Just & Equal Temperaments

[tamahome]

BTW, there's nothing terribly audacious about making up a new scale. Everyone in my high school Electronic Music class back in the early 1970s had to do it for part of one day's exercises. Everyone's had to be different, and we were not allowed to ask each other what we were doing. Surprisingly, everyone independently came up with completely different systems, no similarities significant enough for the teacher to frown upon. :-}

The next three days we composed using our scales. By the end of that we were all glad to get back to TET, some for convenience, some because by then most of our scales sounded pretty horrible.

You should have checked for chord presence in scala.

[Dreamw]

You do realize that Pythagoras' theories were, at best, fanciful fun, yes? The "spheres" do not move anything like the way he imagined. In other words, there is no connection between Pythagoras' ideas on this subject and the way the universe really behaves.

He also told his followers to "abstain from beans." What a brilliant and silly fellow!

Of course. However he also came up with some very interesting ideas that have lasted to this day such as PI and various geometric principles .But trying to find a mathematical basis for music from nature has been the pursuit of many people both past and present - I dont see that theres any harm in experimenting. Im quite keen to have any ideas challenged - helps separate the crap from what might work, and at the end of the day something has to actually sound good or all the theorising counts for naught - a fair argument against some of the unpleasant noises mad by stockhausen - it looked good on paper bu t sounded awful.
Like I say if people want to challenge what I say thats great - as long as their challenges arent accompanied by insults , and I know lots of other people make scales, many of my friends do .

[Meffy]

@tama: Oh, don't I wish! It was like the bronze age back then. We had the beginnings of technology but no idea where it would all go. What a long, strange trip it's been. =@.@=

[Meffy]

@Dreamw: By all means keep experimenting. If nothing else it's fun, and mental exercise. And sometimes it creates useful results. Just keep one foot on the ground.

[Dreamw]

@Dreamw: By all means keep experimenting. If nothing else it's fun, and mental exercise. And sometimes it creates useful results. Just keep one foot on the ground.

Well seeing as I can back up most of what I say with referenced material such as the scientific American I think I have taken that into acount. I did submit these theories to the Scrutiny of a BSC in Sonic arts - everything had to be referenced. Again the only comments that I find truly valuable are ones that poke logical fallacies in my reasoning.

[Dreamw]

Please don't say "surely" if that's not what you mean. If you did mean it, you are mistaken.

I have no idea who you think "my man" is. And still you have the wrong end of the stick on units of time. I recommend that instead of concentrating on minutes, you imagine that the week is the fundamental unit of time... then wonder why all songs from the Roman period, when the civil week was eight days long, are nowadays out of tune by a factor of 7:8. :-} Now do you see why you have the wrong end of that stick? Concentrate on seconds. Hertz have nothing to do with minutes. Nor weeks, Roman nor modern. Nothing at all.

[edit] P.S.: Astrology, such as this harmony of the spheres stuff, is "pretty widely accepted" too. Assuming you mean the general public, not people who understand how the world really works. Pretty widely accepted does not equal right. Might be, might not. In this case it's all speculation. But we know the ancient Babylonians made division tables -- we've still got them, they were very durable. And we know they divided sixties into their even fractions very often. We have no such evidence to support any knuckle-counting theories. Draw your own conclusions.

I have never said Hertz have anything to do with minutes. I was disputing his claim that Hertz have nothing to do with seconds which they obviously do. the scientific American is not known for its tolerance of crank ideas. Nobody knows why the Babylonians used sixty as there base number however finger and phalange counting seems eminently like my as it also formed the basis for counting systems in many other early cultures. I suggest you google "why are there 24 hours in a day" where most websites including scientific journals give this as a likely explanation.

[Toxikator]

But the bearing of the length of the second on "Hz" is totally irrelevant.

Even if you change the length of the second to something you find "less arbitrary" (though it seems mighty arbitrary of you to toss out a centuries-old convention on a whim because you don't like it), the ONLY thing that changes is the number value of the frequency measurement.

Whether you measure frequency in cycles/second or half-cycles/one-sixty-fourth-minute or gnargls/buttflecks, it's still frequency; the octave is still double whatever number you measure.

It has no musical bearing whatsoever since tuning systems (and the way the ear hears notes) is based on cents (ratio intervals) rather than absolute measures of frequency.

[Meffy]

Yuppers, that's about it. Ya picks yer multipliers and ya plays yer notes.

[whyterabbyt]

{of Pythagoras

Of course. However he also came up with some very interesting ideas that have lasted to this day such as PI

Dont you mean Archimedes, not Pythagoras. Has to be pointed out, though, those mutant-fingered Babylonian chappies had an approximation about 2000 years earlier.

(5 fingers and only 12 phalanges per hand? Mutant weirdo scumboids, no doubt.)

[whyterabbyt]

at the end of the day something has to actually sound good or all the theorising counts for naught - a fair argument against some of the unpleasant noises mad by stockhausen - it looked good on paper bu t sounded awful.

Oh goodie. From pseudo-science to an absolutist aesthetic.

[Meffy]

(5 fingers and only 12 phalanges per hand? Mutant weirdo scumboids, no doubt.)

Well, but you count using your thumb, like everyone does when pointing at things to count them, then you correct the result by a factor of five because otherwise it doesn't come out to sixty. See? It's Simple When You Know How.(tm)

[whyterabbyt]

Well, but you count using your thumb, like everyone does when pointing at things to count them

really? i point with the cursor these days.

But Im actually sure we use 60 because its ((fingers * hands) + (toes * feet))*(number of limbs - number of heads).

If its not 60, we're on Tau Ceti where the Creationists have different seconds.

, then you correct the result by a factor of five because otherwise it doesn't come out to sixty.

that makes sense. presumably if we used only four fingers, pie would be square.

[Meffy]

presumably if we used only four fingers, pie would be square.

But they r. A priori quid pro quo, quod erat nil nisi bonum.

[Meffy]

What about those four other temperaments? Someone (not I) should devise choleric, phlegmatic, sanguine, and melancholic musical temperaments.

... On second thought, it's probably been done.

[vurt]

stockhausen kicks ass!