# Microtonal music for beginners



## bostjan (Apr 19, 2018)

Sorry for the thread rehash, since we've had a few of these, but the discussions keep popping up in other threads, so here's a place for your microtonal-related questions. I'd like this to be a place where there are no silly questions, and we all keep an open mind.

I've tried countless times to get into microtonal music theory. Some resources I've received from Neil Haverstick (Stickman) and Jon Catler have been down-to-earth and useful. Most of the other resources I've found online are very dense and take a long time for me to digest, and I have to keep popping on wikipedia or cross-referencing other resources in order to follow along.

The first question, I guess, is "What is microtonal music?"

And, well, that's a tough one. Some people say anything that's not in standard tuning (according to a digital chromatic tuner) would be microtonal. Other people have certain requirements.

Another question: "How does microtonal music work?"

It's very difficult to answer, since we don't even really have universal agreement on what microtonal music even is.  But, sometimes, microtonal music can sound totally normal, and other times it can sound totally weird. Ultimately, it's all about taking a different approach to the same ideas used in standard music theory, sometimes with some extra bits added on top.

So, post your questions here!


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## bostjan (Apr 19, 2018)

My first question for all of you: "What do you consider microtonal?"

Here are some examples of tunings that might be considered microtonal or not, and some reasoning why...

#1 Quartertone music. Also known as "24-EDO" (Twenty-four notes equally divided into an octave) or 24-TET (Twenty-four tone equal temperament), it's the tuning system achieved by placing a fret midway between each note on the standard fretboard. So, you'd have your same 12 notes in an octave you would normally have: A A# B C C# D D# E F F# G G#, plus one note in between each of those notes. This tuning is quite common in East Asia (Persia, the Arabic Peninsula, Iraq, etc.). My bet is that just about everyone considers this to be microtonal. It seems to be catching on with a lot of newer musicians, like Mononeon and King Gizzard (using a subset of the tuning, so some quarter steps are not available and some are).
#2 Just intonation. So, here's where things get mathematical. Much older music, and some modern music (z.B. Barbershop quartets and a good deal of acapella music) is performed in such a way that "a fifth" (the power chord interval) is exactly 3/2 the frequency of the root note. In standard tuning, E is exactly 700 cents higher than A, but if you tune E by ear, odds are very high that you'll tune it 702 cents higher. That's because the "perfect" intervals by ear are not the same as the ones we use in standard tuning. Going beyond the fifth, and looking at the major third, which is the note that makes a major chord sound cheerful, the "by-ear" note is 386 cents, not 400 cents as it is in standard tuning. It's different enough to really notice. The question is whether all just intonation tunings are considered microtonal, just some of them, or maybe even none of them.
#3 Well temperament. This is the method of tuning the standard twelve notes unequally in order to get some keys to sound better. The downside is that other keys sound not-as-good. But, honestly, most music is played in one of a few keys, and some keys are very rarely used. It's really kind of a compromise between just tuning and standard tuning, or, more accurately, since well temperament is older than standard tuning, one could say that standard tuning is well temperament taken to its extreme.


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## Winspear (Apr 19, 2018)

Good thread idea  I'd suppose something I'd say to a lot of beginners who may be curious, is that indeed, microtonality can sound very normal. You are probably quite used to hearing it in acapella music, lead vocals to some degree maybe, eastern music or soundtracks influenced by eastern music etc. As has been said above, tuning notes by ear often comes out slightly differently to 12EDO. 
One thing I've noticed is that microtonality generally sounds much more ordinary to people when played by orchestras, vocal, eastern instruments etc. Play the same tunings to somebody on a guitar or piano and that's when it can start to sound strange to beginners - because we are so used to those instruments being forced into fixed pitch. 

My experimentation into micronality began with learning about the harmonic series and how single notes are constructed from it. I used Audacity to stack sine waves in this fashion. This helped me to learn about Just Intonation , as I'd always struggled reading about tuning ratios, but building a harmonic series myself helped me understand ratios more clearly.


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## The Omega Cluster (Apr 19, 2018)

Microtonal music is super interesting. There are countless ways you can come up with a microtonal scale. Common patterns are Equal Temperaments, Just Intonations, and Well Temperaments, like mentioned earlier, but you can make one totally arbitrary. For example, based on overtone series, or one that doesn't cycle at the octave, or one that is logarithmic, or whatever you can come up with. I didn't dig so far into microtonal music yet, my most thorough experiment was with Melopœia where I translated word-for-word, letter-for-letter text from English to 26-tone equal temperament. I took a few artistic liberties but most of the project was straight translation.


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## Winspear (Apr 19, 2018)

I consider anything that deviates from 12EDO microtonal even though it may not be intentional. Afterall, music_ started _with microtonality and then we had to intentionally move away from it for simplicity. A singer might not be thinking about microtonality, they are just doing what comes naturally. But to copy them on a guitar or piano, you would have to think about/modify the instrument for microtonality - so surely that music must be considered microtonal.


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## bostjan (Apr 19, 2018)

@The Omega Cluster 's 26 tone Tolkein stuff sounds really far out to me (and brilliant, BTW ). I don't think anyone would pick that apart and argue that it's not really microtonal. 

My released stuff have been focused on 19-EDO tuning - 19 notes equally spaced out over an octave. It's a very tame application of microtonality, even though the prime number of notes gives a quick impression that it'll sound weird. I see it as an alternative to standard tuning, rather than something shocking or confusing. I really advocate for everyone to try 19-EDO at least once and make a decision on what might be its strengths and weaknesses.
My more mainstream stuff in cover bands and so forth has been focused on my own 12/24 hybrid tuning. Stick to standard tuning, but with a few optional notes here and there at quarter steps, and you'll get a good level of convenience in playing with a fair number of "Weird" options. To my ears, 24-EDO/quartertone notes sound a lot more striking than 19-EDO. There are some ways to play these notes in a maqam context, that is, to play ethnic scales that yield a certain sort of sound, but honestly, out of that exact context, and played on a guitar with heavy gain, the application never quite works out that well.

From a heavier theory outlook, I just don't really know how to integrate nonwestern intervals like n2, n2, n6, and n7 into a Western context, so, rather than build scales out of 24-EDO, I tend to stick to standard scales and garnish those with "blue notes," to give a funkier or bluesier spice to a lick.

For example:

----------------5------5---8-po-5------------------------------------------
------------5------8-----------------8---5-------5--------5----------------
----7^w-------------------------------------8--------8-------8---7/5------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Can be modified into:

----------------5------5---8-po-5-------------------------------------------
------------5------8-----------------8---5-------5--------5-----------------
----7^w-------------------------------------8.5------8--------8.5/8/7/5---
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the key of Am, the first bend from D to E establishes a mushy area between the 4th and 5th intervals. The end of the lick, bouncing from Eb to E, then resolving to C (the minor third) reinforces the idea that this tonality is supposed to be a bit funky. Now, in the second lick, by replacing some of the time spend on Eb and E with Eb, Ed (half flat), and E, you don't really hear any bold new statement introduced in comparison with the first lick, instead, it's simply a little more playful in how it develops tension before it resolves.

You _can _apply a similar idea with 19 notes, because you'll have D#, Eb, and E as distinct tones, but in a western musical set context, you are playing around with an augmented 4th, diminished 5th, and perfect 5th, but in this application, if used as passing tones, they work almost exactly the same way, and sound only a little bit different.

To me, though, by conserving the tonal ideas from western music theory, but distinguishing different enharmonic equivalent notes (like Eb=D#) into a finer mesh, you don't really have to reprogram your thinking. That way, anything you played in standard tuning can be translated into 19 notes without any effort. The only pitfall I've really hit is with the "Jimi Hendrix chord" E7#9. It sounds pretty bad as E7#9 in 19, but quite a bit better if it's played as Emin/dom7, meaning that the #9, which is Fx (double sharp, since the major second in E is F#), is bumped up to the b3, or G. With 12 notes, Fx = G, so, no problem, but with 19 notes, Fx = Gb.

