Is naming a classical piece in A..B..E..F.. flat or sharp that important or useful?

[jancivil]

You never use it, many people use it. VSL includes scala support in their instrument. For the umpteenth time, people in ensembles (strings, winds) adjust towards other concords not afforded by 12tET. So you make a patch with JI for this instance of usage and another for another instance. Or whatever, I roll my own.
You see, if you want viability in samples you need more than 12tET. That's just how it is. It sounds flat. It doesn't exist out here in air.

First synth I bought (and for YEARS the only one I used) was Absynth. Absynth 2, 2003. Yep, microtuning is in there.

And people that design piano patches have to do stretch tuning or it isn't happening.

More is possible in the computer tech realm, so people with the interest in the thing will seek to use it. And that totally includes people that never left the Western European Common Practice Paradigm. To the extent the Vienna Symphonic Orchestra sample developers make scala very easy to implement. Of course there is a small contingent of Turkish users in their user base, but hey.

it's not useful at all is just ignorance speaking. Cf., "Indian music is non-fifths-based" when it couldn't be more fifths-based.

[zethus909]

when i sing it is just what it is.....there is no tuning except the one i give it. if it's solo singing. the human voice can tune or detune itself perfectly to match any tuning. trying to do that with instruments is impractical and just more of a novelty.

[fmr]

when i sing it is just what it is.....there is no tuning except the one i give it. if it's solo singing. the human voice can tune or detune itself perfectly to match any tuning. trying to do that with instruments is impractical and just more of a novelty.

There are other (several) musical instruments that can do exactly the same (some of them electronic). So what?

[MadBrain]

when i sing it is just what it is.....there is no tuning except the one i give it. if it's solo singing. the human voice can tune or detune itself perfectly to match any tuning. trying to do that with instruments is impractical and just more of a novelty.

Most instruments are hard to play totally in tune:
- Brass and reed and flute instruments pitch up or down depending on your embouchure.
- Violins have no frets at all and you get a slightly different note each time.
- Piano notes have some tuning offset between the 3 strings (the offset isn't even consistent from harmonic to harmonic within a same string).
- Guitars go up if you're pressing too hard on the string behind the fret. Plus, strings beat against themselves because they vibrate in both the Y and X plane at slightly different rates (also not consistent harmonic-to-harmonic).
- Old analog synthesizers drifted up and down in pitch with temperature. Some later synths have an emulation of this pitch drift on purpose.
- People who do recreations of orchestra music on computer apply pitch offsets and timing offsets and velocity inconsistency all over the place to prevent stuff from sounding static.
- Obviously, human voice isn't very stable in pitch at all either and drifts all over the place. People expect this: we're having a problem ATM on our voice synth where the pitch is just too perfect and it sounds like it's gone through autotune.

[MadBrain]

To the extent the Vienna Symphonic Orchestra sample developers make scala very easy to implement.

VSO is one of the larger synths out there, it's a huge sampler that developed over years and years with a sizable team behind it, and it's designed for advanced users (professionals) so it doesn't have to contend with limited GUI space or complexity. So when you're going that big, sure, it makes sense to roll out a scala parser... just don't expect it to be a free lunch: for instance, in our sampler, there's a glitch where loading up a scala that increases the number of notes per octave (say, a 24-TET scala) makes multi-samples sound weird because low notes are played way higher than expected and high notes way lower than expected (relative to their MIDI notes). Fixing this involves guessing which parts of the key mapping shouldn't change (ie: key switches, key splits), and which parts of the key mapping are for timbral quality and should be remapped, and makes debugging the code ever slightly harder (because it goes through the reassigner on ever MIDI note on now).

This is the kind of reason why the Korg Triton has microtonal scale support (it already has tons of menus and is played by tons of Turkish and Arab musicians), but, say, the Prophet-6 doesn't (there's no place on the interface!).

[jancivil]

VSL only allows 12 to an octave in their implementation anyway. I wouldn't expect that much interest anywhere in implementing these theoretical notions, I mean where is this 24 to an octave keyboard?*
Its implementation is perfect, but you also hit reality with the recordings of the instruments, so expectation is defied, you find out how "out of tune" their alto flutist or somebody is, compared to the vibes recording for instance.

I have no interest in 24tET, it's bullshit, it isn't in use anywhere good. To authentic Arabic musics it's a travesty. The essential theoretical 24 to an octave system is anything but equal division, and it's like a smaller version of a Danielou 53, I mean it's completist. The music is heptatonic. And the Indian music will often be hexatonic or pentatonic, typical for ascending and descending forms to be one and the other.

(*I've used 'harmonic' in Absynth numerous times, but part of its appeal is tossing a wrench in the works of expectation and habit.)
edit to remove a statement of fact that is no longer true

[jancivil]

when i sing it is just what it is.....there is no tuning except the one i give it. if it's solo singing. the human voice can tune or detune itself perfectly to match any tuning. trying to do that with instruments is impractical and just more of a novelty.

There are other (several) musical instruments that can do exactly the same (some of them electronic). So what?

It's just another attempt at justifying his prior insubstantial assertions out of a naive or, let's be straight, dilettantish experience, isn't it. This dismissive shite, 'it's just more of a novelty'. The terminally incurious. This is how you stay ignorant, listen to nobody and let your malformed ego ruin your own chances to grow.

Whose voice exactly? The non-fretted string player has something literally at hand for adjustment. The wind player has keying and embouchure devices at hand. We use it, for real, to a musical end.

[zethus909]

lol you're posts are too funny

[jancivil]

Why wouldn't it be more fun to actually explore music instead, to see if learning could be rewarding? Instead of insisting that being steadfastly incurious is the way to go.
That's so bleak.

[jancivil]

when i sing it is just what it is.....there is no tuning except the one i give it. if it's solo singing. the human voice can tune or detune itself perfectly to match any tuning. trying to do that with instruments is impractical and just more of a novelty.

Most instruments are hard to play totally in tune:
- Brass and reed and flute instruments pitch up or down depending on your embouchure.
- Violins have no frets at all and you get a slightly different note each time.
- Piano notes have some tuning offset between the 3 strings (the offset isn't even consistent from harmonic to harmonic within a same string).
- Guitars go up if you're pressing too hard on the string behind the fret. Plus, strings beat against themselves because they vibrate in both the Y and X plane at slightly different rates (also not consistent harmonic-to-harmonic).
- Old analog synthesizers drifted up and down in pitch with temperature. Some later synths have an emulation of this pitch drift on purpose.
- People who do recreations of orchestra music on computer apply pitch offsets and timing offsets and velocity inconsistency all over the place to prevent stuff from sounding static.
- Obviously, human voice isn't very stable in pitch at all either and drifts all over the place. People expect this: we're having a problem ATM on our voice synth where the pitch is just too perfect and it sounds like it's gone through autotune.

This is a nicely succinct litany of the 'why' I think.