"just intonation"

[uethanian]

for about the past year, i've been searching for the magical something that is 'just intonation.' frustrated by almost everything about its practices (like i really hate harry partch), i've been taking matters into my own hands. so i've heard/heard of guys playing just intonation on fretless bass. so im starting a thread about it. and seeing if anyone has a clue. i would really like to believe that music educators aren't ignorant or more importantly aren't lying about just intonation.

anyone know what just intonation is?

anyone apply it?

anyone play just intonated fretless bass?

if no one really responds (and i dont expect much), maybe i'll fill you all in on just wat it is.

[lemur821]

Are you familiar with La Monte Young, Ben Johnston, or Kyle Gann? What do you mean by "lying about just intonation"?

[uethanian]

yes, im not a fan of any of them, but i know most of the major just intonation composers.

here's what i mean by lying: i took piano lessons for 7 years, trombone lessons for 3, and upright bass for 1, and never did i hear my teachers say the words "just intonation." with trombone and bass, i got a good idea of overtones and harmonics, but i didn't comprehend their tuning differences with 12ET. well after hearing 'portrait of tracy' and doing some research, i discovered the truth.

so in all this, the music educators who were supposed to be teaching me "theory" never explained what the "theory" is. to my understanding, it comes down to 2 things:

1) my teachers didnt fully understand the theory (which is an outrage in my opinion and the fault of my teacher's teachers)
2) my teachers did not wish me to know, given the chance that i might go on some crazy just intonation tangent.

which i did.

[lemur821]

I think it's a combination of ignorance and the understanding that most students don't yet need, and probably don't want to know, about it.

Brass players are the only ones who really need to worry (due to the way we work directly with the harmonic series), but even then, I don't think it's something a student of 3 years needs to worry about. At that stage, there are many more pertinent things to work on. The last thing a teacher wants is to to distract their students from the most direct route to musical progress and send them spiraling into some bizarre tuning binge where they may learn many interesting things, but few that will actually make them a better musician.

On top of that, many musicians and teachers aren't familiar with just intonation beyond having perhaps heard it mentioned. Even if they are interested in it themselves, they may not feel sure enough about to include it in regular lessons. Since teaching some people theory is like pulling teeth anyway, it may be best to stick to what's proven itself useful for hundreds of years.

To answer your first three questions, yes, I know what it is (did you guess )? If anyone else is wondering what it is, it's the practice of using intervals which are rationally related to one another, in the literal and mathematical sense. If you compare the frequencies, in Hertz, of two pitches, you get a numerical ratio. For instance, two notes a major third apart in just intonation gives you a ratio of 5:4. In equal temperament (our usual tuning system) it's more like 1.2599211, with many more digits following. The latter is as hard on the ear as it is on the eye. Just intonation uses simple integer ratios, rather than relationships based on the twelfth root of two.

I've played a little on my bass, but there's not a whole lot of point unless you've got something else going on harmonically. And if you want to play with others (guitarists, perhaps) they need to have JI capable instruments as well. In the end, I've found that composing in 12EDO is not a big problem. You just have to pretty much ignore the concept of harmony. I still harbor a great interest in JI, but actually composing will have to wait until I obtain (probably build) a JI instrument.

[DocBop]

If it hasn't caught on since the 16th Century it probably still doesn't have a chance. Most just want to be loud and Intonation is just something they try to remember to do after changing strings.

On person I knew that talked about it was a Physics teacher who also played trombone. I think that combo sums up the lively conversions he would strike up.

All I know is Harry Partch ROCKS!!!!

[geoffkhan]

You know... just intonation is pretty much the norm with fretless (or instruments that don't have predefined pitches) instruments, at least in classical playing. Problem for fretted instruments or instruments with predefined pitches is that it's not transposable, of course. But yes, just intonation is in wide use.

Whether they know it or not, for example, a singer will probably tend to sing in just intonation, naturally gravitating towards those pitches.

Even pianos are not tuned exactly to equal temperment, they're a mix of just intonation and equal temperment, at least when tuned by better piano tuners.

[PocketGroove82]

So, how does this relate to my intonation being just terrible?

[lemur821]

Originally Posted by PocketGroove82

So, how does this relate to my intonation being just terrible?

Don't say that! You're just an inadvertent microtonalist.

Originally Posted by geoffkhan

Problem for fretted instruments or instruments with predefined pitches is that it's not transposable, of course. But yes, just intonation is in wide use.

When I first heard of just intonation I thought the fact that you can't transpose and get the same intervals was a problem, but now I'm inclined to call it more of a benefit. Why would you want to go to all the trouble of modulating just to end up in the same place?

I don't really think it's correct to say that just intonation is in wide use. The barest glimmerings of it are common, but merely tuning chords a little is like buying a pickup truck just to cart the kids around. Consciously using just intonation opens up a world of harmonic possibilities that remains entirely closed when you limit yourself to a twelve note scale.

