Topic: Blown fifths blown

1 scales

Thread (2 messages)

From: genewardsmith (2010-06-03)
Subject: Blown fifths blown

I am starting work with rodan temperament, and came across the following MOS in the Scala scales directory because of it:

! slendro_pc.scl
!
"Blown fifth" modern slendro, von Hornbostel                                    
 5
!
 234.000 cents
 468.000 cents
 702.000 cents
 936.000 cents
 2/1

This is an interesting pentatonic, with a 1-3/2-7/4 chord to play with, but it doesn't have any blown fifths. It does have a circle of two 3/2 actual fifths, and three 29/19 whatevers. Do blown fifths (mavilla ultra-flat fifths) actually have anything to do with slendro?

From: cityoftheasleep (2010-06-04)
Subject: Re: Blown fifths blown

--- In [email protected], "genewardsmith" <genewardsmith@...> wrote:

> This is an interesting pentatonic, with a 1-3/2-7/4 chord to play with, but it doesn't have any blown fifths. It does have a circle of two 3/2 actual fifths, and three 29/19 whatevers. Do blown fifths (mavilla ultra-flat fifths) actually have anything to do with slendro?
>

As in the "actual" slendro used in gamelan music?  From what I've read, those fifths are actually tuned WIDE, somewhere around 713-740¢ depending on the ensemble; the octave itself is also around 10¢ wide.  I've gotten the impression from all I've read though that the octave can also be compressed, and that the most important feature is to have beating at 5-8 times per second--gamelan music is ALLLLLL about having beating!  So from a gamelan perspective, a 3/2 fifth might be considered "blown".