At 09:12 AM 1/7/2005, Timothy Larkin wrote:
>There is a limit ... on how many different notes (that is, pitches with=20
>musical significance) an octave can have. "Quarter tones appear to be=20
>about the limit. Scales of twenty-four steps are found in the Middle East
This seems to assume that those twenty-four pitches are equidistant. They=
=20
aren't. Turkish musicians who perform the Ottoman classical repertoire=20
recognize about twenty-four pitches, each with a distinctive name. Many=20
form distinctive intervals.
A "quarter-tone" limit? One quarter of a tempered whole tone is 50=20
cents. Only 29 cents (approx. 1/8 tone; ) separates pitch Seg=E2h from=
pitch=20
Puselik in Ottoman music, for example. And pitch Segah varies according to=
=20
the music context, sometimes it's lower and sometimes it slides down=20
towards the next pitch in the scale. Listen:
http://shakucamp.com/papers/karl/index.htm
About 272 cents (between 1-1/8 and 1-1/4 tones) separate another common=20
interval in Ottoman music. This rich intervallic palette is more=20
sophisticated and varied than music using Western tempered=20
intervals. Pitch placement is remarkably accurate: the finest Turkish=20
performers are consistent to within 1-3 cents. One could make similar=20
observations about the sophisticated tuning of the Javanese court gamelan.
Different schools disagree on the exact placement of some notes in Turkey=20
and in Java, just as shakuhachi teachers may play tsu-meri differently in=20
different guilds, in different melodic contexts, in different repertoire,=20
or when accompanying gaikyoku as opposed to honkyoku. As I mentioned=20
earlier on this list, Yokoyama sometimes plays tsu-meri with a constantly=20
changing pitch:
http://userpages.umbc.edu/~signell/take/
>... traditional notation doesn't support 72 notes per octave, which=20
>suggests that the composers and teachers of shakuhachi music did not feel=
=20
>a need for a notation which would discriminate more than about a dozen=20
>notes per octave.
I'm quite happy to accept Koga's recognition of 72 notes per octave. If=20
another master counts 63, that's also fine by me. The bottom line for me is=
=20
to listen carefully for different pitches and different colors and dynamics=
=20
in specific musical circumstances and don't try to fit them into a rigid=20
system.
Karl
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