and I'm not really sure where to begin because traditional theory really doesn't apply here (that's not really the case, but you know what I mean. ). |
I would recommend you get the first two books on this list:
http://www.nonoctave.com/tuning/book-reviews.html
Don't worry about the other ones, but the first two are essential.
As to internet resources, I am pretty skeptical of most of them.
Your ear is really all you need. A lot of the theory hasn't been written. Theory comes after practice in the arts, or at least it should to reflect actual practice. There's also of course theory that tries to drive practice, but I find most of this sort to be more propaganda or wishful thinking than anything.
After reading those two books, you'll know a lot more about music than 99% of theorists.
More on the keyboard question later. |
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seraph
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| Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 11:14 pm Post subject:
Re: Microtonal composition |
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Has the Isacoff's book always been on that list 
I thought you hated it 
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Octahedra
Joined: Nov 29, 2008
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| Posted: Wed Jun 10, 2009 12:44 am Post subject:
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| smueske wrote: | | I guess I'm hoping to find some sort of even temper vs [scale] keyboard chart. Obviously it would be difficult to use note names, but it would be helpful to have rough equivalents of where the "common" intervals are. |
I just remembered this page of microtonal modes. This should help you to find useful scales (including traditional major/minor where possible) within all sorts of different microtonal tuning systems, by only using some of the available notes. Nothing about note names or keyboard layouts, but if you're concentrating on how it sounds, as Jeff suggested, this is a start.
Each mode on that page is written out as a list of numbers - the number of steps up to the next note that you'll use. The first note would be zero so they didn't write that down. So the first number represents how far to go to reach the second note, and so on. By the time you've counted the last number you're an octave above where you started (assuming it's an octave-based scale).
Hopefully this page about modes won't make your head hurt as much as the other link I posted. I certainly found that less paracetamol was required!
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seraph
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| Posted: Wed Jun 10, 2009 2:02 am Post subject:
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| Octahedra wrote: | | I certainly found that less paracetamol was required! |
thanks God for paracetamol
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xjscott
Joined: Apr 25, 2007
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Location: Appalachia
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| Posted: Wed Jun 10, 2009 2:04 pm Post subject:
Temperament |
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| seraph wrote: | | I thought you hated it |
I should clarify that the page is a list of reviews of books one should know about, not necessarily a page of recommendations.
Since Temperament was the #1 best selling tuning book of all time and got rave reviews by the popular media, it needed a impartial analysis of its practical and accurate tuning content vs other sorts of content, which is the focus of the review.
I did think about having that page only be recommendations, but since that book is so famous, I thought it really needed an opinion from someone experienced with tuning. Otherwise someone might buy it thinking they would learn something about tuning when they could have spend the money on something more practical.
Read the review if you haven't yet, I think it is a fair review. I wouldn't recommend the book at all to anyone interested in the history of tuning or information about tuning systems. For someone who is not especially interested in music, it is a quick read without any annoying technical content, and contains quite a few entertaining stories about things that aren't related to tuning in any direct way.
For someone interested in a detailed history of western tuning in particular, Barbour's Tuning and Temperament is the best so far. It's very well researched and has very specific information, with tables of values and so forth. I have some reservations about it, but I've not really jelled those to the point where I can express them concisely, so I don't have a review for it yet. Also, it's historical focus is really specific and of useful interest to certain people but not others. However, the thesis that lead to this book is what Harry Partch used as a primary reference for the historical tuning information in Genesis, so it does make a useful complement to go further.
For tuning in general and not just western music or historical, that book has not yet been published, but when/if there is ever enough interest for Cris Forster to publish his brilliant and comprehensive finished manuscript "Musical Mathematics: A Practice in the Mathematics of Tuning Instruments and Analyzing Scales", that will be high on the recommendation list. Possibly it'll displace Genesis for the #1 recommendation spot. I'd love to have it in a hardcover. Forster is one of the top ten living guys in the world as far as contributions to tuning, his work is amazing. Wouldn't dare to make the complete list or rank them except to say Erv Wilson and Bill Sethares would be in there as well, and I am not sure who else. I mean I know tons of people that do great things, but Wilson, Forster and Sethares have done so much work that is groundbreaking and/or of impeccable quality. |
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seraph
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| Posted: Wed Jun 10, 2009 3:00 pm Post subject:
Re: Temperament |
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| xjscott wrote: | | Erv Wilson and Bill Sethares would be in there as well, and I am not sure who else |
Ivor Darreg, maybe?
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xjscott
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| Posted: Wed Jun 10, 2009 3:27 pm Post subject:
Re: Temperament |
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Living guys. If went to non-living then Aristoxenus, Pietro Aaron etc, that would be a hard list really and many of the most important contributors no name is even known.
The only reason I mentioned a top ten list was to give props to Forster there and highlight the level of his contribution, not to start an actual list, which would be an impossible and subjective task. By listing only 3 of 10 and limiting it to living people only I was hoping to avoid controversy, hurt feelings and debate that would be a separate topic from the book recommendations. |
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smueske
Joined: May 02, 2007
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Location: Minnesota, USA
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| Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2009 12:57 pm Post subject:
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I'm trying to unzip the scale files for scala but the zip file says that it's password protected. I can't find any mention of this on the website. Does anyone know what the password is?
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smueske
Joined: May 02, 2007
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| Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2009 1:37 pm Post subject:
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Nevermind, turns out it's a directory permissions problem here at work. I'll just have to wait until I get home to try this out...
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memedesigner
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