Tuning and Microtonality

The question is not clear to me. What do you mean by "preparing" instruments?

Perhaps it is worth making a digression on microtonality first, will you open a topic somewhere?

No don't worry, you can also talk about it here if needed as an introduction to the initial question... :-)

Xenakis wrote:

Regarding Tuning and Microtonality...

... but are you thinking about quarter tones or microtonality in the strict sense ... ? 😵

I tracked down this PDF that had been mentioned:

ULTRACHROMATIC SENSATIONS

MICROTONALISM IN EUROPE (1840-1940)

http://www.lucaconti...acromatiche.pdf

Maybe this might be useful to TheSimon 😉

Note this sentence that opens the document

"Even our scale will resolve into a higher

order, just as Gregorian modes

resolve into major and minor modes: and it

cannot be predicted whether they will be fourths, eighths, thirds

or even, as Busoni thinks, sixth-tones,"

"or if we will pass directly to a scale of

53 sounds."

Arnold Schoenberg, Harmonielehre

Very interesting, I gave it a quick glance because it is quite long. I will read it carefully. So when Xenakis says to prepare instruments thinking about microtonality, does he mean having to design them from scratch... I believe that apart from the strings, there are also other instruments capable of hitting microtones. It is certain that making a percussion instrument that, as Schoenberg states, has 53 sounds, is starting to become a bit complicated both to build and to manage for the musician who will have to play it.

As always Frank hits the nail on the head, I wanted to refer to quarter tones... so performing tunings different from equal temperament.

Quarter-tone Piano Prelude #3

Quarter-tone Piano Prelude #1

Microtonal Piano (Part 1) - 19 on a 12-tone keyboard

Open content (youtube)

Open content (youtube)

Open content (youtube)

TheSimon wrote:

It is certain that making a percussion instrument that, as Schoenberg states, has 53 sounds is starting to become a bit complicated both to realize and to manage for the musician who will have to play it.

...true!

I must be honest, it is certainly because my ear is now accustomed to the warm and singable intervals generated by equal temperament which divides the octave into 12 semitones, and therefore moving to another division of the octave certainly generates strange sensations... If I had to describe with a single term the sensation I had listening especially to prelude #1 based on these instruments that exploit microtonality, I would say: restlessness. They are truly harmonic ratios that do not make me feel at ease and, in fact, they disturb me, giving me almost a feeling of malaise...

It would be very interesting to observe how water reacts to the various harmonic ratios based on microtonality. In the harmonic ratios generated by the tempered scale, the sound vibrations transferred to the basin containing the water caused very beautiful and "harmonic" shapes to form within it, excuse the pun. It would be very interesting to observe how water would behave with these "new sounds".

TheSimon wrote:

I must be honest, it will surely be that my ear is now accustomed to the warm and singable intervals generated by equal temperament which divides the octave into 12 semitones, and therefore moving to another division of the octave certainly generates strange sensations... If I had to describe with a single term the sensation I had listening especially to prelude #1 based on these instruments that exploit microtonality, I would say: restlessness. They are truly harmonic ratios that do not make me feel at ease and, in fact, they disturb me, giving me almost a feeling of malaise...

It would be very interesting to observe how water reacts to the various harmonic ratios based on microtonality. In the harmonic ratios generated by the tempered scale, the sound vibrations transferred to the basin containing the water generated very beautiful and "harmonic" shapes within it, excuse the pun. It would be very interesting to observe how water would behave with these "new sounds".

Think about it, there are those who claim, like Ligeti, that quarter tones are not perceptible and in fact, precisely for this reason, he considers his Ramifications a failure

😵

Returning to the topic of tuning, I am also interested ... materially how does one proceed? Does it have different costs?

TheSimon wrote:

I must be honest, it is certainly because my ear is now accustomed to the warm and singable intervals generated by equal temperament which divides the octave into 12 semitones, and therefore moving to another division of the octave certainly generates strange sensations... If I had to describe with a single term the sensation I had listening especially to prelude #1 based on these instruments that exploit microtonality, I would say: restlessness. They are truly harmonic ratios that do not make me feel at ease and, in fact, they disturb me; they almost give me a feeling of malaise...

I liked them very much and, subjectivity aside, quarter tones are abundantly used in Oriental music—in fact, they are the cornerstone of its musical discourse—so this sound system should not be considered bad at all.

