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Microtones

Ertrugral has mentioned in this forum about the need for microtone notation to accomodate his needs. After watching a compelling performance of an Indian Violinist, my total ignorance occurred to me:
What does microtonal notation look like?
Why do we in the US ignore it so completely in our education systems? Is it too hard for us?
In college I remember Harry Partch mentioned in passing, but that's about it. What is your (all you fellow forum users) experience on this? Where does one learn more?

Re: Microtones

Reply #1 –
One problem is that different people have different definitions of "microtonal". The composer and pianist Ferruccio Busoni once suggested a scale of third-tones (dividing the octave evenly into 18 notes instead of 12); I have a recording of a string quartet by Lejaren Hiller that divides the octave into 24 quarter tones.

The microtonal notation I've seen most often is specifically adapted to the 24-tone scale, and uses a sharp sign with a single vertical line to mean "1/4 tone sharp" and a sharp sign with three vertical lines to mean "3/4 tones sharp. There are equivalent 1/4 and 3/4 flats as well (IIRC, the 1/4 flat has a little straight tail extending to the left from the top of its vertical, and the 3/4 flat has extends this same tail to the right as well).

For other microtonal systems, I've seen notation that uses little up and down arrows to the left of the note (and accidental, if any). If a number is specified above the arrow, this is the number of cents (100ths of a semitone) by which to sharpen or flatten the note relative to equal temperament; in the absence of a number, 50 cents (a quarter-tone) is assumed.

I don't know of a single reference on microtonal music, though there may well be one.

I hope this helps.

Re: Microtones

Reply #2 –
Dear Art,

It's great to hear that someone else hears my scream. Regarding Harry Partch or Julian Carrillo, it's impossible to write down microtonality in standard notation just implementing additional accidentals since they invented their own systems. I'm ignorant about Partch who developed a 43 tone system but I know that Carrillo, the outstanding Mexican composer, kept standard note durations on a single lined staff and "represented fractions of each tones numerically." (Karolyi, Introducing Modern Music)

If we come back to standard notation, we will see some different or modified accidentals such as flats turned 180 degrees vertically or sharpes with more or less horizontal or vertical lines; arrows or dashes attached to any place of the mark or +/- signs, up/down arrows or some other symbols used with or without the default accidental mark.

In Turkish/Eastern musics (excluding far-eastern, Indian and Byzantine with custom notation systems), notating specific tones has been a problem and, ironically, a matter of challenge as notation itself. Through the history, notation was seldom used just in order to include scales, examples and such things in theoretical works and music was thought orally. That caused a huge repertory to be lost along a millenium! But there have always been some attempts;

Farâbî (Alfarabius; d.930 AD), Safiyyuddîn Urmevî (d. 1391 AD), Abdulkádir Merâgí (1360?-1435 AD; legendary composer, performer, theorist and instrument maker with many books and unfortunately no compositions remaining) had all used “ebced” notation. That’s employing one or more letters of Arabic alphabet for a specific “note” in the tone system. This practice remained for centuries. Kutb Nâyî (“master Ney player”) Osman Dede (1652?-1730) and Kantemiroglu (Dimitri Cantemir, prince of Moldavia under Ottoman suzerainity, 1673-1723) developed different versions of this system and both notated an amountable of pieces of themselves as well as other composers. In a somehow similar fashion, Hamparsum Efendi (Hamparsum Limonciyan, remarkable composer of Turkish classical and Armenian Religious musics, 1768-1839) used letters of traditional Armenian show to notate the notes, durations, repeats, bars and sharps (enharmonics were used instead of flats). His system, which was made by the order of the Sultan Selim III, also an outstanding composer and performer, spread widely and served for two centuries. Armenian religious music is still notated with this system and some musicians still learn it to be able to decipher old manuscripts. I’m planning to learn it as well.

Ali Ufkí (Alberto B.L. Bobowski, 1610?-1675?) was the first musician who used the Western notation system in writing Turkish music. But he remains standalone until the 19th century in wich Western music oficially “entered” Turkish court. In 1828, Sultan Mahmud II (also a composer) apointed Guiseppe Donizetti (1788-1856, elder brother of Gaetano who used to call him “Il Turco”) as conducter and teacher of the royal band “Muzika-i Humâyûn”. Donizetti served until his death and trained numerous musicians, many of whom were talanted in both genres of music. From that time on, Western notation became the standard with its major opponent, Hamparsum system.

