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Author Topic: FLAT OR SHARP!  (Read 6452 times)

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Sebastian

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Re: FLAT OR SHARP!
« Reply #20 on: March 10, 2015, 09:43:30 AM »

Not true.
Of course it's true. What does Quantz has to do with that? Quantz was, as you yourself wrote, a man of the 18th c. Temperated tunings, however, were evolved and became available during the early 17th c. Zarlino described and calculated an equal temperament as early as 1558.
« Last Edit: March 10, 2015, 09:46:08 AM by Sebastian »
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Jack Campin

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Re: FLAT OR SHARP!
« Reply #21 on: March 10, 2015, 03:14:24 PM »

Equal temperament was never used in Quantz's time (it was a theoretical possibility advocated by Rameau late in his life, but nobody actually did it).  Quantz goes into a lot of detail telling you how to play in non-equally-tempered scales, and specifically says how to play an F# major scale in meantone; nowhere does he assume equal temperament.  You still find flute texts of the mid-19th century telling you to finger G# and Ab differently - about the same time as people were putting the same distinction into hardware on the English concertina.

Hardware to distinguish Bb and A# goes back to the 16th century, with instruments like Vicentino's "Archicembalo" - composers like Trabaci used it.  (A 31-note-to-the-octave melodeon would be kinda heavy, with some interesting decisions about what to pull and what to push).
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Sebastian

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Re: FLAT OR SHARP!
« Reply #22 on: March 10, 2015, 05:45:47 PM »

Equal temperament was never used in Quantz's time
Yes, that’s correct. The expression I wanted to translate into english was "mitteltönige Stimmung". Is it "meantone temperament"?

But this doesn't relate to the point in question. You questioned this:

Quote from: Sebastian
In the days before temperated tunings became used composers simply didn't use A#.
As Quantz lived in a time when temperated tunings were already common, Quantz cannot be used as a counterexample.

Musical theory approached the problem as early as the 15th c., but only in the 16th c. it was solved and only in the beginning of the 17th c. the evolution of temperatures flourished. Before temperated tunings became used composers didn't use strange notes like A#. "And", I wrote on, "when (very sparingly) A# was used, it was used as a really special note in extreme situations."

If there are counterexamples (and it may well be that I did mis-interpret something de la Motte wrote) they should be obtainable for example in the early works of the Franco-Flemish School.
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Steve_freereeder

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Re: FLAT OR SHARP!
« Reply #23 on: March 10, 2015, 05:58:12 PM »

Your English is very, very good, but hope you will excuse the quick notes on English idiom and vocabulary here...

The expression I wanted to translate into english was "mitteltönige Stimmung". Is it "meantone temperament"?
I think that will do quite nicely! But perhaps "meantone tuning" would be slightly more accurate.  (:)

Quote from: Sebastian
In the days before temperated tunings became used ....
Tempered tunings is the term you need here.

Quote from: Sebastian
... and only in the beginning of the 17th c. the evolution of temperatures flourished.
The term needed is temperaments here; temperature (die Temperatur auf Deutsch) refers to how hot or cold something is.  ;)
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triskel

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Re: FLAT OR SHARP!
« Reply #24 on: March 10, 2015, 07:11:59 PM »

The expression I wanted to translate into english was "mitteltönige Stimmung". Is it "meantone temperament"?
I think that will do quite nicely! But perhaps "meantone tuning" would be slightly more accurate.  (:)

More literal perhaps, but "meantone temperament" would be a normal translation: Meantone temperament - mitteltönige Stimmung. A lot of the time the words "temperament", "tuning" and "intonation" can be pretty interchangeable in this context and I'd often choose to use one or the other to try to avoid repetition...

Sebastian

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Re: FLAT OR SHARP!
« Reply #25 on: March 10, 2015, 08:08:56 PM »

hope you will excuse the quick notes on English idiom and vocabulary here...
By all means. :D
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Jack Campin

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Re: FLAT OR SHARP!
« Reply #26 on: March 11, 2015, 01:10:57 AM »

Example of weird key choices from the early 17th century: look up Willi Apel, History of Keyboard Music to 1700, p.447 (it's on Google).  Trabaci's "Toccata terza et ricercar sopra il cembalo cromatico" starts in A major, but spends most of its duration in F#, G# and D#, with passing bits in A# and E#.  (Okay, Trabaci got beaten to death by a mob).

