KVR Audio

MusiGenesis · Post by **MusiGenesis** » Sun Jul 26, 2009 2:32 am

I'm writing my own software synthesizer, and since it can produce notes at any arbitrary frequency, I've been experimenting with non-western scale tunings that divide octaves into something other than 12 intervals.

The problem, of course, is that music made with these alternative tunings sounds terrible to my Western ears. The only one that comes close to sounding decent is one where I divide the octave into sevenths and use only four of the notes (like a normal scale uses 7 out of 12). The worst-sounding ones by far are 5/9, 6/10 and 6/11.

I'm interested in hearing from anyone that's worked with something like this, and whether there's a way to make these scales sound weird but good, instead of just weird. I'm also very interested in the developmental psychology of this - I read somewhere that children under the age of 2 respond the same to different kinds of scales (including non-Western), but that after 2 the brain gets sort of "locked in" to whatever the society's conventional scale is.

jancivil · Post by **jancivil** » Sun Jul 26, 2009 2:53 am

Look from earliest sources and get an idea of the physical reality of it, go back to eg., Pythagoras.

dividing a string into 2, then 3, and more sections, deriving an octave (1:2) and a just fifth (2:3)...
then into four parts, 3:4 to get a just fourth, five parts to get a just third 4:5. He went to extrapolate 12 tones by way of this 3:2 ratio. Pythagoras, being quite naive originally figured that 7 octaves would be the same as 12 fifths, but then he did the math. (The difference is called a (pythagorean) comma.)

4:7 is often called a harmonic seventh, it sounds pretty flat if you're used to a piano, but people tend towards such an interval, say when a group sings Happy Birthday, and somebody tries to sound barbershop on "and many more", that's pretty much a 4:7 and a natural thing to do. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonic

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_intonation

You could look at slendro; and here is somebody who has done extensive work with intonations...

xoxos · Post by **xoxos** » Sun Jul 26, 2009 4:00 am

i've used the pythagorean 17-tone scale several times to pleasing/"natural" effect, it's probably a good place to start with acclimatisation, allegedly the root of the maqamat, referenced from fractal tune smithy. some were quickly recognisable, and "off 12ET" enough to satisfy a taste for the exotic.

i've also composed pieces in arbitrary ET scales, 7, 9, 11 et c. ...and found that i needed more acclimatisation

intervals either seemed reminiscent of 12ET or discordant (well, as jan indicates, the relative ratios define harmonicity).

i am hardly an expert, since these exercises, the most intriguing scales i've heard don't seem to be used in harmonic contexts, eg. recordings of tibetan folk singers.

Soundsmith_Kamachi · Post by **Soundsmith_Kamachi** » Sun Jul 26, 2009 4:08 am

MusiGenesis wrote:I'm writing my own software synthesizer, and since it can produce notes at any arbitrary frequency, I've been experimenting with non-western scale tunings that divide octaves into something other than 12 intervals. ..

Have you just created scales arbitrarily so far or did you listen to existing scales to find those that may suit your ears?

A very useful tool (in case you have not discovered that already) is the Scala software:

http://www.huygens-fokker.org/scala/

Scala allows you to test hundreds of scales included with the program (and of course design your own) which may be helpful for making a pre-selection.
Tuning files (in SCL or TUN format) from Scala can be imported in several softsynths, perhaps that is something you like to implement in your own synth?

And best of all, Scala is free

Using these scales may not be that easy without understanding the musical concepts behind them (such as Maqam systems and Jins in Arabic music) - just playing them in the way you use a well-tempered scale may indeed sound weird

jancivil · Post by **jancivil** » Sun Jul 26, 2009 6:09 am

by the way 5:9 is but ca. 17 cents sharper than an ET Min seventh.. I kind of doubt you'll get a wide consensus of 'one of the worst by far'. to my ear it's pretty right on.

MusiGenesis · Post by **MusiGenesis** » Sun Jul 26, 2009 3:20 pm

MusiGenesis · Post by **MusiGenesis** » Sun Jul 26, 2009 3:22 pm

I've added some examples of what I'm talking about (sorry the links aren't clickable yet - I'm new here).

MusiGenesis · Post by **MusiGenesis** » Sun Jul 26, 2009 3:23 pm

jancivil wrote:Look from earliest sources and get an idea of the physical reality of it, go back to eg., Pythagoras.

dividing a string into 2, then 3, and more sections, deriving an octave (1:2) and a just fifth (2:3)...
then into four parts, 3:4 to get a just fourth, five parts to get a just third 4:5. He went to extrapolate 12 tones by way of this 3:2 ratio. Pythagoras, being quite naive originally figured that 7 octaves would be the same as 12 fifths, but then he did the math. (The difference is called a (pythagorean) comma.)

