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.
Microtonal music for beginners
- Thread starter bostjan
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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.
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.
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).
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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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.
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
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
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?"
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
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.
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.
Just snagged a 14edo Yamaha Pacifica. Might take a while to figure out the tuning. I'll post pics if anyone is curious.
Winspear
Winspear/Noisemother
Nice! How about tune it in 28edo 5/4s?
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.
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.
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/
