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CHAT: conlang and alternate tuning WAS: from the ashes...

From:William Annis <annis@...>
Date:Wednesday, January 9, 2002, 15:19
 >> I ended up back to conlanging through the back door so to speak.  I
 >> was
 >> researching non-Western music theory and fell in love with the Turkish
 >> 53-tone gamut.  Now that I'm longing for the day I have the means to
 >> design
 >> a 53-tone-per-octave keyboard (all I have is my fretless bass guitar), I
 >> can
 >> do some of my weird music.
 >>
 >
 >53 tones per octave? Wow. Actually, I don't anything about music except the
 >usual scales. Does anyone know a good web resource on the web about music
 >theory?

        Well, the theory for this sort of microtonal music is a little
harder to come by.  :)   http://www.dnai.com/~jinetwk/whatisji.html is
a good start.  I've been interested in this myself for quite some
time, though my approach from electronica, so I have some Python code
to make intonational tinkering easier and a few web pages explaining
how to make a certain powerful software synth (Reaktor) speak in Just
Intonation.

        Actually, one of the things I built into Vaior was a nice
vocabulary for music in general, but I have precise names for a lot of
intervals foreign to Western music.  These days, when I get an idea
for a piece of music, I'll write up a sketch, which is often more
words than notes.  This way I can finish what I'm working on now,
before running off to something new... always a problem for me.  Most
of these recent sketches are in a mix of English (less and less of
this over time), deeply abbreviated Vaior (article-less,
preposition-less, tense-less verbs) and classical Greek, which forms
the basis for most of my understanding of Just intonation to start
with.

        In this regard, I have to say Vaior has been a useful artistic
tool for me, even without the normal pleasures and art of creating a
language.  I can scribble "ulmerhteil

Reply

Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...>