Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!apple!usc!merlin.usc.edu!aludra.usc.edu!alves From: alves@aludra.usc.edu (William Alves) Newsgroups: comp.music Subject: Re: Eliminating the octave [Re: spectral composition] Message-ID: <6144@merlin.usc.edu> Date: 31 Oct 89 01:20:50 GMT References: <6066@merlin.usc.edu> <3007@husc6.harvard.edu> Sender: news@merlin.usc.edu Reply-To: alves@aludra.usc.edu (Bill Alves) Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA Lines: 34 In article <3007@husc6.harvard.edu> elkies@brauer.harvard.edu (Noam Elkies) writes: [re: eliminating octaves in tuning systems:] >Well, this is standard practice in piano tuning, because the overtones >of physical piano wire of positive stiffness grow increasingly sharp to >the Pythagorean harmonic series, and each octave is tuned by "beats" >so that the first overtone of the bottom note matches the fundamental >of the top. Another famous example of stretched and compressed octaves are the tuning systems found in some parts of Indonesia. While these intervals are still nominally octaves (as in the piano), they are detuned by a precise amount to introduce beats into the parallel octaves which predominate the texture. See Mantle Hood's "Pelog and Slendro Redefined" in _Selected Reports_ #1. Wendy Carlos has a few non-octave-replicating tuning systems on her "Beauty and the Beast" album inspired by the Indonesian practice. > >But of course all this still amounts to a tuning system anchored on the >octave. Before rushing to dethrone the octave, though, consider this: >While the initial rationale for octave-based tuning may have been no more >than numerology and arbitrary mysticism, such tuning had profound implications >for Western music which took ages to work out anywhere near completely. >Anybody have a few centuries to spare on a tuning system based on alternating >Golden Ratios and the square root of pi? Remember to take out a few decades >from composition to creating the new instruments and musical training that >this would require. :-) :-) One has to admire a brave soul such as Harry Partch, who did just that. How- ever, if one is willing to limit oneself to computer music, one doesn't have to be a good carpenter at all. Admittedly, it does take some relearning of intervals and sonorities in addition to a sound knowledge of the theories of tuning systems, but, to me, it's well worth it. Bill Alves USC School of Music / Center for Scholarly Technology