Topic: Yet another exotic temperament

1 scales

Thread (2 messages)

From: Gene W Smith (2002-06-02)
Subject: Yet another exotic temperament

No discussion of Wreckmeister would be complete without mentioning the
strange inscription found in the newly-discovered, 10000 year old city
off the coast of India. (For which see
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1768000/1768109.
stm) This hotly debated artifact is thought to be either an ancient
tuning document, or a 10000 year old grocery list. Since I incline to the
former view, I've brought it up to date with some comments included in
the Scala scale file; I've also attached a midi file retuned according to
this ancient but effective system.

! [0, 7, 12, 19, 23, 30, 35, 42, 49, 53, 61, 65]
! duo.scl
!
72-et tempered version of the Ellis duodene
12
!
116.6666667
200.0000000
316.6666667
383.3333333
500.0000000
583.3333333
700.0000000
816.6666667
883.3333333
1016.666667
1083.333333
2/1

There may also be an underwater city off Cuba. Who knows what that might
bring us?

http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/news/nation/2962443.htm

From: Joel Rodrigues (2002-06-03)
Subject: Re: Yet another exotic temperament

Ooh, ooh, can I play ?

Thanks for this info Gene, and what a coincidence. Just a day or 
2 ago I was listening to a program on the BBC about replicas of 
16th century musical instruments found in the wreck of the Mary 
Rose (sank in 1545 I think, & raised in 1982). I dug this up: 
"Sounds from the Seabed" 
<http://www.maryrose.org/news/music.htm>. It's got a low quality 
Flash audio recording. The radio was a lot clearer, and I love 
the sound of the "Still Shawm". They played a tune attributed to 
Henry VIII. They said it has a "reed at one end, finger-holes, & 
some keys". Apparently all the instruments found on the wreck 
were tuned to the same pitch. Unfortunately they didn't go into 
the scale they were tuned to...

The program then continued with interesting things about 
"experimental archaeology".

Great. Now I've got something else to occupy my time with...

Something about Greek instruments:
http://masseynews.massey.ac.nz/2000/publications/massey_news/november/nov_22/
stories/early_music.html

- Joel