I think it's an exciting time, now that some mainstream artists are screwing around with some quarter-tone stuff. The only potential downside may be that other tunings, lumped in as "microtonal" may become more difficult to track down as quartertone stuff gets more and more attention.


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## bostjan (Apr 19, 2018)

I've long mused about how we could further break down tunings into different sorts. I think having the blanket "microtonal" for everything outside of standard is going to be a little confusing later.

For me, the key points are:
A) Are the notes equally spaced? If so, what is the basis unit (one octave, a fifth, an octave and a fifth, etc.) Or, if not, are they all spaced according to some common denominator, like if you had 12 notes in an octave, but they were selected out of 19-EDO tuning, just discarding 7 notes.
B) How many notes are there in total?
C) Do the notes approximate anything else, in specific, like JI?
D) What is the closest difference (i.e. in cents) between notes?

So, for example, Well Temperaments are a large group of different tunings that follow the same basic idea, and answer the above questions:
A) No - no
B) 12
C) Yes, JI
D) usually 90 - 98 cents

I like to think that some equal temperaments with larger numbers of notes could serve as "hubs" for their own spin-off well temperaments and different approaches to just intonation. 

We are all familiar, I assume, with standard tuning, which has twelve equally spaced notes. In my mind, it approximates a set of just intonation notes that I call the modal set, which has major and minor second, third, sixth and seventh; perfect root, 4th, and 5th; and also a diminished fifth and augmented fourth (just the intervals you get from the "old church modes" of the major scale).

I think 19 notes can also serve as a node, with its own (hypothetical) well temperaments, and it's own corresponding just intonation set of notes. The just intervals would be expanded such that every tonality (beside the root) would have an augmented and diminished tone. I think that 31-equal sort of compliments that same set, but expands significantly upon it.

I blogged about this to some extent about here: https://sites.google.com/site/bzmmtuning/home/19edo


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## Drew (Apr 19, 2018)

"Microtonal music" and "beginners" sound like a recipe for disaster to me, but I think your idea of launching into it through the framework of blues is probably sensible.


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## bostjan (Apr 19, 2018)

Drew said:


> "Microtonal music" and "beginners" sound like a recipe for disaster to me, but I think your idea of launching into it through the framework of blues is probably sensible.



Well, beginners to microtonal music, as opposed to those groups and threads that make me feel like someone who's never flown an aircraft before jumping into the cockpit of a 747.


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## tedtan (Apr 19, 2018)

bostjan said:


> My first question for all of you: "What do you consider microtonal?"



Personally, I'm looking at it from the perspective with the 12 tone octave as the foundation, so I wouldn't consider just intonation or well temperament to be microtonal. Just intonation is essentially derived from the naturally occurring overtone series of a vibrating string/column of air/etc. and well temperament and equal temperament are, as you noted, variations (compromises) to allow for playing in tune in multiple key signatures on the same instrument. In other words, these are all temperaments of a single tuning rather than separate, distinct tunings unto themselves, IMO*.

So moving on to what would be microtonal, "micro" implies smaller than standard and "tonal" implies either 1) the number of tones within an octave, 2) the intervals within the tuning system, or 3) that the tuning system will produce tonal (e.g., functional) harmony. So, basically any tuning system with more than 12 notes per octave.


* I can see the temperaments of the 12 tone octave being considered microtonal when the various intervals, for example the JI minor and/or major third along with the 12TET minor and/or major third, are used within the same piece of music, but this is not particularly common in Western music outside of blues, where many singers and soloists are adept at employing various "degrees" of an interval in order to build or release tension.


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## bostjan (Apr 19, 2018)

tedtan said:


> Personally, I'm looking at it from the perspective with the 12 tone octave as the foundation, so I wouldn't consider just intonation or well temperament to be microtonal. Just intonation is essentially derived from the naturally occurring overtone series of a vibrating string/column of air/etc. and well temperament and equal temperament are, as you noted, variations (compromises) to allow for playing in tune in multiple key signatures on the same instrument. In other words, these are all temperaments of a single tuning rather than separate, distinct tunings unto themselves, IMO*.
> 
> So moving on to what would be microtonal, "micro" implies smaller than standard and "tonal" implies either 1) the number of tones within an octave, 2) the intervals within the tuning system, or 3) that the tuning system will produce tonal (e.g., functional) harmony. So, basically any tuning system with more than 12 notes per octave.
> 
> ...


I believe that's how the term came into being, and what it was originally intended to mean - something about very small intervals, but somewhere along the line, it was appropriated for other purposes.

I also agree that well temperament or just intonation with 11 or 12 tones is not really microtonal. Those, to me, are really just different takes on standard tuning, and, in many cases, _were_ standard tuning before they went out of fashion.

To our Western ears, probably anything that isn't "normal" sounds "weird," and anything that sounds "weird" because of tuning is lumped into the same bin marked "microtonal." But, to me, something in 19-EDO and something in 18-EDO sound pretty different from each other. There are a lot of different tonal styles and sets built off of different tunings.


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## The Omega Cluster (Apr 19, 2018)

For reference, though, "microtonal music" is about anything that is not 12 equal tones per octave. Those saying that 12-JI or 12-WT tunings don't apply are usually either elitists or purists. Perhaps the term began as meaning intervals smaller than 100 ¢, but now that isn't true anymore.


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## bostjan (Apr 19, 2018)

The Omega Cluster said:


> For reference, though, "microtonal music" is about anything that is not 12 equal tones per octave. Those saying that 12-JI or 12-WT tunings don't apply are usually either elitists or purists. Perhaps the term began as meaning intervals smaller than 100 ¢, but now that isn't true anymore.



I used to be in a yahoo group (old fashioned message board via email) that had this debate, and it got rather contentious. It's my belief that there really isn't any agreed-upon definition one way or the other. Maybe we are getting to that point now that there's been a little more discussion about it. Part of it is the general sense of how tuning can affect things, in which case, even 12-equal standard can be part of that all-encompassing topic.


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## Winspear (Apr 19, 2018)

And let's not forget how in any given higher EDO or JI set, people are still often sticking to a ~7 diatonic or ~12 chromatic type subset for a piece of music, essentially resulting in something more like a retuned 12


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## Tech Wrath (Apr 20, 2018)

I think part of why it's hard to get into microtonal music etc. is that you can't really jump into it right away. Where do you even go for buying a microtonal guitar? What if you want a specific EDO? Not everyone has access to luthiers and money to do this and most people don't want to mod their own instrument. I think there needs to be more options for people to be able to experiment with it.


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## bostjan (Apr 20, 2018)

Tech Wrath said:


> I think part of why it's hard to get into microtonal music etc. is that you can't really jump into it right away. Where do you even go for buying a microtonal guitar? What if you want a specific EDO? Not everyone has access to luthiers and money to do this and most people don't want to mod their own instrument. I think there needs to be more options for people to be able to experiment with it.



Ibanez made microtonal guitars for a short time. You can also buy from Freenote.


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## The Omega Cluster (Apr 20, 2018)

Tech Wrath said:


> I think part of why it's hard to get into microtonal music etc. is that you can't really jump into it right away. Where do you even go for buying a microtonal guitar? What if you want a specific EDO? Not everyone has access to luthiers and money to do this and most people don't want to mod their own instrument. I think there needs to be more options for people to be able to experiment with it.



I agree that it's quite difficult for guitars and basses, but there are more than enough microtonal softwares to have fun and make microtonal music with a keyboard or even only with a computer. That's what I did with Melopœia, you can do it too!