Without considering India, the musical system is based on a large number of scales. Common to all scales is the octave, divided, as in the Western system, into tones and semitones. But the organization of such a scale is very complex since each interval is divided into 2, 3, or 4 shrutis or elements (22 in total). This system allows for a large number of modal scales. The mode is called ragas (color, mood) and there are thousands of them.

Rotore wrote:

Think that there are those who claim, Ligeti, that quarter tones are not perceptible and in fact precisely for this reason considers his Ramifications a failure

...and yet those who grow up listening to quarter tones notice the difference...

Rotore wrote:

Think that there are those who claim, regarding Ligeti, that quarter tones are not perceptible and in fact precisely because of this they consider his Ramifications a failure

Returning to the topic of tuning, I am also interested ... materially how does one proceed? Does it have different costs?

I think it is a matter of ear experience... Those who are used to listening to music and producing music in the tempered system, when they hear quarter tones, notice them and how!

pianista65 wrote:

I think it is a matter of ear experience... Those who are used to listening to music and producing music in the tempered system notice quarter tones when they hear them, and how!

...if Ligeti says it, it might be worth believing. I think one does notice, but it always depends on how the composer used the material

Rotore wrote:

however it always depends on how the composer used the material

I agree

Interesting compositions are (for me) certainly those that contemplate the use of prepared instruments and instruments tuned in the usual way; the unique use of those

prepared (which then always depends on how they are used) sometimes seems like an end in itself, and precisely because there is no preparation in most cases among those

who listen to them, they move past it.

I was thinking of something, just off the top of my head, without engaging in destructive reasoning: is it possible that an interval smaller than a semitone can be perceived with a delay,

precisely because of the lack of preparation the brain normally has in processing what is filtered by the ear?

For this reason, when 3/4 notes are played consecutively, but also 2 at the same time and the other 2 "in series," so to speak, is a certain amount of time necessary

(different from person to person) to manage to perceive the range of difference between 2 intervals of this type?

And also, how much does the conditioning regarding the perception of familiar sounds involve "the search" for the "recognizable" interval, and (before it slips my mind, concentration here

is always at a crossroads) if the ear finally, through the brain, does not create a "derivative" starting from intervals of some commas, which when added together form an interval of a range

similar to or closer to the semitone and the tone? (precisely due to a sort of necessity, albeit subjective, of the brain that processes what is filtered by the ear).

These questions came to me thinking about what has been written regarding Ligeti's work, and what he himself seems to have said.

I think that other factors also come into play in this discussion, such as duration, overlap, and the dynamics of the notes: a part played staccato, and very quickly,

will require a longer time (perhaps) to be assimilated, processed, and made understandable compared to a series of held notes, for which (paradoxically) there is time to

"understand" their difference, and probably reducing the "reaction" time (assimilation and processing).

An interesting comparison with works such as these

Luigi Nono To Carlo Scarpa, architect, to his infinite possibilities (1984)

Just to see how far one can go with traditional instruments

Open content (youtube)

True, Ligeti considers Ramifications a failure for that very reason, he has said it several times. It must be frustrating to conceive a work in relation to a precise idea and then realize that no one understood it (or perceived it)

As far as micro-intervals are concerned, a computer allows you to do whatever you want... synthesizers tune them however you like.

And a Kurzweil as a keyboard tunes every semitone as 100 cents, so you can set them as you like it. Obviously if you want a piano... I wouldn't mind having a tuner available to whom I could say "today tune it for me like this", "tomorrow tune it for me like that"!

always regarding microtonality, someone who divided the octave into 43 intervals

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYdmNTgPM3A

Open content (youtube)

The problem is always using what you want effectively.

They are interesting things, but sometimes the doubt arises: is it because some people approach such practices

because they don't know how to write at least decent pieces using ordinary instruments?

I am not the first one to ask this type of question.

For me, if you can write something using both traditional instruments (albeit in an unusual way) and alternative instruments (in a usual way or specifically prepared),

and you obtain something pleasant, interesting, and well-conceived, hats off; but the risk is precisely wanting to try to prove something that isn't

music but something else, and here I stop because even for me music could be an excerpt of a piece in which I use pots rubbed with sandpaper,

immersed in water, etc... everything can be put on a score, and practically everything recorded, but precisely here the difficult part begins, or rather continues, because first there would need to be

a well-structured idea, otherwise one would go much more by chance than is done with traditional writing; then how to proceed having it very clear what one

wants to do, otherwise even I could start tomorrow with something absurd and say "wow, look what I've done", and fall into the ridiculous.