[BassChuck]

String players in orchestras tend to use Just Intonation, perhaps not totally in the sense that it would be described in physics (see Lemurs #4 post), but in the sense that the Perfect intervals do sound better in just intonation. Anyone who has played a fixed pitch instrument (like wind instruments) in a orchestra will attest to this. Music teachers don't spend a great deal of time talking about Just Intonation but they will spend a great deal of time talking about playing in tune. When dealing with a string section, or choir that is really good you'll notice that notes will be in 'different places' depending on the chord. An F# in a D chord is a slightly (very slightly) different intonation that if it is in a B chord. All you need to do is listen and adjust the pitch.

The problems with Just Intonation (an perhaps a reason that the OP has a problem with Harry Partch) is that when Just Intonation is applied to a fixed pitch instrument, like a piano or organ, then the different keys will have different intonations. If a piano is tuned in "C" Just Intonation, then music in the key of C sounds pretty darn good. "A" is suspect and F# will send you home early.

[Bruce Lindfield]

And so if you play in a band with a piano, then you are just wasting your time!

[uethanian]

well guys, thanks for your posts.

when i was talking about playing just intonation on fretless, i wasn't talking about just putting 12ET in tune. im all into exotic scales. right now i'm refretting a guitar to play in 40-tone 5-limit just intonation (kinda like jon catler's guitars). what im curious about though is if there is a way to tune a fretless bass so that it yields straight "frets," such as on a sitar. hmm well of course u could tune a bass like a sitar and play it like that. but thats not so much wat im talking about. yea, i know how to use tone rows and things, but it doesnt make the solution much easier to find.

as when i mentioned music educators, i think more so than not they dont want you to get involved in just intonation. its a very powerful thing. and for many people, a hopeless pursuit. i guess its how much the problem of tuning bothers you personally. for me, i feel its well worth the struggle.

[uethanian]

and another thing, i would agree that just intonation is NOT in wide use.

yes, u can argue about classical instrumentalists and singers...but the fact is, they're still playing in the general system of 12ET.

i think most of the worthwile just intonation music in the world is the classical music of the middle east, india, asia, and the medieval music of europe.

im sure many would agree with me that modern just intonation music has little legacy. most of it is so microtonal that its hard to believe its 'in tune.' instead of using rich chords and consonant melodies, modern composers opt for the abstract, minimalism, and impressionism. for just intonation to make any growth, what we need is simple music that the general public can easily relate to and say "well that sounds nice."

[lemur821]

Originally Posted by uethanian

i think most of the worthwile just intonation music in the world is the classical music of the middle east, india, asia, and the medieval music of europe.

Those are JI? I thought Middle Eastern music just added quarter tones, and Indian music was based on subsets of 22-equal scale.

[DocBop]

This thread peaked my interest so I Googled and found a website with a few examples each playing in ET12 and JI. Now don't light your flame thrower just giving my opinion, I thought the JI versions sounded cold. The ET12 examples had an warmth and shimmer in the overtones.

So just my opinion from a handfull of examples. Thinking about it I don't think average listener would hear the difference in the normal faire of music. Then some of the JI pieces I heard on another site held some interest for me, I can't see the public going for it especailly in the U.S.. Other cultures they do get raised on music with semitones, polyrhythms, and more improvisation, but here people get raised on pentatonics because they are easy to sing. I think getting JI into the U.S. mainstream would take decades to get the masses acustom to JI, if at all.

[uethanian]

lemur- supposedly, this is the indian scale

Sa 1
Ri 1 - 32/31
Ri 2 - 16/15 (minor second)
Ri 3 - 10/9
Ri 4 - 9/8 (major second)
Ga 1 - 32/27
Ga 2 - 6/5 (minor third)
Ga 3 - 5/4 (major third)
Ga 4 - 81/64
Ma 1 - 4/3 (fourth)
Ma 2 - 27/20
Ma 3 - 45/32 (tritone)
Ma 4 - 64/45
Pa - 3/2 (fifth)
Dha 1 - - 128/81
Dha 2 - 8/5 (minor sixth)
Dha 3 - 5/3 (major sixth)
Dha 4 - 27/16
Ni 1 - - 16/9 (minor seventh)
Ni 2 - 9/5
Ni 3 - 15/8 (major seventh)
Ni 4 - 31/16

in case anyones wondering wat the note names mean, this is it: in each indian 'mode,' there are seven notes. SA is always the root. then following, one of the RI's, one of the GA's, etc...for middle eastern music, i believe the overall scale is similar, but the rules for scale building are much different.

and as for JI music sounding 'flat'...well it is. 12ET has more dissonant and therefore more excited intervals. but know that with JI, it is possible to make intervals so dissonant that they're nauseating. literally. and then u always have perfectly consonant intervals, which act as a sort of home base. the main issue with 12 ET is that it has no real resting place. every interval u play wants to resolve itself into another interval. therefore in 12ET, the ending of a song is never resolved (except perhaps in a classical group) because there is never a complete release of tension.

honestly, there's some really ugly JI music out there. i wish people wouldn't, but they do. when listening to JI, its absolutely important not to make comparisons to 12ET. it will sound horribly out of tune. all it takes is an open ear and an open mind.