Until Rauf Yektâ (1871-1935, composer, theorist and performer) used some special accidentals to notate his unique but accoustically and practically wrong 24 tone system, the pieces were written without any additional marks. Musicians learned them orally and the score was not more than a leading note to remember. (What a fate! I recently notate my pieces in the current NWC just like this.) Rauf Yektâ used a flat with open navel, a flat with a cross dash on top of its stem, a sharp with two horizontal and one vertical lines and a sharp with three vertical and two horizontal dashes.

Hüseyin Saâdeddîn Arel (1880-1955), being a talented lawyer but having too insufficient knowledge in music theory and composition, took this system and brought up to a chaos. He replaced the open naveled and top dashed flats with the backward naveled one and the one with a dash on the middle of the stem. Unfortunately, his accoustically, logically and traditionally wrong tone and notation system has been being taught as the standard.

Composer and musicologist Yalçin Tura, whose 1988 book “Türk Mûsikísinin Mes’eleleri” (Problems of Turkish Music) is a real manifestation on several topics including theory, offered two additional marks to notate the at least a thousand year old traditional 17 tone system: the backward naveled flat and the sharp with one vertical and two horizontal dashes which I’ll call little sharp for -what we may call- diminished semitone. The standard sharp and flat gained their former non-12tet functions with a new interpretation. I currently use this notation that has international references.

Arabic music implements the dashed-stemed flat instead of the backward naveled.

I saw in the score that Özkan Manav (1967, contemporary Turkish composer writing eclectically in modern styles) used a flat with an arrow attached at its bottomside and a sharp with one attached to its top right corner, to notate quartertone glissandi in his “Wanderings - Gezinmeler”.

I observed in the samples of Anthony Cornicello’s doctoral dissertation on Tristan Murail’s “Desintegrations” that Murail, in that work, and Scelsi, in “Quattro Pezzi per Orchestra”, used the backward naveled flat, the little sharp and others.

Turkish folk musicians, although there is no practical or theorical diference with the classical dicipline, use flat 2, flat 3, sharp 6 and sharp 7; with related numbers located outside the top right corners of the standard marks.

Many notation programs, namely Finale, Sibelius, Lime, Melody Assistant and Harmony Assistant include most commonly used microtonal accidentals in their standard package. This was the major gap I found in Noteworthy Composer. Later, I realized two points: First, those “other” programs didn’t include every mark used in microtonal notation, second, Noteworthy’ this and many other gaps could be filled by “third party” support in some conditions.

Later, I started to grab out some marks from several fonts and prepare a font dedicated to accidentals. I hope it will soon be ready for alpha-test. But we need two major and one minor improvement at the “Expression placement” property on NWC side:

1) “Locate as key signature” or “insert custom text expression” into key signature with location options “just before” or “just after” the signature;
2)“Locate just before/just after the key signature”;
3)“Locate just before/just after the next note” (“at next note/bar” or “before all other staff signatures” don’t do)

As a related subject, we can have percussion clef or other seldom used clefs as text expression but we need again the same imprevements, maybe with the addition of “locate as clef signature” or “locate just before/after clef signature” or even “locate between clef and key signatures” or better “input custom text expression” within key signature with “just before/just after” options.

These are my most prior wishes.

Hth.

Ertugrul

Re: Microtones

Reply #3 –
Thanks Grant,

[>]
...different people have different definitions of "microtonal"...
[/]

For instance, Turkish/Midle Eastern music is NOT microtonal. Its additional intervals are wider than a semitone but narrower than a whole tone. But it DOES need microtonal accidentals because those marks mean whole tone minus specific tone.

Some other instances:

Ivan Wychnegradsky (Russian composer, later emigrated to France, pupil of Scriabin) got the 24 tone scale by tuning a piano a quarter tone lower and using it together the "normal" one.

