Just & Equal Temperaments

[Dreamw]

Hey Kingston have you ever heard of the Music of the Spheres ?

[Kingston]

you're going to have to elaborate further, what does that mean on Tau Ceti again?

dont dodge the question - are you or are you not a creationist ?

google is a complete blank in regards to this, in Tau Ceti, was it the sect with the sun god, or the one with the dust to water connotations?

*scratches head*

note, not heads. human here.

[Dreamw]

you're going to have to elaborate further, what does that mean on Tau Ceti again?

dont dodge the question - are you or are you not a creationist ?

google is a complete blank in regards to this, in Tau Ceti, was it the sect with the sun god, or the one with the dust to water connotations?

*scratches head*

note, not heads. human here.

So have you ever heard of the music of the spheres ?

[Kingston]

Hey Kingston have you ever heard of the Music of the Spheres ?

closest I can think of is a piece by Iannis Xenakis where he used data and analysis of celestial bodies to help compose the thing for some early analog synthesisers.

A great example of paper music, because it sounded a bit shite.

[Dreamw]

Hey Kingston have you ever heard of the Music of the Spheres ?

closest I can think of is a piece by Iannis Xenakis where he used data and analysis of celestial bodies to help compose the thing for some early analog synthesisers.

A great example of paper music, because it sounded a bit shite.

I am very fond of some of Xenakis work, though I prefer Liggeti. You think my ideas are wacko you should read what Stockhausen comes up with
Anyway if you have time have a look at this and it may give you a bit of an ida wher eIm coming from but in itself is a very interesting read and explains a lot about where our music theory evolved from :

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

[Kingston]

I am very fond of some of Xenakis work, though I prefer Liggeti. You think my ideas are wacko you should read what Stockhausen comes up with

I'm familiar with his work. It's the likes of these two "composers" that has me in severe dislike of electro-acoustic music.

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

yeah. that's how I remembered about the Xenakis piece.

[G&L_player]

you're going to have to elaborate further, what does that mean on Tau Ceti again?

dont dodge the question - are you or are you not a creationist ?

google is a complete blank in regards to this, in Tau Ceti, was it the sect with the sun god, or the one with the dust to water connotations?

*scratches head*

note, not heads. human here.

So have you ever heard of the music of the spheres ?

Classically, this is known as, "The Harmony of the Spheres." Of course, it is not perceptible to the human ear.

[BertKoor]

The other problem to me was HZ - HZ are a completely aribitary unit based on seconds whos only relationship to the natural world is how many digits we have on out hands (thats why we have 60 seconds, count the sections of your fingers with your thumb and multiply by five)

That statement "needs citation" at best. To me that's complete bollocks.

The division of something into 60 equal parts (numerical system with 60 as the base) is rather old:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexagesimal
There are much more obvious reasons to choose 60 as base. Being easily divisable by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20 and 30 makes 60 an obvious choice. The Maya culture discovered it in isolation.

So I invented a new HZ based on the amount of time it took the Earth to go round the sun and soon one based on the atomic clock. Then started making just scales using a starting frequency of 2,4,8,16,32,64 ,128,256 etc of these units.

... and nothing fundamentally has changed ... Boy, are you ignorant!

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

Hz is a derived unit of measurement, not a fundamental one. And it's got nothing to do with the base-60 devision of minutes into seconds.

[Dreamw]

The other problem to me was HZ - HZ are a completely aribitary unit based on seconds whos only relationship to the natural world is how many digits we have on out hands (thats why we have 60 seconds, count the sections of your fingers with your thumb and multiply by five)

That statement "needs citation" at best. To me that's complete bollocks.

The division of something into 60 equal parts (numerical system with 60 as the base) is rather old:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexagesimal
There are much more obvious reasons to choose 60 as base. Being easily divisable by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20 and 30 makes 60 an obvious choice. The Maya culture discovered it in isolation.

So I invented a new HZ based on the amount of time it took the Earth to go round the sun and soon one based on the atomic clock. Then started making just scales using a starting frequency of 2,4,8,16,32,64 ,128,256 etc of these units.

... and nothing fundamentally has changed ... Boy, are you ignorant!

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

Hz is a derived unit of measurement, not a fundamental one. And it's got nothing to do with the base-60 devision of minutes into seconds.

Hz is a measurement of cycles per "second" so how can you claim its got nothing to do with the base-60 division of the minute into seconds ?

