The microtonal paradise

[stanlea]

Many composers, some are not very interesting. I recommend Alois Hába, mainly his Opera "Matka" (Mother), a masterpiece.

[runagate]

I've never heard it but "Einstein On The Beach" always sounded interesting.

[Lazos]

I posted about it on another thread, but it sounds like the Mac equivalent to Fractal Tone Smithy is X.J. Scott's LMSO X or Lil' Miss Scale Oven. I tried Scala and it just looked too confusing to me (I'm a musician not software developer! )

I use it to mainly write .tun files for Zebra 2 to play Turkish makamlar in tune with my bowed tanbur. I haven't really got into some of the more esoteric functions of it. It comes with a handy cents to ratio (and vice versa) converter, though.

@ stanlea I agree and would not want to evangelize people with microtonality either, but I find it fascinating (especially from a cultural perspective) and find 12-EDO fairly limiting nowadays. Thanks for the link! It looks like a good one for the Western side of microtonality.

BTW, here's a great reference I use all the time in conjunction with LMSO X: http://www.kylegann.com/Octave.html

[stanlea]

Another source, with a freebie, but it doesn't work on my PC.

http://tonalsoft.com/default.aspx

[jancivil]

I found this, for Mac, 60 bux "mas magic microtuner 1.6"

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/20348

downloading it now, must be a free trial or ?

[Melkor]

My ear really wants to hear tonal melody/harmony and whatnot so any music containing quartersteps or smaller intervals sounds ok to me so long as its kept in a somewhat "tonal" context (and by tonal i mean equal temp 12 semitones to an octave)

ie a blues guitarist hits all sorts of funky microtones but he/she keeps it within the context of standard blues tonality, with a home pitch etc.

Once tonality has been abandoned, microtones or not, i cant get into it.

It becomes alien




Great thread

[jancivil]

Well, my primary interest is in getting more musically-true intervals than you get with 12-tone equal temperament, in any case. And, having more variety than 12 options within an octave, which isn't always adequate.

this is why people bend strings. In arab or indian systems, the latter theoretically is 22 per octave, though that's almost a myth (though there is math, going back millenia to support it, it's really all by ear now), it's modal music they're working with.

the arab scales usuually sound out of tune to the west, the indian ones not so much.

[CascadianSynths]

Great comment Marklar. I must visit your Marklar some day!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marklar#Marklar[/url]

[Lazos]

Well, my primary interest is in getting more musically-true intervals than you get with 12-tone equal temperament, in any case. And, having more variety than 12 options within an octave, which isn't always adequate.

this is why people bend strings. In arab or indian systems, the latter theoretically is 22 per octave, though that's almost a myth (though there is math, going back millenia to support it, it's really all by ear now), it's modal music they're working with.

the arab scales usuually sound out of tune to the west, the indian ones not so much.

I'm not near as knowledgeable about Indian music as the Turkish and Arabic systems, but I agree jancivil. I'd add that it really depends on which Arabic scale you are hearing as far as sounding out of tune to a Westerner.

You also bring up a really good point about the music being modal, which is absolutely correct. The harmony as far as I hear it, of much of traditional Eastern music comes from those systems being (in general) much richer in overtones than Western music (and here I'm comparing specifically such music as Arabic and Turkish art music with common practice era Western music. Basically, back around Bach's time and even a bit before (within Western polyphonic music such as that by Palestrina), music grew to have an huge emphasis placed on the fundamental note (eschewing, for the most part, the overtones), thus harmonic systems grew out of this emphasis and the moving away from more melodic or modal-based systems such as Indian, Turkish, Arabic, etc. What I also find interesting (but very much legitimate) is the Western desire to combine microtonal systems with the Western practice of harmonic movement. Basically Western music is about harmonic modulation (key and chord changes) and Eastern music about melodic modulation (makam (maqam) changes).

[jancivil]

exactly. the move away from a really rich fundamental, staying put and enjoying it, to moving to another, and expanding (when you think about it there might be religio-political implications here)... the latter perpetuates the need to keep moving.

The ultimate end of dividing an octave equally, really is dodecaphony, where there is no center anymore.

I can swing both ways, but a modal line over a steady state is certainly more satisfying sensually to me.


I saw a thing on tv a while ago, Orchestra of Cairo behind Youssou n' dour. in some arrangements, the violins were filling in with improvised lines, just sliding around so cool behind this oud soloist, it really was something else.

[ckatrun411]

As music becomes more and more complex, it moves closer and closer to a vast sea of white noise....


Not micro-tonality...

[Lazos]

As music becomes more and more complex, it moves closer and closer to a vast sea of white noise....


Not micro-tonality...

I'll have to assume you are referring to those (primarily) Western composers who tend to use microtonality (IMHO) for the sake of microtonality. I agree, and hold the opinion, that most Western microtonal music tends to do this.

Conversely, I do believe that most traditional musicians in the Middle-East, for example play what we call microtonal music, yet (because it has a strong cultural base and history) don't feel the need to label it "microtonal." It's just "music." I don't have it in front of me at the moment but, paraphrasing Habib Hassan Touma's book "Music of the Arabs," "The soul of music lies between the notes." I don't remember if that was the author or a musician he is quoting, but it has always rang true for me and has nothing whatsoever to do with how complex music is, just that there are, arguably some important things that are lost when Western music quantizes pitch onto a grid of 12 notes.

It's interesting that many music producers complain about beats from midi instruments being too quantized in some people's productions or that there needs to be a more complex modulation matrix in this or that synth for it to be truly versatile, but yet they are perfectly happy with a pitch palette of only 12 colors.

[ckatrun411]

The big problem is,,,,


Art is entirely open to everybody's interpretation...

Your book author is quoting a musician, I forget who said it first... Or it could be an age old saying... just like, " its not the notes, but the silence between them"

In my interpretation, musical key is actually completely irrelevant, and therefore there are not now, and never where... Any actual notes. Just like there is not now, and never was a human civilization living inside the sun...

If you want to look at music and life at the quantum level, what is a note? a super-string? music is just energy. these ideas of notes, are completely man made..

Any note in any scale, is just another man made label, a term.... Like gay and straight, rich and poor, car and plane, A minor/B flat......

But unlike a car and a plane, music is not tangible... An instrument may be, a guitar, violin,, or a micro-tonal gizmo... But the actual music? You only know it exists if you can hear it... and then.. Boom, what is music becomes open to everybody's interpretation...


And the way I see it... Notes simply do not exist outside mans, man - made, perception of them..

Our incessant quest to label things we can't quite understand...

[Lazos]

I agree. Of course notes are a man-made concept! Art is entirely interpretation. That's why critique within the arts is such sticky business. I'm not quite sure of your point though. Maybe I didn't get your previous post's point.

"As music becomes more and more complex, it moves closer and closer to a vast sea of white noise....


Not micro-tonality..."

Do you disagree with someone's definition of microtonality or what music constitutes "microtonal music (?)"

Frankly, I really dislike the term microtonal as it is popularly used in the West. If I called myself a microtonal composer, to me that would be the same thing as specifying that I'm an "odd-time signature composer." Fairly meaningless, really. But, I guess the term helps for discussion specifics and historical and cultural references.

[Jafo]

Yay, more possibilities to exploit!

And the way I see it... Notes simply do not exist outside mans, man - made, perception of them..

Our incessant quest to label things we can't quite understand...

Good post! I'd say that the points you made, apply to all intellectual endeavors: all thought is very much that sort of thing. It's ultimately empty, to cut up the universe into bite-sized pieces; but as long as we don't take it too seriously, it's quite useful and lots of fun.