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## Bobro (Apr 22, 2018)

Tech Wrath said:


> I think part of why it's hard to get into microtonal music etc. is that you can't really jump into it right away. Where do you even go for buying a microtonal guitar? What if you want a specific EDO? Not everyone has access to luthiers and money to do this and most people don't want to mod their own instrument. I think there needs to be more options for people to be able to experiment with it.


 



Tech Wrath said:


> I think part of why it's hard to get into microtonal music etc. is that you can't really jump into it right away. Where do you even go for buying a microtonal guitar? What if you want a specific EDO? Not everyone has access to luthiers and money to do this and most people don't want to mod their own instrument. I think there needs to be more options for people to be able to experiment with it.



What I did, which I recommend to anyone, especially guitarists, for getting into microtonal music, is get a saz (got mine in Istanbul but you can order them online too). This is a kind of lute-like insrument. They are very inexpensive, especially the "little girl" saz, the cura saz, which is the one I got. The frets are tied on nylon wire, basically fishing line, so you can place them and move them wherever you would like and experiment to your heart's content. Once you have found a tuning you want to commit to, you can order a custom guitar neck from Ron Sword at Metatonal Music in Florida. Shipping and customs kind of dogged me a bit, but the prices are very good considering that you are getting a handmade custom item of the highest quality (the neck I got is superb).

As far as theory, I approach it from ancient music and middle-eastern theory. On a 17-tone or 24 tone guitar you can play all the makamlar you'll find at maquamworld.org.

I imagine that most people here are metal shredders, so I'd recommend "17-EDO" as a tuning for microtonal metal. It is easy to grok and you can still do killer power chords because the fifth is tempered the same amount away from pure ("Just") as in standard 12-tET, except it's a touch sharp of pure, not a touch low like in 12-tET. The augmented fourth and dimiished fifth are two different notes in 17 (they are the same in 12-tET). This means you can play a tritone on top of a tritone and not hit the octave- stacked augmented fourths brings you to a diminished octave, for the most "evil in league with Satan" sound there is. Why there are not hundreds of black leather and goat's heads kinds of bands playing in 17 equal divisions of the octave is a real mystery!


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## bostjan (Apr 25, 2018)

Out of all the equal temperaments that could be done on guitar, I personally feel that 34-equal is about the limit of where things get better with adding more notes. 17-equal is every other note from 34-equal, so it follows that it'd be a great option. What made up my mind that my first micro guitar would be 19-equal was the fact that there were no issues with standard notation. Some tuning systems, a certain fret is a G# when you are in one key, but it's A in another key... it's not a deal breaker, by any means, but it does make things just a little more complicated for a newcomer.

I've dealt with Ron a few times, and he's been super reasonable and professional with me. I know he has a bit of a reputation online, but I get the feeling that he's maybe somebody who has some buttons people tend to press. Also, I honestly think that his work has improved significantly since he first got started.


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## Eptaceros (Apr 25, 2018)

Maybe Ron finally learned his lesson when he got chewed out for selling bootleg band merch online and threatened people in retaliation. Either way, that guy can hop off a bridge for all I care, and I would always be wary of doing business with him.


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## bostjan (Apr 25, 2018)

Yeah, I suppose the internet never forgets...unless you are tearing down a blackmachine, but that's another thread.

Anyway...

If, hypothetically, there were a guitar to be mass produced (WMI or similar) to be fretted in some alternative microtonal tuning, what do you think would work? 24-equal? Would/could there be anything else? More than half of the microtonal music of which I am aware is that way. Of the rest, it's a mixed bag of 17, 19, 22, 31, and 34 equal, and then some one-off artists doing weirder tunings.


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## The Omega Cluster (Apr 25, 2018)

Metatonal's replaceable fretboard guitars and Tolgahan's moveable fret guitars are two amazing pieces of work. Both could allow for much cheaper microtonal experimentation, once the higher upfront cost is paid. Once you have your guitar, adding a new microtonal system would be pretty cheap (Metatonal) or even free (moveable frets)! I might get one of those, some day.


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## Bobro (Apr 26, 2018)

The Omega Cluster said:


> Metatonal's replaceable fretboard guitars and Tolgahan's moveable fret guitars are two amazing pieces of work. Both could allow for much cheaper microtonal experimentation, once the higher upfront cost is paid. Once you have your guitar, adding a new microtonal system would be pretty cheap (Metatonal) or even free (moveable frets)! I might get one of those, some day.



The moveable tied-on frets of some kind of saz are the least expensive way to try pretty much any kind of tuning you would like. Personally I'm not a fan of too much "experimentation", I think it is much more productive to pick a tuning and stick to it for years, so that it becomes natural to you. i made a total commitment to the tuning I use- found alternative fingerings on the clarinet, so basically relearned the instrument, got a fretted electric guitar, and now going to retune my friend's accordian. Of course it is not some UFO kind of tuning like Bohlen Pierce or some kind of mathematical nuttiness like that, and it is historically precedented in Middle Eastern music (specifically medieval Persian), so it is really not such a bold and wild thing to do, and the "xenharmonic" intervals are instantly recognizable and singable to anyone familiar with Middle Eastern and Balkan music. 

As far as Ron Sword, mentioned in other posts, my experience with the guy is that he is a totally awesome guy who's got all his stuff squared away. He does have an unguarded kind of way of writing on the internet so I can see where conflicts might arise, but that doesn't bother me at all.


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## bostjan (Apr 26, 2018)

Bobro said:


> The moveable tied-on frets of some kind of saz are the least expensive way to try pretty much any kind of tuning you would like. Personally I'm not a fan of too much "experimentation", I think it is much more productive to pick a tuning and stick to it for years, so that it becomes natural to you. i made a total commitment to the tuning I use- found alternative fingerings on the clarinet, so basically relearned the instrument, got a fretted electric guitar, and now going to retune my friend's accordian. Of course it is not some UFO kind of tuning like Bohlen Pierce or some kind of mathematical nuttiness like that, and it is historically precedented in Middle Eastern music (specifically medieval Persian), so it is really not such a bold and wild thing to do, and the "xenharmonic" intervals are instantly recognizable and singable to anyone familiar with Middle Eastern and Balkan music.
> 
> As far as Ron Sword, mentioned in other posts, my experience with the guy is that he is a totally awesome guy who's got all his stuff squared away. He does have an unguarded kind of way of writing on the internet so I can see where conflicts might arise, but that doesn't bother me at all.



I've run into some confusion over the factoid that medieval Persia used 17-EDO or maybe some 17-tone unequal tuning (closer to 24-EDO), but 17-EDO has some good neutral intervals like 24-EDO anyway, so either way, it's the same basic idea.

I think that you make an excellent point about honing in on a personal tuning. I did a lot of experimentation around ~2000 to 2003, before I hunkered down and got a real 19-EDO guitar. But now that I've been doing 19-EDO for 15 years, I wouldn't mind experimenting again and finding something else new to use as tuning #2. I really love the tonal palette available with 22-EDO, but it's more "weird" than 19-EDO for sure.


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## Lemonbaby (Apr 26, 2018)

Tech Wrath said:


> I think part of why it's hard to get into microtonal music etc. is that you can't really jump into it right away. Where do you even go for buying a microtonal guitar? What if you want a specific EDO? Not everyone has access to luthiers and money to do this and most people don't want to mod their own instrument. I think there needs to be more options for people to be able to experiment with it.


You could string your guitar with 3x2 parallel strings of the same diameter and then tune to E, E+0.5, D, D+0'5, b, b+0'5. Only problem: which tuner support this?


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## bostjan (Apr 26, 2018)

Lemonbaby said:


> You could string your guitar with 3x2 parallel strings of the same diameter and then tune to E, E+0.5, D, D+0'5, b, b+0'5. Only problem: which tuner support this?


