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Author Topic:  Microtuned Music
Bill Terry


From:
Bastrop, TX
Post  Posted 10 Feb 2017 7:02 am    
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I was reading another thread about PSG tuning; the same discussions about what works and why, lots of of numbers, etc. Of course there is no absolute right way to tune IMO, what works for me may not work for you; in fact based on the instrumentation, what works for me with Band A, may not work so well with Band B, at least in my experience.

One of the concepts discussed is the idea that the 12 tone chromatic scale that we have adopted for western music, is nothing more than a convention. And what's 'in tune' can be subjective (I've played with some musicians who definitely have their own notion of what's in tune. Smile)

In fact there is a lot of activity among certain musical communities to expand and explore the ideas of microtuning, or more than 12 tones per octave. I have to say, I'm not sure this is my cup of tea, but it IS interesting. I found this particular video a while back, and the thing I thought was interesting was the idea that this was intended to embrace the basic 12 tone scale as the essential element of the song, while introducing the concept of pitch continuum as color. In other words, not into the deep end all at once.

The second link at the bottom is more hardcore (out of tune? Whoa!)

Pretty interesting to me, although the distinction between 'music' and 'sounds' could be a bit hazy IMO. Will this be what music sounds like in 2070?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8re6rFj7q10

About this song, in the song writers own words (excerpts) Note especially 106 pitches per octave:
Quote:

A musical journey toward hearing and expressing an undivided pitch Continuum. An immensity of auditory 'colors', conventionally condensed into 12 coarse pitch gradations of our black and white, chromatic language.

This is a polychromatic composition utilizing 106 pitches per octave. A 'bridge' composition intended to expand aural perception and awareness of microtonal pitch 'color' and harmony within a quasi-conventional musical context.

A composition presented with the hope of expanding the traditional (absolute) conception of fixed pitch/intervals in music toward awareness of an undivided continuum of (relative) spectral pitch 'colors' and interrelationships.

... as an awareness of the infinite potential varieties of 'red' would be to a visual artist, both in isolation and within the context of the surrounding colors and illumination.


A more 'adventurous' microtuned composition:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9T7Q3QxqZCg
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John Macy

 

From:
Rockport TX/Denver CO
Post  Posted 27 Feb 2017 3:04 pm    
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So is that micro tuning or bad intonation...? Smile
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Bill Terry


From:
Bastrop, TX
Post  Posted 27 Feb 2017 3:58 pm    
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Yes Smile
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Charlie McDonald


From:
out of the blue
Post  Posted 28 Feb 2017 10:31 am    
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The second link was not as bad as expected. Very slightly changing keys (?) produced colorations, I guess... sort of cool, actually.
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David Mason


From:
Cambridge, MD, USA
Post  Posted 4 Mar 2017 3:27 am    
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In the Grand Ol' Spirit of colonizing the natives, for quite some time there was a persistent effort on the part of the occupying folk to categorize the little grace notes and flights of accenting in Indian music. And there is a 22-note "scale" overlaid on the 7-note and 12-note scales in formal Southern Indian music. They often play the same song the same way; twice in a row!

However, the Northern Indian music freaked them out. It went all over the place, and even though they DID have the pentatonic and the chromatic 12 notes, even those could drift off and back to the "right" notes. Some wise fellow got this idea of the 102-notes per octave scale. There were so many you're bound to get kinda close. But when they tried to transcribe the same raga from two different families or towns or schools (largely heritable) - the microtones had squirreled all over the place! Stupid foreigners, can't even play the same song twice in a row, never make it in the marching band. And _serious_ music - symphonic - fuggedaboutit. Playing out of tune for two thousand years! Ha Ha Ha!

Eventually - 1950's like? Someone thought to maybe ASK THE INDIANS WHAT THE HELL THEY'RE DOING! And: they CLAIMED the microtones vary from each "school" and "family" to another, there were morning microtones and noon-ish microtones and raining microtones and harvest microtones. But mostly, your guru & his school. As this is totally flying-mammal-excrement-crazy, they mostly just slapped the 102-note and 22-note and 12 note scale on it and said "be done."

And: Movie soundtracts were WAY important, Ali Akbar Khan & Ravi Shankar learned enough about Western instruments to "write" for them, arrange for them, etc. Bollywood films went EVERWHERE, and "pentatonic cheezball" music with it. And with the vampire-esque Hollywood sewage pump, uuuhh... notice that anytime anywhere "India" or especially - THE SIXTIES - they hit the five-sitar-notes button. Doofus with a headband, girl forgot her bra, Ravi Shankar - Twing tin ting ting rrrr - okay the SIXTIES are done.

