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Non-Western sounds

Hello,
I have just started taking  a class in Byzantine music and I was wandering if there is any way I could use noteworthy composer for practice. I suppose I 'd have to change the note pitches and I have no idea to what values I should do that.
Perhaps you could suggest some info on the web or any ideas?

Thank you.

Re: Non-Western sounds

Reply #1 –
Enter a search in Composer>Forum|Recent|Search|etc. above.
Search "microtone" and "eastern tone system"
You may find something of interest there.

Barry Graham
Top Brass Events Band
Melbourne, Australia

Re: Non-Western sounds

Reply #2 –
Hi CupLass,

I'm also learning Byzantine Chant, and I've also been trying to figure out if there's a way for NWC to help me develop my ear for this non-equal-temperament music.

I've tried the search Barry suggested, and looked through the discussions.  They were heavy on music theory, but light on (what I learned in the Navy to call) "knob-ology": which buttons to push, when, to get what.

So I've done some more digging, and some experimenting.

At this point, the most promising tool seems to be Pitch Bend. This is a feature in the Multi-Point Controller.  You can access the MPC in any of three ways:

- From the menu bar, via Insert/MPC,

- From right-clicking in the staff, then selecting "MIDI Control/MPC", or

- From pressing the key L or l (upper or lower case).

The popup window lets you select the "controller" (upper left), which probably starts out at "tempo". Move it to "pitch bend", and away you go.

Now then, pitch bend has a range of -8192 to +8192; initial setting is zero.  From experimentation tonight, I've found that the extreme settings seem to alter the pitch a Western whole tone.  This is presumably equivalent to 12/72 "moira" or mini-steps in today's Byzantine system.  Halfway up (-/+ 4086) sounds like a Western semitone.

I suppose we could adjust a pitch more precisely to match the Byzantine scale's pitch by taking the appropriate ratio. That is, if 0-8192 in Pitch settings = 0-72 in "moira", then the "10 moira" interval found in the Byzantine diatonic scale would appear to be 5/6 of 8192, or 6827.

Put another way, the second note in the interval would fall short of the "whole tone" interval by 1/6 of 8192, or by -1365.

One complication is that this change continues with subsequent notes unless modified. In effect, it transposes the pitch of all subsequent notes by that amount, unless the pitch bend is modified.

So you'd have to be very careful about it.  (And btw the screen display shows "{mpc pitch}", but doesn't show the value ... so you wouldn't know the "pitch bend" state of play just by looking at the screen.)

I haven't gone very far with this, but this *is* as far as I have gotten.

(Mr) Dana Netherton
dana 1 netherton 2 net, where 1 = the usual, and 2 = the other usual  :-)

Re: Non-Western sounds

Reply #3 –
-
Hello,

Nice to see I'm not the only "pitch-bend guy" in the NWC Community. ;)

Yes, you should use pitch-bend controllers for each note. A patience-consuming work but worth the results. :) In order to determine which values to use, you need two things:

  • Theorical knowledge about the necessary tone frequencies or cents values about the music you're working on;
  • A program to help you calculate the necessary pitch-bend values.
Taking the first condition a priori, let me attempt to help you with the second. I know of two great programs which can be used exactly for that purpose:

  • Scala by Manuel Op de Coul, which is considered the industry standard;
  • MIDI Tempering Utilities by Fred Nachbaur. Much simpler and more intelligible than Scala. I used it for completing a massive scene music. :)
Not to mention both programs are freeware!

Hth,
Ertugrul
_

Re: Non-Western sounds

Reply #4 –
Ertugrul,

Good to see you! I looked over your earlier threads/conversations with great interest. (With little comprehension and understanding, but with great interest!)

I'll be honest: I don't know more than the barest basics of the theory of the frequencies of scales and intervals.  All I really know about the scales I'm trying to use is that they belong to the "standard" set of Byzantine scales, as defined in 1888: 72 equal "moira" or mini-intervals to the octave, with various practical intervals defined in terms of groups of these 72nds of an octave: 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 20, and so forth. :-)

How that might translate to tone frequencies or cents values, I'm not altogether sure.  But I'm guessing that I can get approximately equivalent info by taking "12/72" as the Western "whole tone" interval, which seems to be the span of my (unmodified from its default values) pitch bend controller in NWC.

