MOTUnation.com

...oops, it was actually newrigel I meant to quote, my cut-n-paste skills let me down.

In terms of pianos - I don't mean just pianos that are out of tune, even pianos that are supposedly in tune sound wrong to me.

BKK-OZ wrote:

James Steele wrote:Could you give me an example of thousand year old microtonal music?

There are tons of examples. In fact, the 12-tone tempered scale is the odd one out in terms of history and usage. Ancient Persian music, Indian, Indonesian, etc. etc. If you are really interested, I've got a few books on non-western scales/traditions. Microtonal is a problematic word though - most people take it to mean anything that isn't 12-tone tempered, which covers a lot of ground. Harry Partch (one of my heroes) had several takes on microtunal scales, his most favoured being one with 43 steps. His logic behind it always does my head in, but its still cool nonetheless.

A coupla examples from the dreaded Wiki:
śruti - thousandS of years old
Gamelan music (from Indonesia)

Interestingly, according to one text I have, the Chinese developed a form of a tempered scale several hundred years before it was developed in the West, but because their so-called 'classical' canon is so old, a lot of their most important/revered music isn't in tempered tuning.

Understood. I took classes at San Diego State where they have Harry Partch's instruments, etc. I may be speaking from ignorance here (although that wouldn't be the first time this has happened on this forum), but I've never found anything that interested me about microtonality... that is to say, using anything other than traditional western 12-tone tempered scale. I mean, let's see... would my ear even hear it? And what usefulness would a guitar with more frets per octave really offer? None to me personally.

And yes, I've heard all about microtonality in Indian, Chinese, Japanese music. Obviously they must have had more experimental music in Japan than much of the Koto music I've heard that pretty much use the same scale we do. I can play the melodies on a piano for example.

I studied sitar for a while in college. Expected it to be quite deep and mysterious and people had me thinking it would have bizarre exotic scales and be microtonal. First lesson... play a scale: SA RE GA MA PA DA NI SA. Wow... how utterly foreign!!! Until you substitute standard solfege for the Indian version: DO RE ME FA SO LA TI DO. Yep... same damn scale. True there are some gaps in the "frets" of a sitar. Some whole steps built in. Want to play a different mode? Slide the "fret" to change where the half steps are. In fact, if there was anything "microtonal" about the sitar it was perhaps in the sympathetic strings. I never learned how to tune those which is difficult, but even then if there were any tones produced that were between steps of the scale or microtonal, it may have been overtones created by all of the strings vibrating at once.

MIDI Life Crisis wrote:..and sitar are examples of instruments that use microtonal scales.

See what I wrote above about my own experience studying and playing sitar. The scales were quite ordinary in my experience... at least on the primary strings. As for shakuhachi, if they're "microtonal" then what's the point of having a shakuhachi patch on a synth? If you were presented with a shakuhachi that played 24 notes per octave, how difficult might it be to actually play something "pleasant" (yes, yes, by western definition I suppose taking into my ear influenced by my culture)?

Call me an old stick in the mud, but I can imagine nothing very pleasant about listening to a melody for example that might be made up of pitches each separated by half a semi-tone or less. But that, I always believed was because of my western ear, until Alok das Gupta sat me down and showed me how to play the sitar... DO RE ME FI SO LA TI DO... only it's SA RE GA MA PA DA NI SA to Indians.

Now who can argue with that?



rrevernd!

Old Stick in the Mud wrote:Call me an old stick in the mud...

You are an old stick in the mud.

I love listening to a lot of music in this vein. Vocal music, like calls to prayer, etc. I particularly like lush choral music (Polynesian polyphonic singing being one example). Not sure if this would strictly fit into the definition of microntonal or not, but check this out: Le Mystere Des Voix Bulgares

Buy it, and if you don't like it I'll pay you double what it cost, I promise. It is just beautiful stuff and they slide all around with their pitch.

BKK-OZ wrote:It is just beautiful stuff and they slide all around with their pitch.

Got it. They "slide all around with their pitch." So what I'm trying to ascertain is that they don't have a documented microtonal scale per say. It's not a case of "Okay, everybody, sing a G then jump to the tone between D and D#" You remember ear training. Recognizing intervals when the smallest increment is a semi-tone is challenging enough for some. I can't imagine how difficult it would be to do an ear training drill and recognize "intervals" when there are 43 gradations within an octave. Fuggedaboutit! Yipes!

James Steele wrote:So what I'm trying to ascertain is that they don't have a documented microtonal scale per say. It's not a case of "Okay, everybody, sing a G then jump to the tone between D and D#" ... I can't imagine how difficult it would be to do an ear training drill and recognize "intervals" when there are 43 gradations within an octave. Fuggedaboutit! Yipes!

I dunno how they do it, but they do it beautifully.
Their music sounds quite precise to my ears, but I have no idea what their scalar structure is like, nor how they teach it.

Just trust me, buy that CD and you won't be sorry.

Samples can be heard here: Amazon listing

BKK-OZ wrote:

James Steele wrote:So what I'm trying to ascertain is that they don't have a documented microtonal scale per say. It's not a case of "Okay, everybody, sing a G then jump to the tone between D and D#" ... I can't imagine how difficult it would be to do an ear training drill and recognize "intervals" when there are 43 gradations within an octave. Fuggedaboutit! Yipes!

