--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "George D. Secor" <gdsecor@...> wrote:
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Walter Lepore" <soundmaker@> wrote:

>.....scales which are generally subsets of tunings) and tunings
>(which specify exact pitches for scales)...

Glad you brought this up, Gene Ward Smith, because in my experience
this is a murky area for some musicians, a bit of swamp that needs
to crossed in order to see the dawn of understanding. In the bog
you'd have to include modes, which I'd define, compared to scales,
as the usuage of tones in relation to each other (there must be
many, and better, definitions, but that seems like a reasonable
minimum).

For example, to a jazz player whose concept of playing in
the "Dorian mode" is blazing up and down the white keys from D-d as
quickly as possible, it is difficult to make clear exactly why a
person would spend so much time creating a tuning. "Hey man I'm
making all my notes blue notes" was the best introduction I could
come up with, and juxtaposing a Just "greensleeves" against one
played in an appropriate diatonic subset of 17. Obviously the first
is soft and the second exaggerates the "dual nature" of the echos,
which (hopefully) clearly illustrates a "why" of tuning.

> These days, fooling around with temperaments is something like a
>game for me: to try to devise something better than what I've
>already done -- like trying to beat my previous high score in a
>video game.

Well, why not? As long as what's better- better for what?- is
defined and not assumed.


> For example, building chords using every other
> note of a pentatonic scale will result in "fourth-chords" (in
> heptatonic terminology), where the "fourths" (of 2 pentatonic
> degrees, or "thirds") may be in the neighborhood of any of the
> following intervals: 5:7, 3:4, 9:7, or 4:5. By contrast, an
>interval of 5:6 would fall into the 1-pentatonic-degree category.>
(i.e., a pentatonic "second").

This is another good point- I'm guilty of saying "fifth" when "3/2
familiy" or "X° of Y-tuning" or whatever might be more clear.

> A composer may have a certain harmonic limit (e.g., 7-limit or 11-
> llimit harmony) in mind or a certain combination of primes...

How about writing us a little article here in the database
explaining why primes are important, or even matter at all? I for
one basically take their importance for granted for two simple
reasons: the family characters of the primes seem to be audible
(ie., a tuning heavy on a specific prime really gets a
specific "sound"), and, working rationally, controlling your primes
means you don't rocket off into vast and clouded intervals that look
and sound like national debt figures.


> > 3) Scale builders who create/build scales without composition in
> mind.
>
> See tuning compulsion/addiction (above).
>

Maybe in some cases it's compulsion (there are worse compulsions),
but think of it this way- if a painter were to be seen mixing colors
on a palette just to see how they came out, would anyone say
anything about "compulsion" or "addiction"? Nope.

Labelling an artistic interest with a medical term for an illness is
probably nothing other than a nasty little dig and deserves no other
response than, "let's see your medical degree, hero".

Of course, "dynamic consumerism" (cf. "DJ") has to be elevated and
celebrated in a consumerist world, and too much visible activity
upstream at the source is considered rude. IKEA catalogs are full of
glamorous glossies of the designers, how many photos of the actual
factory workers in Asia do you see? Dealing with raw materials is
for the untouchables, so working with tuning has a subversive
aspect.


> I believe I need to clarify the distinction between a scale and a
> tuning. I define a scale as a set of tones that may be used to
>write
> a melody, in which the tones are related by (more or less)
specific
> interval-classes. A tuning is a set of tones for which specific
> frequencies or frequency-ratios (either rational or irrational)
>are
> given; tunings may be defined by one or more generating intervals,
>in
> which case they may consist of an indefinite number of tones.

Again, an important distinction.

Gotta run, take care,

-Cameron Bobro