So if I want a note to be, say, 10/72 above the previous note instead of the Western 12/72 above it, I'm supposing that I should "pitch bend" that second note to be 2/12 lower than it would be if not modified.  Which is to say, it should be set at -(1/6)*8192, or -1365.333.

Thus it would *seem* to be pocket-calculator stuff, not requiring additional software. (Though I have downloaded Fred Nachbaur's package and am not quite halfway through downloading Scala -- thanks for the recommendations!)

Does that approach seem sensible to you, or am I making this far too simple (and therefore probably getting it wrong)?

(Mr) Dana Netherton
dana 1 netherton 2 net, where 1 = the usual, and 2 = the other usual :-)

Re: Non-Western sounds

Reply #5 –
Yes, Dana, equal-tempered scales that contain a multiple (or submultiple) of 12 tones are relatively straight-forward, and "pocket calculator stuff" as you put it. (Where it gets trickier is when arbitrary absolute ratios are involved.)

So you're right, if you have a 72-tET (72-tone Equal Tempered) scale, it would have six equally spaced notes for each of the 12-tET tones. I think your analysis is correct, but a little off in the implementation. Each group of six 72-tET tones would correspond to one 12-tET tone, with appropriate pitch-bends:

1 = A PB=0
2 = A PB=+683 ( = 1/6 of 4096)
3 = A PB=+1365 ( = 2/6 of 4096)
4 = A PB=+2048 ( ... etc.)
5 = A PB=+2731
6 = A PB=+3413
7 = A# PB=0
8 = A# PB=+683
...etc.

(Note that only integer values are possible, since it's represented by a 14-bit number.)

There are other ways of implementing it, for instance you could use the whole range of the pitch-bend parameter (four 12-tET semitones) such that you only actually use three 12-tET notes (for example, B, D#, and G) each of which can be pitch-bent to a group of 24 of the 72-tET notes.

But I suspect the formula given first would be more practical.

Cheers,
Fred

Re: Non-Western sounds

Reply #6 –
Thanks, Fred, glad to hear encouragement from still more voices. :-)

FYI, in this specific context -- namely, Byzantine Chant as sung in Greek Orthodox, Antiochian Orthodox, and some balkan Orthodox churches today -- the 12 "moira" or mini-intervals that are found in the conventional equal-temperament tone or basic interval, and the 6 moira in the conventional semi-tone, are not used as separate and individual notes. (I'm aware of no Byz Chant scale that uses an interval of one moira between notes.)

Instead, the moira are used like, say, Lego blocks.  Nobody does anything with one Lego block; everyone combines Lego blocks to make something meaningful/interesting.

Likewise, in Byz chant scales the moira are *combined* to make intervals.  The scales I'm aware of have intervals of 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, and 20 moira.

The 6 & 12-moira intervals are no-brainers, of course; they correspond exactly to the equal-temperament semi-tones and whole-tones.

ISTM that all the other intervals can be handled (in terms of Noteworthy notation) as deviations from a conventional note by 2 moira, plus-or-minus.

For example, starting at C:

- 4-moira interval = Db minus 2 moira
- 8-moira interval = Db plus 2 moira
- 10-moira interval = D-natural minus 2 moira
- 14-moira interval = D-natural plus 2 moira
- 20-moira interval = D# (3 semi-tones) plus 2 moira

I have discovered that this simplifies the arithmetic enormously! (Because I only need to remember one value, the value closest to +/- 1365 that Noteworthy will let me enter).

Yes, you're right, if I wanted to I could just "bend" several of these pitches onto the same note (say, starting with D-natural and going from considerably below it to considerably above it, using multiples of 1365).

But it seems reasonable to allow the musician to watch changes in the notated pitches, while the audible pitches are going through their changes!  :-)

BTW I downloaded and used your Harmonic Analyzer yesterday (http://www.dogstar.dantimax.dk/midiutil/index.htm , for any lurkers who might want to check it out). Neat stuff!  Esp when using The Scala's exhaustive list of scales (at http://www.xs4all.nl/~huygensf/doc/scales.zip , ditto).

