19 equal temperament (or 19-tET, 19-EDO system)

[Marek Cupák]

Dear composers,

 

I'm looking for someone willing to compose for classical guitar in a system, which divides the octave into 19 equal steps. You can read more on this temperament and tempered or non-tempered tunings in general here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/19_equal_temperament

 

I play such guitar and already did some little experimental adaptations of the old tonal harmony into this 19-edo system. You can hear them here:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQoDMIUoWho (sheets also)
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDHy-2m3WHI
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNASzVwfWMk

 

I know these are not my original compositions, but the "arrangements" are. Anyway, the main intention is to draw someone's attention on writing in favour of the 19-edo. Notation is also a problem to solve (I use guitar tabulature); any ideas in this scope are welcome too.

 

For composers using keyboard synths, there is a free software http://cycling74.com/downloads/ which might work, but you have to consider the most appropriate key layout (using only white keys is also an option). Easier than building this http://www.denzilwraight.com/cs19phs3.jpg :-)

 

[Marek Cupák]

Why what?

[Kristofer Emerig]

Can you provide specific information about the stringing, fretting, and fingering restrictions of the instrument? That would be necessary to compose a practically playable piece, unless you want to take an abstract composition and arrange it for your specific instrument.

[Kristofer Emerig]

Ray, upon reflection, were I forced to provide a sensible answer to that question, I wouldn't have done the vast majority of things I have in my sordid past. 

Ray Kemp said:

WHY?

[Norbert Oldani]

Very good questions!!!

Ray Kemp said:

@Marek

Well firstly my WHY? is a question saying.......to prove what.....that it may sound musical?

Secondly my WHY? is questioning someone else doing the composing for you.

You obviously can play and write a bit yourself as you've already demonstrated.

 

@Kris

I would still expect the majority of decisions made to have an inkling of reason behind them.

[Marek Cupák]

@Ray why should the 19-edo sound not musical? in contemporary music, tone pitch must not do any matter at all. rhythm and "colors" are those which are composed. for instance, in 19-edo the minor 3rd, perfect 4th and major 6th are even more clearly intonated as in 12-edo, to which you're already accustomed. but yes, it's true to say i could do that on my own. but as we use to say "more heads, more ideas". and it would be nice to attract someone else trying it too. i'd gladly record such piece

 

the acceptance of other tone systems is usually not "really calm and easy". my current guitar teacher, who was cca 20 years dean at Vienna's university of music, is today 60 years old and it took him more than a month, not to laugh or get seriously annoyed by hearing this :-) ..of course i do such music only as a curiosity, sort of.. another one from local professors, who comes from Pakistan/India told "you know, we both are a little bit old for this, but it's sound make me feel almost being back at home", as the Hindu music is not 12-edo tempered too.

 

@Kristofer stringing is pretty much the same as standard classical guitar, as documented here wiki. hence all fingering restrictions are also similar (one have only to adjust his finger stretches a bit more precisely). the one and only difference is in fretting, i do have 29 frets instead of 19. 19th fret is octave. 30th fret should match 19th standard fret, so my guitar's range is one 19-edo step lower... but, if you'd like to compose, i recommend considering these intervals:

1) unison

2) subminor 2

3) minor 2

4) major 2

5) supermajor 2 / subminor 3

6) minor 3

7) superminor 3 / diminished 4

8) perfect 4

9) augmented 4 (not the same as diminished 5)

10) diminished 5 (not the same as augmented 4)

11) perfect 5

12) subminor 6 / augmented 5

13) minor 6

14) major 6

15) supermajor 6 / subminor 7

16) minor 7

17) major 7

18) supermajor 7 / diminished 8

19) octave

 

as the system is still tempered, guitar tuning suffers a bit. for instance: you take open 4th string, D, play 2nd natural harmonic (octave + fifth), an A sounds. you tune it precisely to 440 Hz. open 5th string, a, played 3rd nat. harm. (2 octaves), the same A sounds. nice, strings 4 and 5 are in tune perfectly. in this way you tune the 6th string - matching its 3rd natural harmonic with 5th string's 2nd natural harmonic. strings 4, 5 and 6 are in tune perfectly. then 6th string 2nd n.h. is played, a B sounds. matching with 2nd string, open B is in tune. let's play minor 3rd on B string and match it with open D string... not a pure octave! (on standard guitar this problem is hearable too)

 

this system does not aid purity of intonation - no tempered system does. it only adds 2 new kinds, or qualities of unperfect intervals - subminor (sounding very dark) and supermajor (sounding very harsh). all the "old" intervals are a bit shifted and tritone (aug. 4 / dim. 5) is a problem in fact - one have to choose, 19-edo aug4 is a bit closer to 12-edo aug4/dim5 than 19-edo dim5.