By +0'5, do you mean fifty cents sharp? If so, any chromatic tuner with a needle or digital display that shows cents would suffice. If you are careful, you could technically use any chromatic tuner, and tune the in-between notes to wherever they spend roughly equal time on the two notes they are in between. For example, if I have a cheap red/green LED type chromatic tuner, and want to tune my string to a tone halfway between E and F, then I tune to E, then continue tuning sharp until the tuner can no longer tell if the note needs to be tuned down to E or up to F.


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## IGC (Apr 26, 2018)

Winspear said:


> I consider anything that deviates from 12EDO microtonal even though it may not be intentional. Afterall, music_ started _with microtonality and then we had to intentionally move away from it for simplicity. A singer might not be thinking about microtonality, they are just doing what comes naturally. But to copy them on a guitar or piano, you would have to think about/modify the instrument for microtonality - so surely that music must be considered microtonal.



Interesting about singers maybe not realising they are a little in between. In my early 20's (now 40) I was trying to learn a cover song by a world class very successful female singer. I swear the tuning was in E half sharp, E flat is concert position.. It made me question if this was intentional. I was telling this to the guys at the local guitar repair shop and they were like "your splitting frog hairs" This was my first experience with microtonality.


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## bostjan (Apr 27, 2018)

IGC said:


> Interesting about singers maybe not realising they are a little in between. In my early 20's (now 40) I was trying to learn a cover song by a world class very successful female singer. I swear the tuning was in E half sharp, E flat is concert position.. It made me question if this was intentional. I was telling this to the guys at the local guitar repair shop and they were like "your splitting frog hairs" This was my first experience with microtonality.


A lot of recorded acts prior to the 1980's were not A=440 Hz. It's less common now, but it still happens .

I think what Tom was talking about was the tendency for singers, particularly singing a capella, to sing intervals that are not in tune with the 12-EDO standard we use on guitar. People who play wind instruments need to be aware of their own instrument's pitch tendencies and correct for them using their embouchure, air direction, posture, etc. The pitch corrections are necessary, not because the instrument is junky, but because the column of air moving within the instrument obeys the laws of physics, and thus, has a natural tendency to play in just intonation and not in equal temperament.

The whole discussion around just intonation (JI) and equal temperament (ET) in itself is an involved one, and there is a ton of confusion out in the wild about what's what. The ultra-TL;DR version of JI is that major thirds tend to go flat and minor thirds tend to go sharp. Many people think JI sounds better than ET, but, in the west, at least, it seems most prefer ET to JI, because we have grown accustomed to it, especially in the 21st century with tons of autotune on everything coming out of the studio.

Aside from that, there are some vocalists who can sing very well in quarter tones. When I first set out to do a microtonal record, I found the vocals to be the most challenging part of the process, by far. Even when the instruments sound "normal," everything is still in a different intonation system than what you hear every day, so it took a lot of "deprogramming." The experience gave me a new level of respect for vocalists involved with microtonal projects.


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## IGC (Apr 27, 2018)

bostjan said:


> A lot of recorded acts prior to the 1980's were not A=440 Hz. It's less common now, but it still happens .
> 
> I think what Tom was talking about was the tendency for singers, particularly singing a capella, to sing intervals that are not in tune with the 12-EDO standard we use on guitar. People who play wind instruments need to be aware of their own instrument's pitch tendencies and correct for them using their embouchure, air direction, posture, etc. The pitch corrections are necessary, not because the instrument is junky, but because the column of air moving within the instrument obeys the laws of physics, and thus, has a natural tendency to play in just intonation and not in equal temperament.
> 
> ...




Yeah I know what your saying bro! Like that's the thing, I think either this female vocalist couldn't actually sing in perfect pitch and her band had to compensate, or she and her band (consisting of two or three lead guitatists, two or three violinists, bass drums all singing backup etc...) were so tight and well tuned that they could actually pull being tuned to E half sharp off as a band, just to be cool like that? It blew my mind and I love/ find this "microtonality" ingenious! Mid - late 90's massive international success!


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## Bobro (Apr 29, 2018)

IGC said:


> Yeah I know what your saying bro! Like that's the thing, I think either this female vocalist couldn't actually sing in perfect pitch and her band had to compensate, or she and her band (consisting of two or three lead guitatists, two or three violinists, bass drums all singing backup etc...) were so tight and well tuned that they could actually pull being tuned to E half sharp off as a band, just to be cool like that? It blew my mind and I love/ find this "microtonality" ingenious! Mid - late 90's massive international success!



In addition, back in the 1970's it was also popular to speed up the recording playback a touch, to make it faster, thinner and more cutting and "exciting" in sound. Similar kind of thing why A-440 has been climbing over the years, so that in Vienna for example the orchestras are at something like A-448 in recent years.


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## IGC (Apr 29, 2018)

And for those of us who didn't know what they were talking about earlier in this thread when they spoke of Musical notes and their "cents" :

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Music/cents.html


BTW thanks Bostjan and everyone this has been a very informative thread


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## bostjan (Aug 13, 2018)

Bumping this thread because there has been a little discussion in some other threads that might give this thread another life (or maybe not)...

I'm seeing a lot of new build designs going fretless or doing some extra frets or "fretlets" here and there. I'm really curious as to how most people are approaching these things.

I'm still advocating for "19-EDO" as an "alternative temperament" that can offer some new things along with still allowing us to use our old compositional tricks, but now it's quite clear that I'm in the minority, as quartertone oriented 24-EDO (all of the quartertones) and 12/24-EDO (only some of the quartertones) takes over what limited interest there is in microtones.

As a dabbler in 24-EDO and having a couple of published original compositions using 12/24-EDO, my own approach is really to just compose a "normal" song, then throw some quarter tones into it in places where I want to increase the musical tension a notch or to use the quarter steps as passing tones in a lick. I'm not really excited anymore (more like I lost interest back in 2012 or so, and just sort of use this more routinely now) about my own approach of how to use the extra notes of that scale.

My approach with 19-EDO, to me, has more potential for creativity. Because the different notes are integrated into every chord and scale, I feel that, for me, it's easier to slip into a different mindset with composition. I can play a C chord, and it sounds just like a C chord, to me, even more in-tune, so there is still some grounding, but then I can go spell some nasty stuff like C7aug9 - Cmaj(add m3) and it sounds so funky and has so much tension resolving into another tense chord, so I feel like there is a dimension of extra, but it's added on top of the typical musical dimensions with which I'm already familiar.

I'd assume people using even crazier tuning choices, like 26-EDO, have even more of a new world to explore, but, for me, not really having my music theory apply to anything anymore is quite frightening.


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## bostjan (Aug 13, 2018)

Double post


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## ElRay (Aug 14, 2018)

bostjan said:


> ... I'm still advocating for "19-EDO" as an "alternative temperament" that can offer some new things along with still allowing us to use our old compositional tricks ...


. This to me seems to be the most obvious first step. All you’re doing is eliminating the existing #/b enharmonicities. And creating B#/Cb and E#/Fb—Pretty even without going to 21-EDI, which moves a lot more familiar stuff away. 

Quarter-tone just seems to be more of the usual and only offers increased dissonance and no increased consonance


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## bostjan (Aug 14, 2018)

ElRay said:


> . This to me seems to be the most obvious first step. All you’re doing is eliminating the existing #/b enharmonicities. And creating B#/Cb and E#/Fb—Pretty even without going to 21-EDI, which moves a lot more familiar stuff away.
> 
> Quarter-tone just seems to be more of the usual and only offers increased dissonance and no increased consonance




That's pretty much the thing for me. In a high-gain situation, the slightly narrower fifths don't really seem noticeable, and the much more accurate thirds seem to be a big plus for me. Any jarring intervals through a lot of gain seem to either come through kind of thin-sounding, or just too scratchy to use in anything other than the jarring-screechy context.