When Stevie Ray Vaughan played slow blues, at the soloing section he would often play WAY outside - but always aginst a bass one-note drome. All that little eee-eee-eee bent stuff would not harmonize well with earth music. Derek Trucks is lauded as a microtone guy - with a PIANO in his band? With him, I hear inflections, accents,and a huge toolbox of melody-generating systems. YUU-UUGE! But microtones + piano = huh? Just say no... Mr. Trucks is massively, unbelievably IN TUNE with EVERYTHING ELSE. Umm - where is a microtone? (YouTube-ish?)

The gist is, this isn't new, the Indian musicians are specifically playing to get inside your head and they've been working on it for 5,000 years.

Ground Zero: http://www.unfretted.com/

Umm - what was the question again?
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Ian Rae


From:
Redditch, England
Post  Posted 4 Mar 2017 5:18 am    
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Wow - that's a lot of interesting stuff! BTW in my long (ish) career as a bass player I was never tempted to buy a fretless. The Fender Precision Bass was the space-age breakthrough that enabled double-bass-fumblers to play reliably in tune for the first time ever, and the next significant event was a man on the moon.

My first exposure to microtones was a recording of string quartets by Alois Hába (1893 - 1973) where he divided the 12-tone scale into quarter-tones, and I believe at times into sixths. I listened to it quite hard with the academic bit of my brain, but I was never sure what was deliberately out and what was within normal limits. A passer-by who had just been listening to Beethoven would have wondered what musical problem it was trying to solve.

Of course Hába was starting from a western viewpoint and what David says about about other cultures reminds us that the only interval universally recognised seems to be the octave - what goes in between is down to very long history. Edgar Varèse (d. 1965) deserves a mention for trying to throw off the western shackles as he thought of music as totally plastic, although he didn't really have the resources to realise it - conventional instruments were limited as were the electronics he had available. I am sad that he didn't live long enough to hear Terry Kath's guitar playing.
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Bill Terry


From:
Bastrop, TX
Post  Posted 4 Mar 2017 7:25 am    
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Wow, you guys have clearly thought WAY more about this than I have, interesting..

David wrote:
Umm - what was the question again?

As best I can tell it was what John said Smile:
Quote:
So is that micro tuning or bad intonation...? Smile
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Ian Rae


From:
Redditch, England
Post  Posted 4 Mar 2017 9:37 am    
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John Macy wrote:
So is that micro tuning or bad intonation...?

I think that's the crux of it. Unless you've spent your life locked in some eastern European university reprogramming your brain, you can only hear music the way your ancestors have heard it over the last few hundred years. (Having said that, there are intervals in blues that Mozart would have winced at, but we're used to them now.)
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Donny Hinson

 

From:
Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.
Post  Posted 4 Mar 2017 2:53 pm    
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Q- How do you know when microtonal music is out-of-tune?

A- When it sounds good.

Laughing
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David Mason


From:
Cambridge, MD, USA
Post  Posted 4 Mar 2017 3:02 pm    
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In listening to the linked "songs" more, I didn't really find anything that seemed "out" or disturbing or offensive (but hey a MELODY would be O.K. too, snork snork snork). But it sounds like they're kind of playing it safe - a "pleasant", safe mushy kind of Hammond B3 tone and wide-open INTERVALS. Maybe the Plot for World Domination starts with elevator music to lull us into false security? First... heh heh heh... If I had one of them things I bet I could make it sound REALLY AWFUL.

Teenagers LOVE music that offends their parents, so these people might oughta reconsider their marketing plan.
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b0b


From:
Cloverdale, CA, USA
Post  Posted 5 Mar 2017 10:20 am    
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I'm not sure whether this qualifies as "microtuned" because the intervals are larger than our usual half-steps. Anyway, check out this steel guitar piece on my Bohlen-Piece site:

http://bp.b0b.com/2013/06/fuse-blue/

I made an alternate fretboard to play in this tuning. Notice how wide the frets are. I've since abandoned the idea because the even harmonics of string instruments tend to clash with the BP scale.




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b0b


From:
Cloverdale, CA, USA
Post  Posted 5 Mar 2017 10:30 am    
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For some very "adventurous" microtonal music, check out Chris Vaisvil's web site: http://chrisvaisvil.com/
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Charlie McDonald


From:
out of the blue
Post  Posted 5 Mar 2017 11:40 am    
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That is one blue key, b0b.
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