Norbert Oldani said:

Very good questions!!!

Ray Kemp said:

@Marek

Well firstly my WHY? is a question saying.......to prove what.....that it may sound musical?

Secondly my WHY? is questioning someone else doing the composing for you.

You obviously can play and write a bit yourself as you've already demonstrated.

 

@Kris

I would still expect the majority of decisions made to have an inkling of reason behind them.

[SEDstar]

Hummm... I certainly dont have the capability to DO anything with this... but, its an idle curiosity to READ about it...

 

questions...

 

1) along the "why" end of it... does this FIX something? I remember watchign some of the Eric Johnson videos with a guitarist friend and Mr. Johnson spent 20 minutes first talking about how he tunes his guitar... this strin a little flat, THAT string a little sharp... and lists reasons why.

 

2) I also know you cant just have some clown come over to tune a baby grand piano who shows up with a electronic tuner and goes to town... after 2 or 3 times of THAT, the nice piano owner had to put out feelers to get an "old man" come over with a tuning fork... it took "as long as it was going to take", according to the quiet but stubborn old man... and he was explaining how he was spreading out "western 12 tone tuning 'errors' "... (much like Eric Johnson was explaining in his video...) All we knew was that when the stubborn but polite old man left hours later, "Beethoven" pieces all of a sudden had that "epic, sweeping, sound"... does this 19 tone system FIX something along these lines?

 

3) this might not be as crazy as it sounds... again to Eric Johnson, after his 20 minutes tryiing to explain how he tunes his strings... he goes into his fret theory. He explains its not like just hitting a piano key, you get a very SLIGHT sharp or flattening by playing to the up side, or the down side, of the individual fret. He played hsi example piece first regularly... THEN with you seeing and hearing him sweeten and flat inside the frets to make it sounds much more interesting... it made me realize 12 tones per octave leaves "something" to be desired, and HE is getting more out of his instrument... does THIS address any of that?

 

4) maybe the logical first step would be to find a iece of software that would allow the user to "adjust" the tunings of individual notes and set it up somehow...

 

5) so... after you get "something" set up to PLAY this 19 note octave setup on... guitar, piano, synth, what have you... how do you name the "notes"? Where do the black keys inbetween the whole notes fit in?

 

the way you descrbe it, I wonder if its an answer in search of a problem, or, alternately it opens up other slight problems as much as it solves anything?

 

I cant even picture what the "scales" would then look like... lol...

 

was 19 tones chosen deliberately to fix something, or... would 17 or 18, or 22 have been chosen as easily?

[Marek Cupák]

..did one more this sunday: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PD_35kAm9CM

[tom]

i like this idea a lot! i'm very interested in "natural" notes. and scales outside of the traditional western scales. i've always wanted to write music that sounds like birds, and i've had minimal success experimenting with layered samples, each tuned slightly differently. but it always keeps coming back to the limitations of our current 12-tone scheme. i'd really like to do some analysis of birdsong, and work out some of the myriads of scales they use :D. im also a guitarist, if you can give me a tuning for this kind of composition, i'd be keen to give it a try! or i could potentially just invent my own....

[Marek Cupák]

tuning is the same as standard E-A-D-g-b-e, you have to re-fret. try this http://windworld.com/features/tools-resources/exmis-fret-placement-...

tom said:

i like this idea a lot! i'm very interested in "natural" notes. and scales outside of the traditional western scales. i've always wanted to write music that sounds like birds, and i've had minimal success experimenting with layered samples, each tuned slightly differently. but it always keeps coming back to the limitations of our current 12-tone scheme. i'd really like to do some analysis of birdsong, and work out some of the myriads of scales they use :D. im also a guitarist, if you can give me a tuning for this kind of composition, i'd be keen to give it a try! or i could potentially just invent my own....

[Joe Evans]

 

Hi Marek,

It's refreshing to find anyone else that even knows about this, let alone want to use it!

I've been trying to setup something up for 19tet in my studio for ages and have finally had some success.  I'm intending to put together an album completely in 19tet.  Essentially tonal electronic experimental.  I've just started the first track.  It would be great to have guitar on board for this.

 

So if you're still interested, contact me on j.evans (at) runningonair.com

 

you can checkout some of my previous projects at runningonair.com

[Norbert Oldani]

try:  https://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_2229924481&ap=1 I and others have been doing stuff kike this for 30 years or longer.

[Norbert Oldani]

Or try:  https://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_2229924481&ap=1#!/groups/239947772713025/