I dunno how they do it, but they do it beautifully.
Their music sounds quite precise to my ears, but I have no idea what their scalar structure is like, nor how they teach it.

Just trust me, buy that CD and you won't be sorry.

Samples can be heard here: Amazon listing

Everyones taste are different and the over-under trilled/scooped India thing is a matter of taste...

At this point I'd like to put in a plug for my favorite free plug, Automat. Put .tun files in user/Library/Presets/alphakanal/Automat1/tunings.

Here are some to get you started:

http://www.box.net/shared/6flif1bsnb

Have fun. Gets one out of musical ruts.

Even the Bugarian women's choir sound like in the theme from Xena seems to get it's character from use of steps (particularly the 2) that are about 1/4 flat from western tempered. No, these aren't "out of tune singers"- different cultures have a different taste for different intervals in scales. In fact before the 1600's European Music used non tempered scales. It is the Euro centric orientation of most Western music education that leads one to think of Harry Partch as a primary exponent of microtonal music wheras the Ottoman Empire was having a renaissance of culture (frequently happens with successful conquerors- for a while) while Europe was in the "dark ages" 1200 years ago. Turkish Arabic music developed a sophistication of different scales that is probably an equivalent achievement in cultural development to the later achievements in harmonic experimentation and development that occured in Europe starting several centuries later.
Microtones are not usually accessed willy nilly like a western composer might choose from the 12 chromatic tones, but are used as colors- usually inherent to a specific scale or another, and also used as ornments. In some sample libraries that include samples of a turkish saz one of the articulations is frequently a hammer-on trill which is likely a 1/4tone.
There are many scales, and modulations between scales and rules for doing so (just like western harmonic rules- which don't mean when something is outside of a rule it is "wrong" but more that it is likely outside of or stretching the intergrity of a specific style). In the west there is pretty much the 7 modes (nobody uses locrian), harmonic minor, chromatic, whole tone, diminshed (gets kinda arabic sounding) and that's it. There are many more "maquams" in Arabic music (even more perhaps in Turkish classical) but generally about a dozen are commonly used and the variations between them can be subtle. Non tempered 1/4tones most likely to be noticable on the 2,3 and 6 notes 1/2 way between Western major and minor intervals. This is a considerable simplification.
Listen to the saz player at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83GkETIC ... re=related

He starts Western- but those notes he plays as he descends and reascends from 50 seconds to 1 minute 10 seconds are largely NOT western tempered scale. They are not "out of tune". He is playing a well tuned fretted (with 1/4tone choice frets) instrument. Those notes have a character that would be lost if one tries to replace them with the closest tempered scale equivalents. It would be like substituting Monterey Jack cheese for Limburgher- you might like Monterey Jack better but it doesn't have the same character.

Also search youtube for Oud and some of the following maquam names "Saba" (1/4tone 2), Bayati (2+6), rast (3).

There is a quanun (kanoon) player player with some quarter tones at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vKFrQvJmZM

Not the most impressive kanoon performance- but easy to see him using the 1/4 sharping levers for ornamental bends (each string has a quarter tone sharping lever and a accomplished quanun player can be continuously changing needed sharping levers as he plays for rapid and continuous modulations). If 1/4 tones weren't essential it's not likely they would build 100 of these in each lap harp (kanoon).

AN example with 1/4 tone flat 2's ( A1/4 flat) and 6's (E q/4 flat) is at
http://ganapatimusic.com/debke.mp3

Play along and it might seem a bit like the double reed instrument is just a little out of tune on some notes, until the E’s at the very end- which are NOT sharp- they are intentionally 1/2 between Eb and E natural. The wide vibrato of the instrument somewhat obscures this difference in pitching scale notes here as well as frequently in other music, but most often the character of the music would be changed even to a western ear if the “microtones” weren’t used.

One method to get microtones in a DAW is to paste in a lot of pitch bend messages, with each line on it's own MIDI track going to it's own individual monophonic instance of whatever VI you choose. Or if it's samples, go into the sampler (like Kontakt) and retune the appropriate notes and do a save as for each scale you may use of that instrument.

Logic comes with these tuning possibilities as part of itself, as well as allowing for user defined tunings and other options. I only mention this because I would be very surprised if Digital Performer didn't have similar options.



What I know about tuning is squat, but such as it is I learned it from this book, basically, which is a good read:

http://www.amazon.com/Temperament-Solve ... 0375403558

Hope any of this is useful to anyone.

My big question: In Logic, can these tunings be applied to any instrument, including 3rd party VIs and modules?

As mentioned earlier, it could be done with pitch bend commands. If Logic has a way to map that it would be pretty darn cool, IMO. Again, I don't do much microtuning stuff these days, but it would be good to know about for future reference and sound design work.

Thanks for that post and screen shot. Intriguing to say the least!

I'm on it!

OK. I have no idea what it does- actually, I do, but I don't hear any difference, and I don't know if it works for third party instruments yet. It's late, and I'll check later on if anybody cares after reading this:

Sorry, the Nation here chopped off part of the screenshot. If this confuses anyone, send me a PM and I'll email you the screenshots yourself, but then again, it's not as if the Logic PDF isn't on the web. After all, unlike DP, it doesn't come printed with version 9.