Your claim that sixty is an obvious choice because it is divisible by those numbers is complete is also true but it does not make it more obvious just another possibility, less obvious than counting on our fingers which primitive men would logically done just as children do today. The fact the Maya did the same might simply be an indication they also have 10 fingers just like the Babylonians. It would also be just as logical to choose 100 as 60 because it also consists of many useful mathematical qualities.
Its seems odd that say the Eskimos 20 base counting system is attributed to the number of fingers and toes but that the Babylonians should not be attributed to a finger derived base when there is an obvious connection is inconsistent. But if you need citation this article explains from the Scientific American explains it quite well as does the other article :

http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~his ... erals.html

http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/questi ... number=594

http://www.sciam.com/askexpert_question ... EC9DB18A45

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

Theres lots online about it and is debated but the best citation is to try it yourself - it will seem obvious.
If you can count to 12 on one hand as all these articles show clearly - its not a great leap from twelve to sixty considering we have five fingers on the other hand and 12 times 5 is 60. It also explains why we have 24 hours in a day.
By the way if you want to disagree fair enough - use logic not insults .

[Meffy]

Even if you dont accept this explanation

Oh, believe me, I don't. :-D Not without solid, documentary evidence. The simple matter of arithmetic practicality is sufficient. It takes no far-fetched paw twisting (with an arbitrary multiplication by five required to make it come out right).

you have to admit 9,192,631,770 is a pretty arbitary number .

Of course it's arbitrary in one way. But it was chosen to match an existing astronomically-based measurement. The standards guys could hardly have picked a number for the standard that would make everyday units of time not match up with the Earth's spin and orbit, could they? So in that sense it's far from arbitrary; it's the only sensible value.

I would rather use multiples of one.

Unless something's changed since I attended school, all integers are multiples of one.

9,192,631,770 = 1 x 9,192,631,770

Maybe you mean powers of two?

Hz is a measurement of cycles per "second" so how can you claim its got nothing to do with the base-60 division of the minute into seconds ?

Because minutes are nowhere referenced in the definition of Hertz. Just seconds. If we measured eighty-three seconds per minute, that would not change the definition of Hertz at all. Minutes are entirely irrelevant to this matter, as are hours, fortnights, centuries, and geological aeons. It's ALL about the seconds.

[Meffy]

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.

[Dreamw]

you're going to have to elaborate further, what does that mean on Tau Ceti again?

dont dodge the question - are you or are you not a creationist ?

google is a complete blank in regards to this, in Tau Ceti, was it the sect with the sun god, or the one with the dust to water connotations?

*scratches head*

note, not heads. human here.

So have you ever heard of the music of the spheres ?

Classically, this is known as, "The Harmony of the Spheres." Of course, it is not perceptible to the human ear.

Thats right - Pythagorean theories as to the tuning of the celestial bodies were also closely related to his music theory and the way he divided the octave.

[Meffy]

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!

[Dreamw]

Even if you dont accept this explanation

Oh, believe me, I don't. Not without solid, documentary evidence. The simple matter of arithmetic practicality is sufficient. It takes no far-fetched paw twisting (with an arbitrary multiplication by five required to make it come out right).

you have to admit 9,192,631,770 is a pretty arbitary number .

Of course it's arbitrary in one way. But it was chosen to match an existing astronomically-based measurement. The standards guys could hardly have picked a number for the standard that would make everyday units of time not match up with the Earth's spin and orbit, could they? So in that sense it's far from arbitrary; it's the only sensible value.

I would rather use multiples of one.

Unless something's changed since I attended school, all integers are multiples of one.

9,192,631,770 = 1 x 9,192,631,770

Maybe you mean powers of two?

Hz is a measurement of cycles per "second" so how can you claim its got nothing to do with the base-60 division of the minute into seconds ?

Because minutes are nowhere referenced in the definition of Hertz. Just seconds. If we measured eighty-three seconds per minute, that would not change the definition of Hertz at all. Minutes are entirely irrelevant to this matter, as are hours, fortnights, centuries, and geological aeons. It's ALL about the seconds.

There is no solid documentary evidence for any explanation of why there are sixty seconds in a minute even the one you choose to believe . If you choose not to believe it and the references I have posted then thats up to you - but certainly in terms of how many hours there are in a day its pretty widely accepted.
Its not an astronomically based measurement in that it is divided into 24 then 60. If you dont accept that sixty seconds is based on our finger digits then surely you accept the 24 hours in the day is based on finger counting which is pretty widely accepted . Although days are derived from a natural cycles (revolution of Earth) hours of the day are not - they are derived from our fingers, and seconds and minutes are derived from hours. Of course minutes are irrelevant to Hertz - your man was saying that seconds have nothing to do with Hertz ( thats what the base-60 devision of minute is - a second) .

[Meffy]

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.