Topic: Jacob's 17-tpp: Sample piece (midi)

1 scales

Thread (2 messages)

From: Margo Schulter (2006-05-30)
Subject: Jacob's 17-tpp: Sample piece (midi)

Hello, Jacob, and everyone.

To provide some encouragement for the Seventeen-Tone Twin Piano
Project (17-tpp), I'm providing links to MIDI, score, and Scala
sequence (.seq) files for a 17-EDO version of a piece I composed in
2002 entitled _For Kathleen Schlesinger: Forms of Tonality_.

<http://www.bestII.com/~mschulter/kathton17e.mid>
<http://www.bestII.com/~mschulter/kathton17e.seq>
<http://www.bestii.com/~mschulter/kathton17.ps>
<http://www.bestii.com/~mschulter/kathton17.pdf>

To use the Scala .seq file, you'll need a scale file defining 17-tET
(or 17-EDO), given the name in the .seq file of 17-tET.scl, like this:

! 17-tET.scl
!
17-EDO
 17
!
 70.58824
 141.17647
 211.76471
 282.35294
 352.94118
 423.52941
 494.11765
 564.70588
 635.29412
 705.88235
 776.47059
 847.05882
 917.64706
 988.23529
 1058.82353
 1129.41176
 2/1

The score files in PostScript and pdf formats may reflect my composing
environment rather than that of the contest, because I tend to place
the more "common" accidentals on the lower keyboard (Eb-G#), and the
others on the upper keyboard -- rather than five flats on one and five
sharps on the other (your choice is at least equally logical, of
course).

My sample piece is in what might be called a "neo-medieval romantic"
style, using chromatic steps and neutral intervals in a generally
European kind of context. Of course, these intervals have rich
possibilities for variations on Near Eastern styles, so this is only a
brief glimpse of one side of 17-equal.

An important factor, both for this setting and the contest, is the
matter of timbre and its interplay with the tuning. Depending on the
timbre, an interval such as the regular major third at 6/17 octave or
about 423.53 cents (close to 143:112 or 23:18) could have an effect
ranging from very "spicy," as has already been said, to sweetly rich.

Melodically, chromaticism in 17-EDO can become "different" and
charming because the chromatic semitone (e.g. C-C#) is twice the size
of the diatonic semitone (e.g. C#-D). The sample piece uses some
progressions illustrating this contrast (e.g. D-C#-C in the opening of
the lowest voice).

Jacob, as you have said, people who compose at the instruments to be
used in the contest, or at least similar ones, might submit the most
apt entries. My purpose is simply to spur people on to try 17-EDO, if
they haven't already started to explore it, and enter your event.

Of course I would welcome any dialogue about this short piece, or
about 17-EDO generally; thanks again for a contest that should bring
out lots of creativity, and I'll try to contribute more in this
tuning.

Peace and love,

Margo

From: Gene Ward Smith (2006-05-30)
Subject: Re: Jacob's 17-tpp: Sample piece (midi)

--- In [email protected], Margo Schulter <mschulter@...>
wrote:

> To use the Scala .seq file, you'll need a scale file defining 17-tET
> (or 17-EDO), given the name in the .seq file of 17-tET.scl, like this:
> 
> ! 17-tET.scl

It's much easier and I think better all around to simply put a line in
the headers saying:

0  equal 17