Harry Partch divided the octave into 43 intervals and built a complete theory explained in his book "Genesis of a Music"

Alois Haba used 1/4 and 1/6 intervals and wrote operas. He also built a "non-thematical" style on that tone system.

Mexican pioneer composer Julian Carrillo divided a tone into 1/4, 1/8 and 1/16 tones. He composed symphonies and concertos in this system.

Several distinct composers as Ernst Bloch, Bela Bartok, Karlheinz Stockhausen and others have used microtonality within their music.

Addition to my previous reply:

Turkish composer M. Ekrem Karadeniz divided the octave into 41 "commas and built a system depending on Pythagorean theory and his teacher Abdulkádir Töre (of Eastern Turkistan origin). He unsuccessfully tried to explain Turkish music based upon his system in his book "Türk Mûsikísinin Esaslarý ve Nazariyesi". He naturally used numerous accidentals to notate his system.

Re: Microtones

Reply #4 –
Wow.

Ok, ignoring for the moment the systems unique to individual composers, and largely unused since, let's focus on the scales that have lasting cultural significance, as the Turkish 17 note scale you mentioned, which survives a milennium. What is the structure? You mention a flat 2, for example. Is that a 1/4 tone above 1, or a 1/4 tone below a major 2nd? How can Turkish music not be microtonal if it squeezes 17 notes into 1 octave. Please explain further, if you would.

Re: Microtones

Reply #5 –
By the way, in Joni Mitchell's recording of the song "Paprika Plains" (Album: Don Juan's reckless daughter), the piano is about a quarter tone off from the orchestra. Makes for an interesting dark harmony

Re: Microtones

Reply #6 –
Since there is such a wide range of meaning behind the term "microtones", I thought it safe to comment on an approach I've used: use existing notation, modifying its meaning. For instance, if you wanted a 17-tone equal tempered scale, you could use:

C C# Db D D# Eb E F F# Gb G G# Ab A A# Bb B

Given 7 note names and two accidentals (# or b), this idea could be continued up to scales containing 21 tones per octave. If you also include the double-flat and double-sharp symbols, you have (in principle) enough symbols to do up to 35 tones per octave.

For purposes of intelligibility to others, a "definition" document would of course have to be added to the scores files.

Re: Microtones

Reply #7 –
You can read (if you can and if yon want), the book of
Vincente Mendoza "panorama de la musica traditional de Mexico".(in american language olso )
Microtone = space samaller than half tone .
Julian Carillo, an indian, began his artistic career in the street, as a popular violonist ther, he understook musical studies, first in Mexico, the in Germany, at Leipzig.
Since 1895, he has been composing works in quater, third, eights of tone, for which he made make microtones instruments.
We remind Preludio a Colon for voice and microtones instruments.

Bests Regards
Alain

Re: Microtones

Reply #8 –
Hi all,

Firstly, I must apologize for causing you to wait for the reply. I have been facing a problem when I press the reply button; an error message comes out and I can't reply. Eric kindly mailed me an alternative url so that I can do now.

Fred,

The practice you mention is similar to what Tura offers and I use, contrasting at one point that eg C# is higher than Db in our way. The bacward naveled flatted D is the enharmonic of C# and "little sharped" C of Db. But, for sake of following a more or less common method, I must use special characters.

Alain,

Thanks for the information about Carrillo. "Preludio a Cristobal Colón" is really a good example on his microtonality.

And Art...

Let's at first make a definition of microtonal interval. If it is "an interval smaller than whole tone except semitone" then Turkish tone system is microtonal. But if we say "an interval smaller than semitone" we cannot mention that. Why?

The "special" interval, or maybe "interval class" used in Turkish/Midle Eastern music is smaller than a whole tone but larger than a semitone. It varies approximately from 2/3 to 3/4 tone. The rest, ie 1/4 to 1/3 tone isn't used as is. It's "widened" to "minimum" semitone.

So what is "minimum semitone"?

Actually, the whole thing is about the harmonic series. Have you ever run Fred's Harmonic Analyser? Enter 33 for number of harmonics to be taken into account. What you will get is an equally tempered scale consisting of 17 notes. n harmonics of a fundamental note produces (n+1)/2 pitches. Turkish tone system consists of 17 intervals and those are produced by 33 harmonics. So, the smallest melodic interval to be used within this system is 33/32.

