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From: elkies@walsh.harvard.edu (Noam Elkies)
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: Re: gamelan tunings
Keywords: gamelan tuning
Message-ID: <3248@husc6.harvard.edu>
Date: 23 Nov 89 04:40:28 GMT
References: <various>
Sender: news@husc6.harvard.edu
Reply-To: elkies@walsh.harvard.edu (Noam Elkies)
Organization: Harvard Math Department
Lines: 19

My query about gamelan intonation elicited several interesting posts;
basically it transpires that my notion of correlating gamelan tuning
with gamelan overtones cannot work because the scales are too
flexible, except that octaves are purposefully tuned so as
to obtain beats (i.e. purposefully avoiding overtone matching).
Two e-mail responses indicate, however, that such correlations
have been attempted in Western responses to gamelan music:
Don Maghrak (dpm@brooks.cray.com) cites a point in Messiaen's
Turangalila Symphony where a deep gamelan tone is simulated by
synthesizing its overtones from available orchestral instruments
(cf. Ravel's Bolero); Craig Paul (paul@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu) points
to a "Balinese" piece by Wendy Carlos on Eir "Music and the Beast"
album where the instruments are tuned according to the overtone
structure of struck metal or wooden bars.

Thanks to all who posted our e-mailed these informative notes.

--Noam D. Elkies (elkies@zariski.harvard.edu)
  Department of Mathematics, Harvard Univ.