Talk:Microtonal music

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Contents 1 Thelonious Monk 2 Definition of Microtonal 3 Black Flag 4 I'm looking for info on a 59 note bulgarian scale 5 What about jazz? 6 Microtonal software 7 My Vitriol 8 Triamu 9 History 10 original research 11 Kuhnau dates 12 Composer redlinks 13 Copy vio?

[edit] Thelonious Monk

Didn't Thelonious Monk write in quarter-tones?

If he did, I'd love to know about it, because I'm a fan of both Monk and microtones. --Camembert

I think it's in the film Jazz on a Summer's Day that the voice-over (I think) says that Monk hits two notes simultaneously to symbolize the 1/4 tone in between. -- Tarquin

[edit] Definition of Microtonal

Do you think it might be wise to say that using more than 12 notes (i.e. 19, or 31 notes per octave) isn't necessarily microtonal? The reason for this is that the composer would be aiming to get close to the Just intervals. The rest of the notes are effectively 'scrapped' temparily, so it's not exactly 'microtonal' music (where all the notes are given more or less equal priority). Could anyone confirm this? -- Daniel

I know what you mean, but I think that even when people are using 19-eq (or whatever) to get close to just intervals, such music still tends to be called "microtonal" (maybe not by the composers of such music, but by the majority of people). My perception is that the word gets slapped on anything which isn't 12 tone equal temperament, no matter how that tuning is used. That makes the term more or less useless, of course, but still, I think that's how it is used. I may be wrong of course. --Camembert

I'd say that "microtonal music" is an academic term. I don't often see non-Western traditional music called microtonal. I also think just intonation music is increasingly being pulled out from the microtonal herd; microtonal music is a diagnosis of exclusion.jp2 01:40 Feb 23, 2003 (UTC)

You may be right. So what definition of "microtonal" would you give? --Camembert

scale currently reflects some of my bias: microtonal is based on western music and doesn't include stylistic inflection a la blue notes.jp2 02:19 Feb 23, 2003 (UTC)

I think pretty much any deliberate use of intervals outside of 12-TET qualifies as some sort of microtonality. The idea is that you are making distinctions finer than usual. As said above, 19tet allows subtly narrower thirds which sound purer, for instance, but even working with 5-TET would probably be called microtonal. The word is widely used like that. I don't think it's a great usage, but it's the one I've seen. It's a blanket word for "non-western tuning", or whatnot. Unfortunately, the word "micro" seems to suggest smaller intervals as a requirement, but this is not really reflected in its usage. (Just intonation is frequently referred to as microtonal, for instance... perhaps justifiably because it makes finer distinctions about harmony than ET?) - Rainwarrior 19:54, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

A microtone is a small interval, smaller than a semitone. Bach used semitones, but we don't call his music semitonal, or chromatic, or whatever. I compose extended JI, and the majority of intervals I use are significantly wider than a whole tone. Microtones crop up in the voice leading, but are not especially prevalent. People will say what people will say, but micro- means very small, and 969 cents is not very small. I am strongly against using a word inaccurately and calling it academic. That just makes academics less likely to take it seriously. Whole tones can be a variety of intervals, semitones can be a variety of intervals but are smaller than whole tones, and microtones are smaller yet. Why would you call a whole tone a microtone? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Badmuthahubbard (talk • contribs) 21:03, 2 February 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Black Flag

Can someone confirm the material on Black Flag? Can it be referenced to a reliable source? Thank you.

[edit] I'm looking for info on a 59 note bulgarian scale

This article doesn't mention it. Can some expert please fill in?

Perhaps you could tell us where you heard about it, and we could go from there. I've heard Bulgarian music, and seen Bulgarian instruments, but this is the first I've heard of a "59 note scale". 59 notes is kind of unwieldly, and I don't think it could properly be accomodated on their traditional instruments. Perhaps you misunderstood? (Or maybe this is a theoretical distinction I have not heard of.) - Rainwarrior 19:58, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What about jazz?

Would it make more sense to speak of the history of microtonal music in jazz? Jazz (and blues) musicians have rarely actually adhered to the even tempered 12-tone scale, though perhaps much of this wouldn't be considered microtonal if the notes are just bent/adjusted tones from non-microntonal scales/chords. It just seems odd to make this passing reference to the use of microtones in rock and neglect their greater prominence in jazz...

[edit] Microtonal software

I noticed some links to some microtonal music software. I would like to see my freeware program on this list (but I realize it might be inappropriate to add it myself).

• Intun (Win, freeware)

- Rainwarrior 19:43, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] My Vitriol

Tuning down a quarter step does not qualify as microtonal. The tuning is still 12 tone equal temperament, simply because you tune to a different standard than A440 does not qualify as microtonal. It is still quite normal tuning. - Rainwarrior 19:48, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Triamu

I have added the triamu (3mu) to the History section, in relation to Carillo's 1/8 semitone, since it is now a basic and recognized unit in the tuning of MIDI instruments. (Mu is an ancronymn of Midi unit.) Prof.rick 01:17, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I figured I'd duplicate the comment I left for you on my talk page here, since it is relevant to the page:

Well, my opinion on the 3mu is that it is quite an obscure term, and your suggested google search only turns up one page that uses it in the context of tuning. That tonalsoft article, and your mention of it are the only mentions of it I have ever seen. Furthermore, I don't see how it relates to MIDI at all, since the MIDI pitch bend is a 14-bit number usually distributed over 4 semitones, giving some 4096 divisions of the semitone. I don't know where this business of 8 comes from.