I hope I will soon prepare an article on this issue including some examples, NWC's and comprehensive diagrams. I'm afraid those accoustical stuff is not so clear for most of us, so I'll include some basic information on harmonic (overtone/subtone) series, interval ratios and scale formation.

I'm going to announce both here and at the newsgroup.

Best Regards,
Ertugrul

Re: Microtones

Reply #9 –
John Starret's Microtonal Music site with plenty of links:

http://www-math.cudenver.edu/~jstarret/microtone.html

and some others:

http://www.harmonics.com/lucy/
http://www.bikexprt.com/music/
http://www.panix.com/~ro/tuning/tuning.html
http://www.tiac.net/users/xen/xh/

By the way, let me announce a really qualified website on Turkish music, including articles about Turkish tone system, notation and theory besides useful information on composers, compositions, recordings as well as free downloadable scores:

http://www.turkmusikisi.com

Unfortunately, they're only in Turkish. But those of you who are interested can request an English version by mailing to alitutan@turkmusikisi.com as I have already done.

Oh, this doesn't mean that I won't keep my promise; I will prepare the article I mentioned.

Re: Microtones

Reply #10 –
Just in case people here aren't aware of it, I thought you might like to learn of Graham Breed's microtonal website, at http://www.cix.co.uk/~gbreed/

It's a mine of information, not just on weird 12-tone temperaments. On some of the links you can actually listen to some MIDI tracks composed using microtones. Very interesting.

Jeremy

Re: Microtones

Reply #11 –
Thanks to all. This has been a great thread. Ertugrul, thanks for your postings, which flow like poetry.

Re: Microtones

Reply #12 –
My thanks too to Ertugrul for raising the issue and for his learned exposition of the use of microtonic intervals (more accurately, of intervals expanded by microtonic degrees) and of notation systems in the Near East. I want to expand the discussion briefly--I am writing from memory and cannot cite sources, so that's all I can do at this point.

There is a set of modified sharps and flats used by Iranian musicians to designate the intervals they use.

In India, it is customary to divide the octave into twenty-two, rather than twenty-four, intervals. (I believe Mieczyslaw Kolinski wrote an article on this).

Byzantine chant also makes use of such intervals, and divides its scales into three groups: "diatonic" (employing whole- and half-tone intervals similar to those of Western music), "chromatic" (employing augmented seconds), and "enharmonic" (employing microtones). In the nineteenth century, a commission of the Greek Church divided the octave into sixy-eight parts; a revision of this system went to seventy-two. All authorities agree that the psalts do not actually observe these extremely fine intervals, and in practice an octave of twenty-four intervals (or twenty-two, as proposed by the Romanian cantor Anton Pann, apparently with no influence from India) would be adequate to notate the chant on the staff. Since this chant continues to employ neumes, there is no official system for transcribing it to the staff.

There are a number of items that have been proposed on the wish list that seem to me to need support: some form of microtonic notation--is there a consensus that quarter-tone signs would suffice?; a reciting note for psalm tones and the like; and shape note, both four- and seven- shape. Let's bug the honchos of NoteWorthy until they add these.

Stephen R.

Re: Microtones

Reply #13 –
Apart from the notation, does someone know if there is a solution for « sounding » a score with microtonal intervals ?

As far as I know, even with a pitch bend, it is impossible to have a chord with two notes in the same channel, if both notes do not belong to the same tempered scale. This means you should use one channel for each pitch, which limits to 15 different pitches (one channel is reserved for drums).

Re: Microtones

Reply #14 –
I don't think the situation is this dire. If you're using exact quarter-tones, it should be possible to produce any possible chord using just 2 tracks. Just bend 1 track upwards or downwards by a quarter tone and leave the other one alone.

Re: Microtones

Reply #15 –
> If you're using exact quarter-tones, it should be possible
> to produce any possible chord using just 2 tracks.

You are absolutely right. But which of the existing microtonic scales would content with exact quarter-tones ?

