What I Learned Writing an Album in Just Intonation
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Re: What I Learned Writing an Album in Just Intonation
#2When I compose, I usually begin by sitting quietly and humming or singing out loud until I have a melody that I like. Because I was born and raised in the west, acoustically I'm naturally accustomed to a 12 tone equal temperament.
Atonal music is more difficult for me to grok, and I kind of imagine that for you to be fluent and compose in these sort of microtonal scales you would need to be introduced to it at a young age - in much the same way that it's significantly easier to learn a second language if you grow up in a bilingual environment.
Re: What I Learned Writing an Album in Just Intonation
#3I'd love to get some feedback on this, because I'm not sure I've hit the original goal of this article.
For a long time, the topics of just intonation, harmonic lattices, and of their relationship with temperaments were difficult for me to understand, despite reading the theory on them. It's not until I applied the concepts that could say I understood them.
I tried writing the "missing article" that would have given me this understanding right away, banking on the added value of interactive figures. Right now I suspect that I failed in the same way as my early readings did: this article might be hard to understand unless you're already familiar with the topic, which is a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem. I think I glossed over some concepts, and it sometimes looks like I'm pulling numbers out of thin air in some examples. Nonetheless I hope it will help some people understand these topics. Maybe what's needed is a slower-paced version of this as a longer series.
Re: What I Learned Writing an Album in Just Intonation
#4I'd love to get some feedback on this, because I'm not sure I've hit the original goal of this article. For a long time, the topics of just intonation, harmonic lattices, and of their relationship with temperaments were difficult for me to understand, despite reading the theory on them. It's not until I applied the concepts that could say I understood them. I tried writing the "missing article" that would have given…
The interactive harmonic lattice, with the commas clickable and audible, is first rate and is the best interactive illustration of JI problems I have yet seen.
It is not quite clear from the explanation, that since the "3" direction is also dividing by 2 implicitly, the note confusingly labeled "3" is really just 3/2 - the perfect fifth. Similarly, the note labeled "5" is actually what we hear as the 12TET major third - clarifying a couple of examples on this lattice (or playing a chord) would be good.
Then, the thing I think that might help is driving the point home a little more by creating a comma by hand - a "knight's move" to another tile 5 horizontal and 3 vertical, creates a ratio that almost but not quite undoes itself. The (unwieldy) math is 1*3*3*3*3*5*5/2/2/2/2/2/2/2/2/2/2/2 = 0.9887, and this is what creates the commas in JI. Hiding the octave transpositions, while making for a neat visualization of the lattice, confuses the underlying issue.
Re: What I Learned Writing an Album in Just Intonation
#5I'd love to get some feedback on this, because I'm not sure I've hit the original goal of this article. For a long time, the topics of just intonation, harmonic lattices, and of their relationship with temperaments were difficult for me to understand, despite reading the theory on them. It's not until I applied the concepts that could say I understood them. I tried writing the "missing article" that would have given…
Oh, and one last point of feedback - it wasn't apparent to me that the "Aníron" progression was walking across the lattice. You should make the projected versions semitransparent to show the main chord progression walking as it does in the JI lattice.
Still, awesome diagrams.
Re: What I Learned Writing an Album in Just Intonation
#6“ This also has the reputation of being terribly impractical, which is always a selling point for me.”
That was truly LOL. Thank you.
Re: What I Learned Writing an Album in Just Intonation
#7I'd love to get some feedback on this, because I'm not sure I've hit the original goal of this article. For a long time, the topics of just intonation, harmonic lattices, and of their relationship with temperaments were difficult for me to understand, despite reading the theory on them. It's not until I applied the concepts that could say I understood them. I tried writing the "missing article" that would have given…
I am very unfamiliar with the topic. Here's my takeaways from the article:
- almost all music I've heard uses 12TET
- JI is microtonal / an alternative tuning to 12TET
- you're the author of the lovely ambient.garden, which uses JI
- the audio widgets and visualizations were very helpful
- JI has perfect harmonies, and 12TET approximates those enough to still sound good
- JI opens up cool chord options
- but there's extra pitfalls when making JI chords compared to 12TET
- still not sure what consonant, continuous, or misleading chords are. I only know what dissonance sounds like
- still haven't looked at numbers; all I know is that there's ratios in there somewhereRe: What I Learned Writing an Album in Just Intonation
#8I'd love to get some feedback on this, because I'm not sure I've hit the original goal of this article. For a long time, the topics of just intonation, harmonic lattices, and of their relationship with temperaments were difficult for me to understand, despite reading the theory on them. It's not until I applied the concepts that could say I understood them. I tried writing the "missing article" that would have given…
I would say that this is way too technical for me, however, I also only have the slightest hint of music theory knowledge to begin with. It seems to me like that isn't a problem though, because this is a very technical topic by nature.
Unrelated to the writing, but I was kind of disappointed that when listening to the examples, I cannot for the life of me hear a difference between just intonation and equal temperament. I know it's there, but I can't hear it at all.
Re: What I Learned Writing an Album in Just Intonation
#9I'd love to get some feedback on this, because I'm not sure I've hit the original goal of this article. For a long time, the topics of just intonation, harmonic lattices, and of their relationship with temperaments were difficult for me to understand, despite reading the theory on them. It's not until I applied the concepts that could say I understood them. I tried writing the "missing article" that would have given…
The interactive harmonic lattice, with the commas clickable and audible, is first rate and is the best interactive illustration of JI problems I have yet seen. It is not quite clear from the explanation, that since the "3" direction is also dividing by 2 implicitly, the note confusingly labeled "3" is really just 3/2 - the perfect fifth. Similarly, the note labeled "5" is actually what we hear as the 12TET major thir…
I'm now realizing this and I totally agree that hiding the octave transpositions might make things confusing.
Maybe this could be clarified by having a first lattice where this adjustment is not made, and everyone can observe how frequencies rapidly become extremely low or high, maybe to the point of being inaudible. Then we can ask "how can this problem be solved?" and introduce the concept of pitch class lattices where everything is transposed into one octave.
Regarding intervals, I've always seen the irony and should probably mention it. Yes, the classical concept of fifth is related to the 3-ratio, while thirds are related to the 5-ratio. I'd argue this falls under the "empty your cup" category, but yes, leaving it untold probably doesn't help with understanding.
Re: What I Learned Writing an Album in Just Intonation
#10What a marvelous article about intonation and temperament. It is one of those expositions that approach perfection in conveying the subject matter. I am no music theorist but rather an engineer with an appreciation for all things wave- or signal-oriented. I will want to read it multiple times to savor the explanations. The author's album based on just intonation is linked in the article ("A Walk Through The Ambient Garden") and I highly recommend it: it is a mesmerizing composition.