I removed the mention of 3MU from the history section since it is not of historical significance. If you can explain how it is notable, maybe there's a place for it elsewhere in the article, but to my knowledge no MIDI hardware maker has any kind of 3MU specification (I'd be glad to be proven wrong). - Rainwarrior 04:49, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] History

This section is oddly sparse. Right now it reads like a mini bio of Carrillo. Why don't we mention Aristoxenus, Ptolemy, Vincenzo Galilei, Johannes Kepler, Giuseppe Tartini, Christiaan Huygens, Marin Mersenne, Nicholas Mercator, Charles Ives, Harry Partch, et cetera et cetera (this very article has a ton of links to bio pages)?? I think we should fill this out a lot more, and we don't need to have so much Carrillo in there, that stuff is covered on his own bio page. What we need is an overview of who did what, an overview of the development. We don't need biographies of these people, we need to discuss how they fit in to the ongoing progress of microtonal music. If I ever get the time, I'll write this, but right now I've got a lot of other things on my to-do list, so this is just a suggestion, in case anyone wants to step up and do it. - Rainwarrior 04:43, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] original research

This article seems to have alot of original research. I noticed in several places wording such as "therefore" and "if we define...".

Also the phrase "severe bias" when referring to this article isn't appropriate. The article should be fixed to remove the bias or explain that it is the common usage of a group of people and that other groups use some other term.-Crunchy Numbers 16:42, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Also there is lots of history and discussion of controversy and terminolgy but its hard to find the substance. I was looking for this article after taking a doumbek class yesterday where the instructor played Arabic music on the spike fiddle while we accompanied. She explained a little about the scale the music was in that included microtones. I was hoping to find something about the scale so I could try it on guitar and other instruments like thumb piano.

Wouldn't it be a good idea to provide at the top definitions and examples of the most common usage of microtones in Arabic and Indian music and push all the controversy to the bottom? If there is another article with the scales listed then sorry about this.-Crunchy Numbers 16:50, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kuhnau dates

He died in 1722. So he can't have written any pieces in the 1730's ... check dates, please. --Tdent 19:57, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Composer redlinks

What is the point of the redlinks to composers? Do we have some source that asserts their notability? (And if we do, why not start a stub at least?) A name and a birth-year isn't useful information, and how do we know the difference between a redlink that is vanity and one that is not? - Rainwarrior 08:42, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Hello Rainwarrior

I understand your problem, but let me explain my point of view first. Then we may see if we can find some agreement.

Why keeping redlinks of composers you seem to doubt the significance?

Of course Redlinks names by themselves are useless…I don’t deny that. But who said I (or anyone else) wanted to keep them red forever?

Why don’t I create a page about them ?

Well, who told you I wasn’t planning it. I was indeed! Do you know who filled the redlinks of composers such as Pascale Criton or Jean-Etienne Marie lately? Me…(btw anyone that can correct my English in those articles is welcome)

So I consider these redlinks are temporally. And they will be filled in time. But I do it when I can.

I really was planning to fill all these red links. I don’t know all of these names but I intended to make some research about them.

As for names such as Matther, Stahnke or Mandelbaum (especially these ones) I can assure you, they are important names. And I have to add Alain Bancquart and Jack Beherens as well.

No offence but I am surprised -if you’re into microtonal music and you’re Canadian- that you never heard of Bruce Matther who is by far one of the most important Canadian microtonal composers along with his disciple Jack Behrens. Because here in Europe these guys are regarded as important composers in the microtonal circle.

Moreover Matther was the disciple of microtonal Pioneer Ivan Wyschnegradsky and he writes music in direct continuation of Wyschnegradsky.

Greetings

Frédérick Duhautpas 12:35, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Btw concerning the link Cris Forster, I noticed there was a Wiki page dedicated to him that has been removed for some reasons...

Frédérick Duhautpas 12:39, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm glad that you're working on filling in missing pages. Can I ask why you think a redlink should be up before the article? Some of these links have been here for months. If the article comes first, notability doesn't become an issue, and there will be no problems with vanity redlinks.

Actually, I have heard of Bruce Mather, but not specifically as a microtonalist. My removal of these redlinks isn't based on whether I've heard of them, or whether I think they are important. I removed them because their notability has yet not been asserted anywhere on Wikipedia. There are cases where redlinks are quite appropriate, such as in the body of a text that indicates its importance, but in a place like this where it's just a list, I don't think they are.

(And as for the Cris Forster page, it existed briefly, twice, and then was deleted. The reason the first time was that Cris himself wrote the page, and the second time I believe it was because of the assumption of sockpuppetry involved in its recreation. Creating that page a third time is not out of the question, though.)

- Rainwarrior 18:49, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Copy vio?

There is a large section of another text inserted at the beginning of the terminology section, with a link to it's source. I can't find any indication that the author of the text gave permission to use it, but it seems to have survived in the article for quite a while. Does anyone know the status of this?

Even if this isn't copyvio, it definately doesn't fit with the style of the rest of the article, and needs some rewriting. --Starwed 12:52, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I'm removing that section, since no one has defended it. If it's actually included with appropriate permissions, please tidy it up a bit before putting it back in. ^_^ --Starwed 04:45, 28 January 2007 (UTC)