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Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2002 13:32:12 -0500
From: Pat Missin
Subject: Re: Standard, vs. new notation

Mike Curtis wrote:

> including a "blues tonic"
>that's actually just a tad sharp from a major 7th but is used as a
>leading tone into the tonic.

"Blues tonic"???

Might I politely suggest that terms such as "acute seventh",
"supermajor seventh","superfluous seventh", "augmented seventh" or
even "diminished octave" are much less likely to cause microtonal
musicians to stare at you blankly. In fact, I would expect that most
musicians would tend to view a note like this as being an example of
so-called "expressive intonation" rather than a note in its own right.

>If we listen to good horn sections, we'll likewise hear some great,
>rich sounding chords using microtones. When we compare these with
>(equal tuned) piano notes, they're noticeably off, and yet the chords
>sound absolutely magnificent.

It may be worth noting that there is conceptually a big difference
between microtonality per se and a good horn section taking the edges
off an equally tempered scale to produce smoother harmonies.

BTW, there is a piece of software whose purpose is to improve
intonation of this sort, which may be useful for harp players:

http://kellysmusic.mb.ca/intonation.asp

As regards the subject header of this thread, I vote we adopt this
notation system:

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/world/images/147.jpg

I think its advantages over the various notations discussed in this
thread are quite obvious.

Aaahhh - nice to have harp-l back again...

-- Pat.