Having spent a few years now fiddling around with 24-EDO and 19-EDO on guitar, I'm still more excited about 19, but I'm equally excited now about 22-EDO, after Brendan Byrnes's pop/rock album that uses the tuning in some very surprisingly musical ways. Maybe I should just hit him up online and see if he's willing to chat with me about tuning in some sort of non-747-cockpit way.


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## IGC (Aug 14, 2018)

Halfing standard 12 EDO to get 24 EDO makes sence...quarter steps...but how mathematically do you get 19 EDO? Do you need to manipulate the standard constant ? Or are we only bisecting certain frets based off of the major scale intervals?


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## Necris (Aug 14, 2018)

1200 (the number cents in an octave) divided by [number] = size of your smallest interval. I.E. 1200/19 = 63.157 cents; the smallest step in 19-EDO. 63.157 x 19 = 1200
You don't need to divide by the octave - you can have equal divisions of any interval you care to, Equal divisions of the perfect fifth or minor 6th or whatever - but the octave is most common.


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## bostjan (Aug 15, 2018)

IGC said:


> Halfing standard 12 EDO to get 24 EDO makes sence...quarter steps...but how mathematically do you get 19 EDO? Do you need to manipulate the standard constant ? Or are we only bisecting certain frets based off of the major scale intervals?


19 doesn't translate to exactly the same notes as 12, but, from my perspective, 12 is a representation of the natural notes from "just intonation."

So, the only note I have that is perfectly equivalent to any "standard" note is A (I use A4=440Hz, but all of my A's are the same as all standard A's). When I play a C, it's a little sharp of the standard C, and when I play C#, it's a little flat of standard C#...but... 

In just intonation, musical intervals are all rational. The ratio between the lengths of a string between a note and the intervals are as follows:

The octave 2:1
The fifth 3:2
The fourth 4:3
The major third 5:4
The minor third 6:5

...and so on.

So, if you play a guitar along with someone playing a naturally tuned instrument, like a bugle, the only note you have that is a perfect unison is going to be the reference note to which you both tuned, and every octave of that note.

The problem with tuning a guitar this way is that there are no recursive patterns. If you go up a fifth twice, you have a ratio of 3x3:2x2 or 9:4. Three times, and you get 27:16, four times 81:32, five times 243:64, and all the way up to twelve times 531441:4096, where 7 octaves would be 524288:4096, so it's "off" by a fair amount. If you'll excuse a little mathematics, I'd say that since the octave is base two, and the fifth has a prime factor of three, you can never stack up any number of perfect fifths to equal any other number of octaves. In other words, 3^X is never equal to 2^Y if X and Y are both whole numbers. Same goes for major thirds and octaves, or major thirds and fifths. A keyboard or a fretted instrument has a limited number of notes that can be played, that is, you can't play a different note for G in the key of C as you do in the key of G or the key of Eb, so, instead, you let some notes be a little out of tune. Say that you make the fifth just a little flat. Hardly anyone will notice, and then you can make 12 fifths equal to 7 octaves exactly. That generates a keyboard or fretboard with 12 different notes, but you can play any interval starting from any note and it'll sound pretty much just as in-tune or out-of-tune as the same interval starting from any other note. You preserve the perfect octave, and the fifth isn't too terrible, but maybe the other notes are not as in-tune as you would want, but it's a compromise.

So, instead of making the fifth a little flat and getting 12 fifths crammed into 7 octaves, you can shrink the fifth a tiny bit more to get 19 fifths into 11 octaves, and that just gives an alternate approach. The fifths sound a tiny bit worse (IMO it's not a big deal, since it's still a narrower detuning than most chorus pedals affect), but the thirds sound much better. Of course, no equal temperament is equivalent to just intonation all around, otherwise we would all be using that for guitar, but 12 works really well, and IMO, so does 19.

I can play my 19 note guitar along with standard keyboards or bugles or whatever, and it sounds almost close enough to ignore the differences in some keys. In fact, most casual listeners do ignore the differences, just like they would ignore the pitch differences between a brass instrument and a keyboard or fretted instrument. But in other keys, we would run into some pretty sour intervals. That's why you don't want to write an arrangement for horns and guitar in a silly key like Ab major - it will sound "bad" when played with certain instrument combinations, whereas keys like C major and Bb major sound pretty good.

But looking at things note-for-note, 19-EDO notes are just different from 12-EDO notes, so all of the fret positions are different, with the exceptions of the 12th and 24th frets of a standard guitar matching with the 19th and 38th frets of a 19-EDO guitar.


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## ElRay (Aug 16, 2018)

Man, you’re dragging me down this rabbit hole again. 

I started looking into historical non-EDO temperaments because I wanted to get the “color” of different keys that EDO/TET tempered away. But the required “wavey” frets were too impractical for anything other than standard tuning on standard sized necks. Then I looked at non-EDO temperaments (e.g. Lucy Tuning), but they were all trying to keeps both 3rds and 5ths (especially across octaves) sounds bring good. 

That all lead me to micro-tonal, so I could at least “fake” D-Major sounding different than C-Major, but I just didn’t have the time to get down into the weeds to find the right EDO and which notes to flatten/sharpen by a fret to simulate the pre-modern EDO/TET temperaments.


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## bostjan (Aug 17, 2018)

ElRay said:


> Man, you’re dragging me down this rabbit hole again.
> 
> I started looking into historical non-EDO temperaments because I wanted to get the “color” of different keys that EDO/TET tempered away. But the required “wavey” frets were too impractical for anything other than standard tuning on standard sized necks. Then I looked at non-EDO temperaments (e.g. Lucy Tuning), but they were all trying to keeps both 3rds and 5ths (especially across octaves) sounds bring good.
> 
> That all lead me to micro-tonal, so I could at least “fake” D-Major sounding different than C-Major, but I just didn’t have the time to get down into the weeds to find the right EDO and which notes to flatten/sharpen by a fret to simulate the pre-modern EDO/TET temperaments.





ElRay said:


> Man, you’re dragging me down this rabbit hole again.
> 
> I started looking into historical non-EDO temperaments because I wanted to get the “color” of different keys that EDO/TET tempered away. But the required “wavey” frets were too impractical for anything other than standard tuning on standard sized necks. Then I looked at non-EDO temperaments (e.g. Lucy Tuning), but they were all trying to keeps both 3rds and 5ths (especially across octaves) sounds bring good.
> 
> That all lead me to micro-tonal, so I could at least “fake” D-Major sounding different than C-Major, but I just didn’t have the time to get down into the weeds to find the right EDO and which notes to flatten/sharpen by a fret to simulate the pre-modern EDO/TET temperaments.



There are a lot of session players in pop and country who temper-tune their strings (a la Buzz Feiten) without the wavey frets. It doesn't yield the same effect as the wavey frets, but I think it gives the same sort of "feel." Instead of certain keys sounding characteristic, it goes by chord shapes, so, for example, you can tune so that your A and B strings are a few cents flat, and it alters the character of most of the common open chords to sound a little sweeter. If you play barre chords, though, you get everything sounding quite same-y, unless you play also more advanced shapes that look like the open C and G chords with index finger barres.

Since non-octave ET's, like Lucy Tuning, work, mechanically, the same way as EDO tunings, I don't think you'll get distinct key colours to come out of those. As guitarists, we are stuck with either wavey frets, compensated nuts, or flattening a couple of open strings.


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## ElRay (Aug 17, 2018)

I didn’t think of an Ixlramp-style tuning shift between strings. That might actually work well, because I love M3rds tuning and I have a 9-String I’m setting up in 3rds. Since it’s a regular tuning, the chord shapes are the same everywhere, so different groups of strings can have different color.


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## ElRay (Aug 17, 2018)

I didn’t think of an Ixlramp-style tuning shift between strings. That might actually work well, because I love M3rds tuning and I have a 9-String I’m setting up in 3rds. Since it’s a regular tuning, the chord shapes are the same everywhere, so different groups of strings can have different color.


