Other tunings

We are having some interesting chat about harmony and tuning over in the Thought section.

So I want to know what music people like that isn't based on standard (equal tempered) tunings.

I really like some Mongoliam music, gamelan stuff from Java etc... also I really like it when analogue synths go out of temperament and sound all ill, for example lots of Aphex stuff uses this effect.
 

borderpolice

Well-known member
We are having some interesting chat about harmony and tuning over in the Thought section.

So I want to know what music people like that isn't based on standard (equal tempered) tunings.

I really like some Mongoliam music, gamelan stuff from Java etc... also I really like it when analogue synths go out of temperament and sound all ill, for example lots of Aphex stuff uses this effect.

I'm endlessly fascinated by arabic music.

Interestingly, with modern keyboards being in equal temprament by default, a lot of musical traditions that have been using other tuning systems, move to equal temprament as they upgrade their instruments.

Quite a bit of pure choral music tends to be in just temprament (based on integer fractions), sometimes by accident because J.I. is easier to sing.
 
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Artist and track names please!

Roland have often offered arabic version of their synths with a different tuning to the rest-of-the-world version.
 
He was a mentalist, wasn't he? :)

I like all that Radiophonic stuff that's pretty out of tune too.

Actually I was watching an old Sapphire & Steel today (very hauntological...) and the background music sounded a lot like AFX SAW2.
 
I love that bulgarian stuff.

Don't know about the other though.
What does it mean "persian" - persia hasn't existed for yonks.
Iraq?
 

Don Rosco

Well-known member
He was a mentalist, wasn't he? :)

Yeah, totally. A total technician though as well - he based a scale on human speech and built a rake of unique instruments. And became a hobo for ten years for the buzz. There's an excellent documentary about him on youtube:

 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
Interestingly, with modern keyboards being in equal temprament by default, a lot of musical traditions that have been using other tuning systems, move to equal temprament as they upgrade their instruments.
Wasn't the accordian supposed to have had a lot to do with it? Suddenly you have this bloke with a big loud button box which is great because it means lots more people can (physically) hear your music, and if you have to tweak your tuning to fit the tuning of the accordian then so be it...
 

Blackdown

nexKeysound
using samples is interesting because you never quite know what tuning they're in, or if they're in tune with any other samples. Then there's the fact that the futher you pitch them the more they break up and fail to hold a true note. I'm sure this explains a little bit of dubstep's dissonant elements. Grime also uses pitchbend, which sends notes wandering between intervals, coming in and out of key/true intervals. Both are deceptively avant garde i think.
 

mms

sometimes
using samples is interesting because you never quite know what tuning they're in, or if they're in tune with any other samples. Then there's the fact that the futher you pitch them the more they break up and fail to hold a true note. I'm sure this explains a little bit of dubstep's dissonant elements. Grime also uses pitchbend, which sends notes wandering between intervals, coming in and out of key/true intervals. Both are deceptively avant garde i think.

but western producers usually add their western modes to samples ie they'll use commonplace western intervals to complement a melody, so they'll revert something that has been writing in another mode back to a more common mode.
But yes the pitchbend has always been quite an interesting tool, common in detroit techno as well, like an atonal wash, an inaccurate glissandi but quite often in a beautiful way.

The other thing in drum and bass is giving the drums melody, like a timpani would do in and orchestra, and of course the tuning of basslines. One thing that i always loved in detroit stuff was the melodies of the rhythm section, the way they often tuned the drums to give an actual layer of musicality, and the way the drums were so ultra rhythmic and layered, it just sounded African and bright in a way that most modern techno, minimal or whatever doesn't recognize as it's inheritance.

here is a list of modes, the ones on the top are western,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_mode

and intonation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_intonation

whoever was talking about temperance, i think the only genuinely untempered musical culture in the west anyway is gypsy music,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gypsy_music
which doesn't stick to any one mode. i remember a gypsy lad on the tube playing an accordion and singing and it was quite atonal, and people were telling the poor guy to shut up, even though he could clearly play and sing, it was just in a different tuning, i thought that must have been quite horrible for him really.
 

Blackdown

nexKeysound
but western producers usually add their western modes to samples ie they'll use commonplace western intervals to complement a melody, so they'll revert something that has been writing in another mode back to a more common mode.

sure but if you have two samples from different sources they might be out of key by a random interval, like say 3/7ths of a semitone. Then add in another sample from a third source which will have different tonal relations to the first two. So sure, each of the melodies built from one given sample will be in western intervals to each other, but not to the other samples in the track.
 

Chris

fractured oscillations
sure but if you have two samples from different sources they might be out of key by a random interval, like say 3/7ths of a semitone. Then add in another sample from a third source which will have different tonal relations to the first two. So sure, each of the melodies built from one given sample will be in western intervals to each other, but not to the other samples in the track.

I always kind of liked when samples are slightly out of tune with each other... can sound interestingly psychedelic. There's something almost "spiritually profound" sounding about microtones, like when reggae singers seem to purposely sing just ever-so-slightly flat or sharp (do they do this on purpose? seems to be a common practice), making it sound like the trajectory of the melody is curving outside of space/time... or something. :rolleyes:

Loving all this music theory talk lately...

On the subject of the thread... I can't seem to get enough of any kind of slavic folk these days (I mean that literally as well as figuratively, shit is hard to find!)... Czech, Slovak, Bulgarian, etc...

And I'm huge on Russian Romantic composers (some of the most bewitching music ever IMO)... some really interesting and gorgeous modes being used in that stuff sometimes...
 
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petergunn

plywood violin
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great track on this record where Davis slurs all the notes on his bass, bending and stressing the notes between the notes... gotta love the abilities of a fretless stringed instrument for creative intonation... was just listening to it while i read this topic...
 
^I am gonna look for that one!

I suppose then there's the whole thing of remixes/mashups where the vocal was recorded with music in one key but is then layered over music in a different key, this can soud really cool / odd.
 

Chris

fractured oscillations
I suppose then there's the whole thing of remixes/mashups where the vocal was recorded with music in one key but is then layered over music in a different key, this can soud really cool / odd.

Yeah, I always liked the effect of that...

There's this Derrick May track (I'll remember the name of it in a second :confused: ), where the synth lines and pads are playing in one key, and then this bass line seems to drop in out of left field in another key, but all the parts still manage to bounce off each other in a strangely complimentary way... very cool sounding. Actually, I believe quite a few Detroit tracks might have done that now that I think of it...
 
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