4:7 is often called a harmonic seventh, it sounds pretty flat if you're used to a piano, but people tend towards such an interval, say when a group sings Happy Birthday, and somebody tries to sound barbershop on "and many more", that's pretty much a 4:7 and a natural thing to do. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonic

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_intonation

You could look at slendro; and here is somebody who has done extensive work with intonations...

I've added some examples of what I'm talking about (sorry the links aren't clickable yet - I'm new here).

MusiGenesis · Post by **MusiGenesis** » Sun Jul 26, 2009 3:23 pm

xoxos wrote:i've used the pythagorean 17-tone scale several times to pleasing/"natural" effect, it's probably a good place to start with acclimatisation, allegedly the root of the maqamat, referenced from fractal tune smithy. some were quickly recognisable, and "off 12ET" enough to satisfy a taste for the exotic.

i've also composed pieces in arbitrary ET scales, 7, 9, 11 et c. ...and found that i needed more acclimatisation intervals either seemed reminiscent of 12ET or discordant (well, as jan indicates, the relative ratios define harmonicity).

i am hardly an expert, since these exercises, the most intriguing scales i've heard don't seem to be used in harmonic contexts, eg. recordings of tibetan folk singers.

I've added some examples of what I'm talking about (sorry the links aren't clickable yet - I'm new here).

Gamma-UT · Post by **Gamma-UT** » Sun Jul 26, 2009 3:43 pm

MusiGenesis wrote:I'm writing my own software synthesizer, and since it can produce notes at any arbitrary frequency, I've been experimenting with non-western scale tunings that divide octaves into something other than 12 intervals.

The problem, of course, is that music made with these alternative tunings sounds terrible to my Western ears. The only one that comes close to sounding decent is one where I divide the octave into sevenths and use only four of the notes (like a normal scale uses 7 out of 12). The worst-sounding ones by far are 5/9, 6/10 and 6/11.

I'm interested in hearing from anyone that's worked with something like this, and whether there's a way to make these scales sound weird but good, instead of just weird. I'm also very interested in the developmental psychology of this - I read somewhere that children under the age of 2 respond the same to different kinds of scales (including non-Western), but that after 2 the brain gets sort of "locked in" to whatever the society's conventional scale is.

Check out the work of William Sethares, author of 'Tuning, Timbre, Spectrum, Scale': his view is that it's all about the harmonics. Musical instruments are generally based on strings or hollow pipes, which have a pretty consistent set of natural harmonics. Our ears become 'tuned' to those harmonics and prefer music that works with them (to a degree otherwise equal temperament wouldn't work). Metallophones, however, have very different harmonic series which is a possible explanation of why the Gamelan scales don't follow the classic Western/pentatonic structure.

If Pythagoras worked with lumps of metal rather than the stringed monochord, it's possible that we would have ended up with different scales. However, as Greek music generally accompanied voices (more hollow pipes), it's easy to see how those scales would quickly get 'locked in' culturally.

Synthesis, particularly additive and FM, provides a way to explore these other scales, which is what Sethares has been doing for some years.

xoxos · Post by **xoxos** » Sun Jul 26, 2009 8:32 pm

(it's said that pythagoras initially applied ratio to pitch after auditioning and weighing two blacksmith's hammers

)

Gamma-UT · Post by **Gamma-UT** » Sun Jul 26, 2009 9:09 pm

xoxos wrote:(it's said that pythagoras initially applied ratio to pitch after auditioning and weighing two blacksmith's hammers )

It certainly is said. But no-one can work out how he got those results from the description in the story - it seems to be an urban myth from Nicomachus several centuries later and then promulgated by Boethius writing some thousand years after Pythagoras pegged it. I think Galileo later disproved the idea that the ratio of the weights of the hammers corresponded to the ratios of the frequencies.

Mr Arkadin · Post by **Mr Arkadin** » Wed Jul 29, 2009 9:04 am

With a name like yours you should read Harry Partch's Genesis of a Music - let's see a 43-tone scale instrument

.

Gamma-UT · Post by **Gamma-UT** » Wed Jul 29, 2009 9:41 am

Mr Arkadin wrote:With a name like yours you should read Harry Partch's Genesis of a Music

With a stiff drink.

Mr Arkadin wrote:- let's see a 43-tone scale instrument .

<nitpick>I think L'il Miss Scale Oven will Partch-ise just about any decent synth on the market. Good luck working out which keys trigger which notes</nitpick>

MoreDread · Post by **MoreDread** » Wed Jul 29, 2009 12:27 pm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohlen-Pierce_scale

:)

Non-western scales