I found what look to be several Byz Chant scales in that list: the ones beginning with the name "Savas".  I used them (and Harmonic Analyzer) to cross-check the guesses I had put into a draft NWC document ... and was able to correct some things in it.

FYI, I can see using HA to mass-produce pitch adjustments in the MIDI file of a song that uses one scale exclusively throughout.  Notate it in NWC, bang out a MIDI, bang it through HA (using the selected scale adjustment), and you've got the aural version ... no tedious note-by-note pitch-blend adjustments.  Cool.

Not so simple for songs that change between scales *within the song* (and some do).  For those, perhaps there's no substitute for the brute-force all-manual method.  If so, ah well.  If there is another alternative ... I'd be listening.  :-)

Again, thanks Fred and Ertugrul for weighing in.

CupLass, do you feel that this discussion has given you what you need?  Or is there more to go on it, for what you need?

-- Dana Netherton
dana 1 netherton 2 net, where 1 = the usual, and 2 = the other usual :-)

Re: Non-Western sounds

Reply #7 –
Not so simple for songs that change between scales *within the song* [and some do]. For those, perhaps there's no substitute for the brute-force all-manual method. If so, ah well. If there is another alternative ... I'd be listening.

Yes, there is another approach. Create, export to midi, and temper the two (or more) sections independantly, then string 'em together either using a sequencer (Cubase, Cakewalk, Massiva etc.) or other utility. One such is "midicat.exe", a freeware DOS utility available here

Re: Non-Western sounds

Reply #8 –
Hmm ... let me see if I have the process straight. Suppose I have a song whose scales change in an A-B-A pattern. ?The steps would be?:

1. Create the three sections in NWC, as three files. Use each file to create a separate MIDI file (3 MIDI files).

2. If necessary, use HA to temper the scales in the first and last sections (files) to "A".  Produce new MIDI files reflecting the changes.

3. If necessary, use HA to temper the scale in the middle section to "B". Produce a new MIDI file reflecting the changes.

4. Then use a sequencer to string the new MIDI files together.

Do I have this right?

-- Dana Netherton
dana 1 netherton 2 net, where 1 = the usual, and 2 = the other usual :-)

Re: Non-Western sounds

Reply #9 –
-
I've come up with several different implementations of Byzantine Chant. One of them was 30 "tonoi" per octave. I gathered some quick-and-dirty 4-part sentences, with no relation to the Orthodox practice in melody/rhythm/form etc. and they sounded OK to me.

Practically, every music in the near eastern/mediterranean area sound -almost- the same concerning the intervals and melodic structure. However, you can come up with hundreds of different, and even contradicting (with each other as well as the practice) theories.

Anyway... I'd be glad to cooperate in Byzantine music (or else), if you're idle:

ertugrulinanc at ixir dot com :)
_

Re: Non-Western sounds

Reply #10 –
(Dana wrote: Hmm ... let me see if I have the process straight.)

Yup. That's the gist of it.

If you get clever, you can do other weird things if you have a sequencer (or don't mind manipulating text versions of midi files). For instance, you can temper a piano according to one temperament (using pianotun.exe for its chordal support, using up 12 of the available midi tracks) then combine up to three single-instrument tracks tempered to a *different* temperament by miditemp.exe (plus optional drum track). This is sort of a "parallel concetenation" as opposed to the "serial concatenation" described above for your project.

An example of such a parallel concatenation is our song My Best Friend. (Note that you have to download the midi version to hear the tempering).

Re: Non-Western sounds

Reply #12 –
Yeah, I suppose I should update that one of these years.

Meanwhile, Google is your friend. ;-)

Re: Non-Western sounds

Reply #13 –
I'm guessing that Mederic was referring to the PDF format thing...

I like your site, Fred, and Caverns is cool!

Re: Non-Western sounds

Reply #14 –
Fred,

Thanks for the confirmation. My first impression, actually, is that it might be overkill for my applications, which tend to be song-verses not sonata movements. :-)

But I'll keep it in my hip pocket, in case it turns out to be The Ticket.