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## bostjan (Aug 17, 2018)

That's a neat approach. Same shapes on different strings moved up or down so many frets to make the same root note would be the same chords, except with different built-in quirks.

Might be fun to play around with a nine string fretted normally with each string tuned a neutral third higher than the last, z.B. E natural, G half sharp, B natural, D half sharp, F sharp, A half sharp, C sharp, E half sharp, G sharp. Every other string would be a fifth. Playing chords without any neutral intervals would require a lot of string skipping, though.

I'm really happy to see a few topics around here related to microtonal stuff.


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## IGC (Aug 17, 2018)

IGC said:


> Halfing standard 12 EDO to get 24 EDO makes sence...quarter steps...but how mathematically do you get 19 EDO? Do you need to manipulate the standard constant ? Or are we only bisecting certain frets based off of the major scale intervals?




A little confusion on my behalf, I referred to standard 12 notes per octave as 12 EDO, I do realize that is incorrect ...and 24 EDO must be referring to the division of each note of the standard 12 notes per octave used to achieve the 1/4 step "microtonality"
Diggin this thread tho, getting lots of good info 





bostjan said:


> >>>There are a lot of session players in pop and country who temper-tune their strings<<< (a la Buzz Feiten) without the wavey frets. It doesn't yield the same effect as the wavey frets, but I think it gives the same sort of "feel." Instead of certain keys sounding characteristic, it goes by chord shapes, so, for example, you can tune so that your A and B strings are a few cents flat, and it alters the character of most of the common open chords to sound a little sweeter. If you play barre chords, though, you get everything sounding quite same-y, unless you play also more advanced shapes that look like the open C and G chords with index finger barres.
> 
> Since non-octave ET's, like Lucy Tuning, work, mechanically, the same way as EDO tunings, I don't think you'll get distinct key colours to come out of those. As guitarists, we are stuck with either wavey frets, compensated nuts, or flattening a couple of open strings.



There was some Shania Twain stuff I was trying to learn back in the day for a girl, it required me to tune my guitar to E half sharp. So glad I am not the only one experiencing this phenomena with the pop country stuff. I can imagine with all the slide guitar stuff going on guitarists discovering new realms of tuning.


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## Necris (Aug 18, 2018)

IGC said:


> A little confusion on my behalf, I referred to standard 12 notes per octave as 12 EDO, I do realize that is incorrect ...and 24 EDO must be referring to the division of each note of the standard 12 notes per octave used to achieve the 1/4 step "microtonality"
> Diggin this thread tho, getting lots of good info


No, you were correct. A standard guitar would be referred to as a 12-EDO instrument. 12 equal divisions of the octave, thus twelve 100 cent intervals in an octave. 24-EDO is twenty-four 50 cent intervals in an octave.
As an aside, you would think we'd refer to those 50 cent intervals as half-tones, but since a half-step/half tone is a common term for an interval of one semitone (a.k.a a minor second) the 50 cent interval is now a quarter tone since it's an interval that halves that. Things get even weirder in 36-EDO, since the 33.333 cent interval is referred to a as a 1/6-tone even though it's a third of a semitone; I suppose the logic from 24 just carried over. Confusing!


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## IGC (Aug 19, 2018)

Necris said:


> No, you were correct. A standard guitar would be referred to as a 12-EDO instrument. 12 equal divisions of the octave, thus twelve 100 cent intervals in an octave. 24-EDO is twenty-four 50 cent intervals in an octave.
> As an aside, you would think we'd refer to those 50 cent intervals as half-tones, but since a half-step/half tone is a common term for an interval of one semitone (a.k.a a minor second) the 50 cent interval is now a quarter tone since it's an interval that halves that. Things get even weirder in 36-EDO, since the 33.333 cent interval is referred to a as a 1/6-tone even though it's a third of a semitone; I suppose the logic from 24 just carried over. Confusing!



Ok, yes of course... 12 equal semitones/half steps....I was thinking in terms of the actual width of the first fret vs actual width of the say...9th fret, witch are not equal devisions, as the 9th is far slimmer than fret 1. I did understand that before my last post, guess there are more than one way to look at what is being said, witch can be so wrong yet so right. Anyhow, thanks for getting me back the right track.
I will need to go back and read the posts about 19 EDO from you and BJ a few more times and think about/ analyze what was said more closely to get the big picture. But thanks and I may have some more questions in the near future
But now it's time to grocery shop, yay!


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## IGC (Aug 19, 2018)

Here are a few links to clarify what they were talking aboit earlier in this thread for those interested...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_intonation

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_temperament

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonic_series_(music)


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## bostjan (Aug 20, 2018)

Where I tend to get tripped up is...

Well, so... you know the classical modes? As in C Ionian (C Major), D Dorian, E Phrygian, F Lydian, G Mixolydian, A Aeolian (A Natural Minor), B Locrian? Pretty easy to run through all of those on the standard keyboard or fretboard in standard tuning...Play all of the white keys, and just start on a different note. For me, it's a pretty fundamental idea in music theory.

I can do exactly the same thing in 19-EDO, and I get a pleasant result. When I try in 22-EDO, though, things get really messy.

First off, I don't even know what the darned notes are called. If I take one note and define it as "A," what is the next note even going to be? A half sharp? Whatever, I play A, then go up 4 frets... B, up 3 more C#, etc. The formula (in frets) is something like 4 3 2 4 4 4 2. So, since it's an equal temperament, I can start on any fret, and play the major scale by going up 4, then 3, then 2, then 4, and so on. To do the minor scale, I apply instead the formula 4 2 3 4 2 5 3. But there's no 5 in the major scale formula, so the major and minor scales are no longer modes of each other. Wild!

IMO, it makes memorization of scales quite a bit more challenging.

This is why I stick to 19-EDO so much. It's basically standard tuning with a few extra quirks and sweeter thirds and sixths. The more I mess with it, and the more I get usedto the way it sounds, the more it just seems plain to me.I mean, t, in terms of the way everything sounds when you just play "normally," it just sounds like regular old music, whereas 22-EDO and the other more "out" tunings have some characteristics that you really can't get away from.

My aversion to teeny tiny frets is why I'm not all about 31-EDO or beyond. But, I think that might be the next logical step. 31-EDO represents all of the notes from the diatonic scale quite well, and it's a "meantone" tuning, so all of the usual western music theory stuff should apply.

But, on the other hand, I've been mezmorized by 22-EDO lately.


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## IGC (Aug 20, 2018)

bostjan said:


> Where I tend to get tripped up is...
> 
> >>>>>Well, so... you know the classical modes? As in C Ionian (C Major), D Dorian, E Phrygian, F Lydian, G Mixolydian, A Aeolian (A Natural Minor), B Locrian? Pretty easy to run through all of those on the standard keyboard or fretboard in standard tuning...Play all of the white keys, and just start on a different note. For me, it's a pretty fundamental idea in music theory.<<<<<
> 
> ...





Oh yeah, all the white notes on the keyboard, the chromatic or C major scale and you break it down into all it's modes, I start with phrygian, > mixolydian > aeolean then Ionian or dorian, I allways get the two names mixed up but have the patterns memorized every witch way, then I think we have out octave so phrygian all over again. Or if you look it from say starting on the standard open E string, just E > F > G > A > B > C > D > E (12t octave) . 
So how does this play out with 19 EDO? I know you kind of explained it above, I think...
Thanks!


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## bostjan (Aug 20, 2018)

IGC said:


> Oh yeah, all the white notes on the keyboard, the chromatic or C major scale and you break it down into all it's modes, I start with phrygian, > mixolydian > aeolean then Ionian or dorian, I allways get the two names mixed up but have the patterns memorized every witch way, then I think we have out octave so phrygian all over again. Or if you look it from say starting on the standard open E string, just E > F > G > A > B > C > D > E (12t octave) .
> So how does this play out with 19 EDO? I know you kind of explained it above, I think...
> Thanks!