[lemur821]

Originally Posted by DocBop

This thread peaked my interest so I Googled and found a website with a few examples each playing in ET12 and JI. Now don't light your flame thrower just giving my opinion, I thought the JI versions sounded cold. The ET12 examples had an warmth and shimmer in the overtones.

Well, there are a few things to keep in mind here. You probably heard computer-generated samples (there are a lot of those around), in which case they probably were pretty lifeless to begin with, and needed all the help they could get. The next thing is that those were pieces written for ET12, with ET12 sounds in mind, and not using any JI intervals more complex than what you might approximate with the 12-tone scale. Music in JI can incorporate more harmonic complexity (i.e. intervals other than thirds and fifths) without turning to mush, and your average JI composer (if there is such a thing) takes advantage of that. So while justly tuning a piece of music built with normal Western harmony comes out as flat as organum, that's not the sum of JI.

To me just intonation means that the entrancing tonalities you can usually only find in things like train whistles and bells become available to the composer, and putty in his hands.

You might give these a listen for examples of real JI music:
Harry Partch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lPOibcWWzs
Kyle Gann:
http://www.kylegann.com/TheDayRevisited.mp3 from http://www.kylegann.com/Gannaudio.html .

[Wolfman200]

Am I correct in thinking that just intonation involves equal space(is that the same as using certain ratios consistently?)

In any case, it's my impression that music that employs just intonation sounds "out of tune" frequently. Based on what I know about African and Indian systems, I'm pretty sure that this is a cultural thing, but obviously still it's impossible to overlook.

I am studying trombone currently, and my teacher has written a good bit material on intonation - probably most directed at orchestral musicians such as himself. I should get out some of his papers, because he was very scientific in his explanation of why certain phenomena happen in the western system of music(Why 3rds need to be tuned differently, etc.)

As far as orchestral bassists, brass players and everyone else using just intonation in ensembles, I think that's a misunderstanding of the term. I think that what they're really doing is adapting the intonation of a "fixed" pitch to different situations based on imperfections in the western tonal system. The basic example is with 3rds - for example if you play an A 440 in tune, but then play a properly tuned F below it, it will sound out of tune. The A has to be lowered to sound "right" to us.

I use quotations because listening is very subjective and others are able to hear past what culture has taught them and recognize just intonation as different, not wrong.

[Bruce Lindfield]

Originally Posted by uethanian

and another thing, i would agree that just intonation is NOT in wide use.

yes, u can argue about classical instrumentalists and singers...but the fact is, they're still playing in the general system of 12ET.

i think most of the worthwile just intonation music in the world is the classical music of the middle east, india, asia, and the medieval music of europe.

im sure many would agree with me that modern just intonation music has little legacy. most of it is so microtonal that its hard to believe its 'in tune.' instead of using rich chords and consonant melodies, modern composers opt for the abstract, minimalism, and impressionism. for just intonation to make any growth, what we need is simple music that the general public can easily relate to and say "well that sounds nice."

There was a UK TV documentary about this - as part of a series made by the composer/conductor Howard Goodall.

So he explained with examples how Japanese classical music is made with just intonation scales and instruments and it sounds very weird to our Western ears - it was popular in Japan before WWII - but since Japanese people have been exposed to so much western music more recently - it has fallen out of favour completely!

http://www.howardgoodall.co.uk/presenting/bigtext.htm

[lemur821]

Originally Posted by Wolfman200

Am I correct in thinking that just intonation involves equal space(is that the same as using certain ratios consistently?)

What do you mean by this?

Originally Posted by Wolfman200

In any case, it's my impression that music that employs just intonation sounds "out of tune" frequently.

I think it's more that composers writing in just intonation intentionally use intervals that sound "out of tune" to listeners who are used to something else. A simple justly tuned scale that simply used flatter thirds and sixths than equal temperament sounds more "in tune" than 12ET does.

[uethanian]

wolfman - its quite the opposite of what you said. 12ET is based on logarithms and is equally spaced. JI, in terms of the overtone series, can be considered exponential, but most practical scales in JI are completely non-linear and have no pattern.

and as i said before, the topic of western classical players is subject to argument. the players never in fact 'leave' the 12ET system; the music they're playing still follows the rules of 12ET theory. however, once players compensate to make an interval perfectly in tune, mathematically it is JI. basically, the shifts needed to make 12ET sound in tune do not change anything about the music itself. harmony still functions the same.

and as to just intonation sounding out of tune...well you sortof contradicted that. you mentioned lowering the major 3rd to make it sound in tune...and therefore make it sound better...and therefore put it in a system of JI. the 'out of tune' JI you might have heard may have had very unfamiliar intervals that were not really consonant at all. personally, however, i hear the traditional music of india and other cultures as truly in tune. whatever discomfort you may have from listening to JI might very well be your subconscious trying to make comparisons to wat it believes is right.