Ertugrul,

I'm new to Byzantine chant (only 2 years, so far), and I'm also born and music-trained in the U.S., so my ear (as I'm painfully aware) has a lot of "training" to go before it will be able to help my voice reproduce the "sound" of the cantors in Greece.

I would agree with your "nearly all of them sound alike" comment WRT the various "musics" in the Eastern Med region.  Certainly to my (still) Western ear, Greek cantors sometimes sound a lot like Arab night club singers!  I sometimes think that the key point there might not be so much "tonality" or scales, but rather in vocal quality.  No, not "quality" as in "good or bad", but "quality" as in the "sound" they are trying to present.

Western "artistic" singers (with the exception of jazz etc) have generally tried to produce a smooth "sound" or vocal quality, with a generally pure, even tone. This is especially true for operatic singers: I remember hearing an album of opera and "art" songs by Barbra Streisand some years ago, and noticing that her voice had far more vibrato than one expects in that genre.  (The vibrato worked well in her usual music, just not-so-well here.)

Not so, it seems, in the Eastern Med!  What I would call a sustained tone seems very different from what I hear in recordings of Greek cantors who are singing music I'm reading (in their specialized Byzantine notation)!

All of which is a different kind of thing, of course, from how many "moira" or "tonoi" "should" be in an octave, and how many of each should be in each interval in a scale.

Now that I think I have the gist of this down, my next step is going to be to temper and then put a few fairly well-known pieces (in that repertoire) on a web site, suitable for listening-to, and invite some cantors I know to listen and critique.

That may require a round tuit or two (For the non-native English speakers, that's as in, "I'll get a round tuit" (say it aloud)) before it actually happens.  But I look forward to finding out what happens.

Because, Ertugrul, what you said about having lots of (mutually contradictory) theories that explain what might be basically the same "sound" matches comments I've heard elsewhere.  So I'm looking forward to finding out whether this fairly mechanical cranking-out of the sounds that would be produced by one of the theories actually produces a "sound" that these music-experienced (but computer-music-inexperienced) cantors would recognize!

Thanks for the offer on cooperating.  Despite the name of our music-software-of-choice here, I'm not doing any composing ... just trying to understand the music I'm being given!  I do appreciate your and Fred's help in "bending" NWC to fit non-Western scales. :-)

Yours,

Dana Netherton
dana 1 netherton 2 net, where 1 = the usual, and 2 = the other usual :-)

Re: Non-Western sounds

Reply #15 –
-
Hi again Dana!

All I could humbly suggest is listening, listening and again listening.

Although I said (and you confirmed) that all near-eastern/mediterranean musics sound alike, there are still "nuances" between various types, some of which dating back to the medieval ages. Let me note that, Greek Orthodox chant sounds much similar to Turkish classical music or religious chant, than -say- Egyptian music or even some styles of Greek folk music. So, you have more sources to familiarize and compare.

Btw, I'm trying to establish some contacts here, in the chambers of the Ecumenical Patriarchate (hint! ;)). You don't have to be composing for cooperation, if you're eager of course! :)

Best,
Ertugrul
_

Re: Non-Western sounds

Reply #16 –
Ertugrul,

Yes, listening ... and patience ... are key.  (Which is one reason why I got interested in using NWC to "temper" scales ... I hope to cobble together one specific thing to listen to.)

As for the rest ... OK, you got my attention.  More to come by e-mail.  :-)

Yours,

Dana

Re: Non-Western sounds

Reply #17 –
BTW, Cuplass --

You said you were "taking a class on Byzantine music" and needed something to help you practice.

That suddenly struck me as odd, in my setting, at least (which is in the USA) -- since most folks I personally know who have learned to sing Byzantine music did so outside the structure of "a class", while most folks I personally know who took classes on it found themselves learning about the history (and paleography) of Byzantine music written (mostly) pre-1453 ... and never sang a note of it.

If you wouldn't mind ... could you tell us a little about your class?  What it's teaching, and perhaps where it's located (which continent, at least!).

Thanks.

Dana
 

Re: Non-Western sounds

Reply #18 –
-
Dana,

Email received. ;)
_