Yeah, the modes are exactly the same in 19-EDO, except a whole step (w) is 3 frets and a half step (h) is two. The major scale, wwhwwwh, goes 3 3 2 3 3 3 2, by how many frets you go up. If you add those all up, it's 19 total frets, which is an octave. The minor scale is 3 2 3 3 2 3 3, which is the same sequence, started on the second to last note. Since its all 3s and 2s, all of the modes relate to each other, just like 12-EDO.


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## bostjan (Aug 22, 2018)

It might be interesting for some: the classical modes are not a "thing" in just intonation (JI), either. This surprised me the first time I saw it, because I had assumed that the classical modes were more fundamental than temperament, but that's where they arise.

The major scale in JI has three kinds of steps, a superior whole step (W) of 203.9 cents, an inferior whole step (w) of 182.4 cents, and a half step (h) of 111.7 cents. The steps to make a major scale are *WwhWwWh*, and the minor scale is *WhwWhWw*. If you start on the second to last step of the major scale, you get WhWwhWw, so the whole steps to get from the minor third to the perfect fourth is funky, and throws everything off. What's more, to play the Dorian scale, you need to go from the sixth note of the major scale to the seventh note of the minor scale, which is 133.2 cents, so, you have to introduce another step you didn't need for the other scales at all, the superior half step (H) - to walk through the Dorian scale in JI, you take the first part of the minor scale WhwW, which takes you to the fifth, then finish with wHw, so, all together, *WhwWwHw*.

All of the church modes:
Ionian (Major) : 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 | *WwhWwWh*
Dorian (Minor, major sixth) : 1 2 b3 4 5 6 b7 | *WhwWwHw*
Phrygian (Spanish) : 1 b2 b3 4 5 b6 b7 | *hWwWhWw*
Lydian (Major, augmented fourth) : 1 2 3 #4 5 6 7 | *WwWhwWh*
Mixolydian (Dominant) : 1 2 3 4 5 6 b7 | *WwhWwHw*
Aeolian (Natural minor) : 1 2 b3 4 5 b6 b7 | *WhwWhWw*
Locrian (Half diminished) : 1 b2 b3 4 5 b6 b7 | *hWwhWWw
*
There are a couple of modal relationships that work out, for example, the Phrygian is still a mode of the Ionian scale, but most of the scales have a note altered or inverted somewhere.

I guess, since my guitar teachers drilled the modes into me, not even referring to them as scales, led me to the expectation that in JI, the most natural tuning system, they surely must work out nicely. But nope. That means also that any equally divided octave temperament will have modal problems once the number of notes exceeds some amount, since the note chosen will be whichever is closest to the correct JI note.

Hopefully that's not worded in too convoluted a manner.


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## IGC (Aug 22, 2018)

bostjan said:


> It might be interesting for some: the classical modes are not a "thing" in just intonation (JI), either. This surprised me the first time I saw it, because I had assumed that the classical modes were more fundamental than temperament, but that's where they arise.
> 
> The major scale in JI has three kinds of steps, a superior whole step (W) of 203.9 cents, an inferior whole step (w) of 182.4 cents, and a half step (h) of 111.7 cents. The steps to make a major scale are *WwhWwWh*, and the minor scale is *WhwWhWw*. If you start on the second to last step of the major scale, you get WhWwhWw, so the whole steps to get from the minor third to the perfect fourth is funky, and throws everything off. What's more, to play the Dorian scale, you need to go from the sixth note of the major scale to the seventh note of the minor scale, which is 133.2 cents, so, you have to introduce another step you didn't need for the other scales at all, the superior half step (H) - to walk through the Dorian scale in JI, you take the first part of the minor scale WhwW, which takes you to the fifth, then finish with wHw, so, all together, *WhwWwHw*.
> 
> ...




Good stuff 
I think of modes as being smaller scale sections of their actual parent scale, and you connect them together to navigate the parent scale.


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## Winspear (Aug 23, 2018)

Wow that's interesting! I'll have to look into how that checks out in 31.


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## ElRay (Sep 1, 2018)

Don’t see much non-12-EDO stuff in the wild, but here’s a YouTube Vid that has 17 & 19 EDO examples as part of an discussion of sharps & flats. 



EDIT: I just checked his channel. There’s a lot of JI and non-12-EDO stuff.


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## ElRay (Sep 1, 2018)

bostjan said:


> That's a neat approach. Same shapes on different strings moved up or down so many frets to make the same root note would be the same chords, except with different built-in quirks.



Note quite ready to go more than 12-tone, but I definitely want to try this. Now the question is:

*How do I tune Just 3rds & 5ths, if I’m not really used to hearing them?*​


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## bostjan (Sep 2, 2018)

If you have a tuner with a cents readout, tune fifths 2 cents sharp , minor thirds 16 cents sharp and major thirds 14 cents flat...or if not, tune until the beats totally go away.


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## ixlramp (Feb 2, 2019)

ElRay said:


> *How do I tune Just 3rds & 5ths, if I’m not really used to hearing them?*


A JI fifth is easily by ear to minimise the 'beating', as the beating is very clear and the interval very consonant.
If you're tuning 2 open strings to a Just Intonation interval you can tune using harmonics.

JI major third, 5/4, 386 cents:
Tune the 4th harmonic of the higher string to the 5th harmonic of the lower string.
Start with the strings a 12TET major third apart and slightly detune the higher string.

JI minor third, 6/5, 316 cents:
Tune the 5th harmonic of the higher string to the 6th harmonic of the lower string.
Start with the strings a 12TET minor third apart and slightly uptune the higher string.

JI septimal subminor third, 7/6, 267 cents:
Tune the 6th harmonic of the higher string to the 7th harmonic of the lower string.
Start with the strings a 12TET minor third apart and detune the higher string.


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## ixlramp (Feb 3, 2019)

Lemonbaby said:


> You could string your guitar with 3x2 parallel strings of the same diameter and then tune to E, E+0.5, D, D+0'5, b, b+0'5. Only problem: which tuner support this?


Roughly this is how i first experienced microtonality on a guitar.

I had been tuning in fifths for a few years so it seemed natural to tune the string pairs in fifths, to partly compensate for the loss in range, so (relative) C, C+50c, G, G+50c, D, D+50c. Essentially 3 strings in fifths with a +50 cent pitch next to each normal pitch.

Then one day i was thinking about alternative tuning offsets for the microtonal strings, considering +150 cents, +250 cents etc.
I then realised that +350 cents created uniform intervals across all strings. When i drew up the patterns to play scales and chords it also had a very logical geometry.
For example a neutral chord, 0 350 700 cents, or a neutral seventh chord, 0 350 700 1050 cents, were straight across a fret.

Later i realised you could retune the microtonal strings slightly to get alternating minor and major Just Intonation thirds with the same logical geometry. With differing amounts of retuning you can play a few different JI scales.

This approach is:

Using a conventionally fretted guitar.

Lots of strings (6, 8, 10, 12 ...).Consisting of alternating normally-tuned strings and microtonally-tuned strings. Either using an ERG or splitting a pitch range across 2 or more guitars.

Small intervals between open strings. Thirds works very well but could be smaller depending on how many strings you have.

Taking advantage of the ease of retuning guitar strings. Using string retuning to acheive new microtonal tunings, instead of moving the frets. The amount of retuning is never large so there are no tension problems.

Special fingering patterns.
There is no need for a huge amount of closely spaced frets, so is easier to visualise patterns and is more playable because the frets are further apart.
It is invisible to an observer, no one would know by sight that you are playing a microtonal guitar, which enables playing live and sneaking microtonality in.
You can easily retune the guitar back to the nearest 12TET tuning.


