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Topic: Tunings other than Equal Temperament (Read 8005 times) previous topic - next topic

Tunings other than Equal Temperament

Does anyone know of any NWC files that use tunings other than Equal Temperament (Marpurg, Kirnberger, Pythagorean, etc.)?
I've searched the Forum and the Scriptorium, but my search skills must be somewhat lacking...

TIA

Re: Tunings other than Equal Temperament

Reply #1 –
This is a shot-in-the-dark, but I think some of the Turkish music is noted in non-western scales.  Look for things by E. iNANÇ.

Re: Tunings other than Equal Temperament

Reply #2 –
I'm looking for Western music.  Need to demonstrate, say, a Bach fugue (or some pre-Bach work) with a temperament other than Equal.  I'm hoping to find something with "the wrong tuning" that I could then "fix" [no, I'm not prejudiced against unequal temperament...] so that the students can hear the difference.  If the school had more pianos and more money, I could get my piano tuner to give me three (or more) different tunings, but alas, education doesn't receive enough government funding...

Re: Tunings other than Equal Temperament

Reply #3 –
Have you tried Andrew Purdam's user tool to implement temperaments other than ET? I haven't tried it myself, but it looks as though it might be what you're looking for. In the Scripto at

http://nwc-scriptorium.org/nwc2scripts_temper.html

Cheers,

Bill

Re: Tunings other than Equal Temperament

Reply #4 –
Kevin:

What soundcard do you use?
It is sometimes possible to adjust the pitch of each of the 12 tones.
Here is a list of cards capable of microtuning.
http://www.microtonal-synthesis.com/micro_af.html

You might also find this page useful:-
http://www.xs4all.nl/~huygensf/scala/
I haven't tried the software so I dont know if it works with NWC playback.
On the page there are links to information on various tunings.

Synthfont also provides the option to retune each of the 12 tones.
Click on the Options button near the playback buttons.
Many microtonal scale variations preset.
(This is probably the easiest method).

Barry Graham
Melbourne, Australia

Re: Tunings other than Equal Temperament

Reply #5 –
Quote
What soundcard do you use?
At home, Audigy SE (but I don't know what I'll have at school).
Although I don't see it on list of cards capable of microtuning, I can do all sorts of pitch changes.
Quote
Synthfont also provides the option to retune each of the 12 tones.
Will this make it portable (meaning can I play it on any of the computers at school [that we can't make changes to])?

Re: Tunings other than Equal Temperament

Reply #6 –
Quote from: K.A.T. –
(Synthfont)
Will this make it portable (meaning can I play iy on any of the computers at school [that we can't make changes to])?

Not unless you can install Synthfont...
I plays 'Bones, crumpets, coronets, floosgals, youfonymums 'n tubies.

Re: Tunings other than Equal Temperament

Reply #7 –
I know it's only Western music you're looking for, but I am building quite a collection of Byzantine music that I am auto-magically (thanks to NoteWorthy version 2) transcribing from Byzantine psaltiki notation to Western notation. Almost all tunes require bent pitches, some requiring six or seven staves to implement this. These melodies sound wrong (and certainly not "Eastern"), if they are played with Western tuning. Let me know if you need any samples.

Re: Tunings other than Equal Temperament

Reply #8 –
Kevin said:

Quote
Will this make it portable (meaning can I play it on any of the computers at school [that we can't make changes to])?

No but you can save to an mp3 file (selectable bitrate) in Synthfont and save the file(s) to CD.

Re: Tunings other than Equal Temperament

Reply #9 –
Quote from: matta –
[...] I am building quite a collection of Byzantine music [...] Almost all tunes require bent pitches, some requiring six or seven staves to implement this. These melodies sound wrong (and certainly not "Eastern"), if they are played with Western tuning.

You may be quite interested in Ertuğrul İnanç's Turkish Music on the Scripto.  Of course, you could submit your collection of Byzantine music to the scripto, I'm sure it would be welcome... :-)

Re: Tunings other than Equal Temperament

Reply #10 –
Perhaps you can get your hands on a Yamaha keyboard. I know that mine can be set to 6 or 7 different preset tunings including Pythagorean, Arabic, Werkmeister, Kirnberger, Pure major and minor... although I am not familiar with any music that requires these.

Re: Tunings other than Equal Temperament

Reply #11 –
Well, thanks for all of the suggestions.
None of them work for my current situation though (it's complicated...).
I'll just have to retune a few files myself (if I can get them done in time).
Quote
...mine can be set to 6 or 7 different preset tunings...
Boy, that would be nice for some of my other situations...

Re: Tunings other than Equal Temperament

Reply #12 –
This isn't an answer to your problem, but it seemed like the best place to post this as it is related.

I just found the following site:

http://www.io.com/~hmiller/music/warped-canon.html

It has the Pachelbel canon as midi files in every tuning you can think of, plus others that you never would.

Enjoy?

PS: Looking around I found that nTET (e.g. 12TET) = n-tone equal temperament (12 tone being a diatonic scale).  Perhaps known to most, but not to me.

Re: Tunings other than Equal Temperament

Reply #13 –
Wow, that's pretty cool, thanks!
As you said, it isn't an answer to my problem, but we're gettin' close.

Re: Tunings other than Equal Temperament

Reply #14 –
John Sankey recorded the complete keyboard works of Bach, Scarlatti and Byrd as MIDI files with period tunings.  They can be downloaded as ZIP archives at:
http://www.sankey.ws/harpsichord.html

He used a scheme in which each of the 12 tones in an octave were on a separate MIDI channel with the appropriate microtonal adjustments for (I think) just intonation or perhaps mean-tone temperment.  He recorded them on a Kawai keyboard and them remapped each pitch accordingly, so that all the Cs in all octaves mapped to their own channel, all the C#s to another channel, and so on.  Probably capturing the MIDI setup data with MIDI-OX would reveal the tuning immediately, if that's the period tuning you're after.

Re: Tunings other than Equal Temperament

Reply #15 –
That's pretty cool, too.  Thanks.
This might be an answer to my problem, or at least it's close.
There's a lot of stuff to sort through...