Example of a 24-note-to-the-octave keyboard in meantone tuning:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qELmfe-2gY

Even weirder, from much earlier:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0akGtDPVRxk

Vicentino was mainly famous as a theorist - here is the same technology applied to a short and moving piece by one of the greatest composers of the age:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFb1fECwk2o

That is a lot more than a curiosity.
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Sebastian

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Re: FLAT OR SHARP!
« Reply #27 on: March 11, 2015, 08:02:07 AM »

Look, I can't see where the origin of our mutual misunderstanding lies. But maybe we should first reach consensus about the time when "tempered tunings" came into use. Then we can look for examples from earlier times. Because it is of no use to produce "counterexamples" if they themselves presuppose a meantone tuning. They are all very fine music, and I am gratefull that you make me listen to them. But their relevance in relation to the statement you question escapes me.
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triskel

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Re: FLAT OR SHARP!
« Reply #28 on: March 11, 2015, 12:00:29 PM »

I think we may be getting confused about names of different tuning systems/concepts and using "meantone" (a narrow term for a particular group of temperaments) when what we mean is (the much broader concept) "unequally tempered"? In my practical experience of using meantone, to actually tune instruments, meantone tuning has a 14 note scale that is tempered to varying degrees, like "fifth comma" or "fourth comma" etc.

It's arguable that only "just intonation" is not a "tempered tuning" (and predates everything else), but it only allows for a given key to be perfectly in tune, whilst ALL other tunings are either equally or unequally tempered.

Jack Campin

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Re: FLAT OR SHARP!
« Reply #29 on: March 11, 2015, 01:52:18 PM »

Quote
Because it is of no use to produce "counterexamples" if they themselves presuppose a meantone tuning.

Those examples use 24-notes-to-the-octave tuning (in the Vicentino example, approximating to 31-notes-to-the-octave).  The fact that it's meantone is secondary: they make a clear distinction between A# and Bb (which 12-notes-to-the-octave meantone doesn't).  Those notes are on different keys and will always sound at different pitches.
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triskel

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Re: FLAT OR SHARP!
« Reply #30 on: March 11, 2015, 03:05:40 PM »

Normally speaking, by definition, meantone has 14 notes to the octave - what Vicentino did was to devise a microtonal circulating system of quarter-comma meantone, maintaining major thirds tuned in just intonation in all keys. It may be based around quarter-comma meantone, and sometimes be described as an "extended meantone", but it's not "Meantone Temperament" as such.

Matthew B

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Re: FLAT OR SHARP!
« Reply #31 on: March 11, 2015, 03:34:42 PM »

A lot of the musical theory talk here is beyond me, but the conversation about how to manage the "notes between the notes" on a melodeon -- or other instruments with step-wise tuning -- shows up on melnet periodically (eg. http://forum.melodeon.net/index.php/topic,8330.msg103408.html#msg103408).  In my experience fiddlers -- those tricky buggers -- just finger their way around this by playing in the "spaces beside the places" as one of my pals puts it.  Sadly that's beyond us. 

The Swedish musician Mats Eden explores this idea in some interesting ways.  I have been told he has a "special" three row with extra non-standard scale notes. and although I've not heard the music it produces I think his idea is to explore this difficult territory.  His website has some information on his attempt to get closer to the "true" melodies of pre-standardized tunings.  He has some scores from a recent album here http://www.matseden.se/pdf/seven_tunes_from_pastern.pdf.  If you look at Tune 1. "Lisselsjövalsen" there are some pretty cool things going on.  If I'm interpreting it correctly the B part shifts to a key signature annotated with two naturals and no sharps or flats -- but not C?  Help!  There are also four places in the score where the written notes are footnoted as either "Can also be played as a 1/4-tone between C and C#" or "Can also be played as a 1/4 - tone between F and F#".  He wrote this tune (performed first in this set https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kt-6nj8rRek).  What he plays sounds different and from my (admittedly sketchy) reading really is somewhat different from what's on the score. 

Oy!

« Last Edit: March 11, 2015, 05:10:33 PM by Matthew B »
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triskel

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Re: FLAT OR SHARP!
« Reply #32 on: March 11, 2015, 04:42:31 PM »

A lot of the musical theory talk here is beyond me ...

Most of it's beyond application to a melodeon too, though just intonation can sound glorious on a single-row box, like this: "Bergflødt" Single-Row Melodeon / Diato á 1 rang / Énrader (Potpourri)

But it starts getting more complicated for "across the rows" playing - some friends of mine (a group called Fisherstreet) were making an album 25 years ago and wanted a box tuning to play perfectly with a Jeffries Anglo that I'd tuned in meantone. I supplied the poor accordion tuner with the necessary tuning data, but he was absolutely aghast to discover that, though the C row (and the keys of A, D and G) sounded absolutely gorgeous, the B row sounded horrible - he thought he'd done something wrong!  :o (But that's the way with many of these tunings, the good thing is that the keys you want to play in can be gloriously sweet, whilst others are less so, and the downside is that the keys you don't want to play in are decidedly sour - but who cares about them?  ;))

Jack Campin

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Re: FLAT OR SHARP!
« Reply #33 on: March 11, 2015, 05:34:24 PM »

The B part of Lisselsjövalsen is in the Dorian mode of D, mostly, but with the third occasionally going sharp.
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Sebastian

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Re: FLAT OR SHARP!
« Reply #34 on: March 11, 2015, 08:24:37 PM »

Most of it's beyond application to a melodeon
Yes.  :-[
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