Re: Microtones

Reply #16 –
Well, the 24-note equal temperament scale, for one (used e.g. by Lejaren Hiller and Ivan Wychnegradsky, mentioned above), not to mention the short plunges into microtonality by composers like Bloch and Bartók. Some of Haba's music, I believe, was in strict quarter-tones as well. In addition, one of the historically attested tunings of the ancient Greek "enharmonic" genus was very close to modern quarter-tones.

Stephen R. suggests above that Byzantine chant can in practice be adequately notated by a 24-note scale. I'd also be interested in finding out more about the 22-note Indian scale Stephen mentions. Depending on how the division is done, might not a 24-pitch scale be adequately close? (I wonder what the average pitch discrimination really is of a listener raised in the Western European musical tradition.)

Re: Microtones

Reply #17 –
Stephen wrote:

<>
There is a set of modified sharps and flats used by Iranian musicians to designate the intervals they use.
</>

I've just provided a copy of a Iran Santur method and I could observe their way of explaining the tone system as well as their notation. They pragmatically divide the tone into four "strict" quartertones and use a special flat and a special sharp for the interval (I'll include the notation in the article as well as in the font). This workaround doesn't cover the theoretical tone system but brings out an easy way in learning the music. And I must admit that it's much more better than the current "official" Turkish "explanation"

<>
There are a number of items that have been proposed on the wish list that seem to me to need support: some form of microtonic notation--is there a consensus that quarter-tone signs would suffice?; a reciting note for psalm tones and the like; and shape note, both four- and seven- shape. Let's bug the honchos of NoteWorthy until they add these.

</>

I suggest you re-read my previous replies. I'm insistent that if sufficient text editing/placing options are provided, we can supply not only microtonic notation, but almost whatever we need/want with user fonts.

Robert Allgeyer's drum notation font is, imo, a genious approach as it brings up the usage of lyric lines, avoiding the necessity of a secondary layered staff.

Olivier wrote:

<>
Apart from the notation, does someone know if there is a solution for " sounding " a score with microtonal intervals ?

As far as I know, even with a pitch bend, it is impossible to have a chord with two notes in the same channel, if both notes do not belong to the same tempered scale. This means you should use one channel for each pitch, which limits to 15 different pitches (one channel is reserved for drums).
</>

Download Fred's marvellous midi tempering tools. I made a whole dramatical music sequence with their help.

On the other hand, if you have more than one midi port (eg SB Live! offers three), you probably wouldn't run out of channels. (I currently have 5 available midi ports, 4 of whom simultaneously)

Re: Microtones

Reply #18 –
Some words about Byzantine Music:

As it survived till today, it's not practically different -in intervals and genera- than the mentioned Middle/Eastern system. Going further, I can say that it's almost the same -except for unique melodical patterns- with Ottoman/Turkish classical art music. Now I can hear nationalistic objections from both some Turks and Greeks, even hopelessly claiming each one derived from the other, but this is nonsense for both situations. One can -particularly correctly- comment that this is caused of living together for 6 centuries but we have theoretical works surviving from the 10th century, that unites the entire system of near east with as far as Ancient Greeks.

Byzantine Liturgy has a unique notation. There has been also several approaches on explaining the tone system. All of those are, as mentione above for Arabic, Persian and Turkish systems, pragmatical. ne of the most popular ones is the "tonos" division, in which the octave is divided into 30 equal parts and each specific interval consists of a certain number of "tonos"'s.

I had wrote some studies in this fashion. None of them is Byzantine chant but the intervals are tempered according to the "Tonos" system.

They're available in my "List of Works" page: (the midifiles are tempered)

http://ertugrulinanc.8m.com/compositions.html

Warning: The host doesn't let NWC files to be executed. You'll need to download them.

Re: Microtones

Reply #24 –
hi folks! just found this website.

you are all touching on some very interesting issues but so far most of your questions remain unanswered. the surface has been scratched, but that is all.

i could go through everything that has been posted here and point out all the errors, but i've found that this leads people to misconstrue my personality . . . so . . .

i suggest that you all pose your questions to the Tuning List, with almost 600 members and dozens of active experts.

i guarantee that all these issues will be addressed in much greater depth and accuracy.

please join the group by sending an e-mail to

tuning-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

or just go to

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tuning

i hope i will be hearing from many of you there!