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## ixlramp (Feb 3, 2019)

Here's my old thread for the 350 cent tuning and playing quartertones http://sevenstring.org/threads/retune-to-play-quartertone-scales-microtonal-beginners-guide.161530/


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## ElRay (Feb 6, 2019)

Ixlramp:


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## Bobro (Feb 7, 2019)

Just Intonation intervals have "that sound", of calmly melting together and being all calm and pure and ancient sounding. For a Just 5:4 M3, you can start with a standard 12-tET M3 and lower the upper tone a tiny bit at a time; you will hear when it happens, you really can't miss it. The more complex the interval, the higher the overtones that melt together, so it gets more difficult, but with time you learn their characteristic sound. Northing corresponds exactly with the numbers, though- it is proabably easier for most people to tune the 7:6 minor third by ear than the 6:5 "pure" minor third, because 7:6 is low and dark like we usually associate with "minor" (it's like a 12-tET standard minor third wearing black leather and spikes), and 6:5 is wider and more bland than we are used to. Working with drones is a great idea when you are working on tuning stuff.


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## bostjan (Dec 21, 2020)

Dusty-old bump.

Classical Indian music uses something like the JI scale. I was thinking of doing some rework to an old seven string to add a buzz bridge and shift the bridge over, such that I can sort-of play it like a sitar... however, the tuning will not match unless I refret.  I'm strapped for money right now, so this will be 100% DIY and will probably go disastrously poorly.


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## ixlramp (Dec 22, 2020)

I am very interested in Indian Classical music and the pitch systems they use, and have spent many hours searching the internet for any possible partial similarity to Just Intonation intervals.
What i increasingly learned is that, although there are many people suggesting various JI systems, the Raga intervals actually used are mostly very fluid, regional, master-dependent, learnt-by-ear, and not really JI.
The exceptions seem to be the JI fifth 3:2 and perhaps the JI fourth 4:3.

You probably do not want to do this but, there is also my system for playing JI on a normally fretted guitar https://www.sevenstring.org/threads...al-guitar-by-restringing-and-retuning.335492/
Interestingly, because it approximates 2 chains of JI fifths with an arbitrary offset between them, it approximates the JI system many claim Indian Classical music is similar to (2 chains of JI fifths 3:2 with a JI major third 5:4 offset between them).


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## bostjan (Dec 22, 2020)

ixlramp said:


> I am very interested in Indian Classical music and the pitch systems they use, and have spent many hours searching the internet for any possible partial similarity to Just Intonation intervals.
> What i increasingly learned is that, although there are many people suggesting various JI systems, the Raga intervals actually used are mostly very fluid, regional, master-dependent, learnt-by-ear, and not really JI.
> The exceptions seem to be the JI fifth 3:2 and perhaps the JI fourth 4:3.
> 
> ...



A lot of Indian instruments are fixed pitch, though, so I believe that there is a somewhat rigid tuning system, but it does vary regionally and has a little mushiness to it. For example, the harmonium has levers that can be used to alternate between different shruti for a scale degree, but they only alternate between two or three fixed pitches.

Which shruti to use in a particular raga seems to have no written instruction, but it's not entirely open to interpretation, either. It's this really rigid, yet also vague set of unwritten rules that I studied for a year or so and only ended up frustrated.


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## ixlramp (Dec 23, 2020)

Yes. Because you have to pick a fretting system, the commonly suggested 5-limit JI system i mentioned seems most suitable.

The one i am referring to is detailed at the '22 Shruti Harmonium' website http://www.22shruti.com/index.asp
The system http://www.22shruti.com/research_topic_36.asp
List of research articles http://www.22shruti.com/research_topics_list.asp
Unfortunately this person uses frequencies and frequency percentages (yuck) a lot in the articles, which makes everything unnecessarily less clear.

A similar approach by Tonalsoft http://www.tonalsoft.com/monzo/indian/indian.aspx

An alternative approach https://en.xen.wiki/w/A_shruti_list


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## bostjan (Dec 23, 2020)

ixlramp said:


> Yes. Because you have to pick a fretting system, the commonly suggested 5-limit JI system i mentioned seems most suitable.
> 
> The one i am referring to is detailed at the '22 Shruti Harmonium' website http://www.22shruti.com/index.asp
> The system http://www.22shruti.com/research_topic_36.asp
> ...



Thanks, I was looking for that wiki article a few weeks ago, but, for some reason, couldn't find it.

I had thought Tolgahan's movable fret systems were very cool, but for something like this, it would be ideal to have 12 notes per octave, but then to have selectable placements for each of those 12 notes (except the root and fifth) to cover the variations. Maybe building on Tolgahan's system of fretlets embedded into slots with rails, the same system could be done but where the slots are constrained between two extreme points. So, if you were to picture Tolgahan's system, the fretlets are like little pieces of fretwire that sit in these slots that go under each string, and a constrained version of that would have discrete slots between two fret positions for certain frets, instead of a continuous slot under each string.

Of course, there is essentially no commercial demand for anything like this, so if it ever exists, it'll be thanks to some hobbyist engineer who wants to play guitar along with his favourite Ravi Shankhar records or similar.

And that's not even considering different tonal centres. Nor how much of a pain it is to make adjustments to the frets between song performances.

My thought was to start with whichever tuning constraints I can gleam off of traditional or classical Indian music, and then further constrain those into a subset to produce a system of tuning that overlaps it enough to play along in some practical situations. I don't know nearly enough about harmonium, but I know that not all of them have shruti levers for each note - some only have a few.

Are there any small-enough EDO's that sound vaguely "Indian?"


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## ixlramp (Dec 26, 2020)

ixlramp said:


> it approximates the JI system many claim Indian Classical music is similar to (2 chains of JI fifths 3:2 with a JI major third 5:4 offset between them).


Uh ... i made a mistake there. The 22 Shruti Harmonium and Tonalsoft JI systems are of course 3 chains of 3/2 fifths offset from each other by 5/4 major thirds. Essentially the familiar 12 tone 5-limit JI tonal lattice extended further out in the 3/2 directions. Personally this is the system i would choose to start from, the Xen Wiki suggestion is more complex and messier and has less citation.

In case you do not have these bookmarked, Matthew Grasso has some acoustic JI Raga guitars:
https://www.matthewgrasso.com/guitars.php


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## ixlramp (Dec 30, 2020)

The Tantrakari Guitar has a better designed fretboard that illustrates what i came here to post:
For JI tonal systems, tuning the open strings in alternating fifths and fourths (for example CGCGCG) does the following:

* It simplifies the fret layout.
* It minimises the number of full-width frets, if only using full-width frets.
* If also using partial frets it minimises the number of those needed too.

You can see the fret layout simplicity compared to his original 7 string Raga Guitar which seems to use standard tuning.
Conveniently, many Indian Classical stringed instruments use alternating fifths and fourths or something very close.


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## bostjan (Jul 22, 2021)

Just snagged a 14edo Yamaha Pacifica. Might take a while to figure out the tuning. I'll post pics if anyone is curious.


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## Winspear (Jul 23, 2021)

bostjan said:


> Just snagged a 14edo Yamaha Pacifica. Might take a while to figure out the tuning. I'll post pics if anyone is curious.


Nice! How about tune it in 28edo 5/4s?


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## ixlramp (Jul 24, 2021)

14EDO has a reputation for being weird.
Here's a classic 14EDO guitar/bass track:


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## bostjan (Jul 24, 2021)

Is that Ocean Tardigrade?

I'm digging 14edo. It sounds either arabic or totally funky or just plain out of tune. Defintely doesn't feel like too many notes after spending years doing 19edo and a little 24edo before that.


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## ixlramp (Jul 29, 2021)

bostjan said:


> Is that Ocean Tardigrade?


I cannot be bothered to check, but that seems to be an alias he uses for Facebook.

Also, here is an album of 7EDO/14EDO i like http://split-notes.com/knowsur-nana-wodori/


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