Learning Lumatone: Episode 21 - "19-EDO Basics"

[@mr88cet]

5:42 - Right on, Dave! The overall, _cumulative effect_ of slightly sharp or flat thirds, fifths, sevenths, etc., are what my mentor Ivor Darreg termed the “mood” of a given tuning. Ivor described 19TET’s mood as having a lot of zonk, whereas 22TET is more easy-going. These cumulative effects are similar with how, in various well temperaments, each key got a reputation for a different (in essence) mood.

[@electric7487]

That's an interesting observation (coming from someone who's classically trained); I've always found 22 to be the spicy one (since its major thirds, minor thirds, and fifths are all in the opposite direction of 12) and 19 to be the more easy-going out of the two. Though, 19 is much more strange-sounding than 31 is when compared to 12.

[@alexr3912]

yeah, it’s definitely odd to call 22 more laid back than 19, overall 19’s pure sounding minor and overall flat major make it feel moodier/calmer, at least to most people, 22 is sharper in really every way than 19

[@eelamite]

so like.. the range with hands - like is wayyy wider than a piano.. like spread triads for eg? and more tones per octavs than twelve? sounds like a total win to me. lumatone ftw!! 😂

[@electric7487]

A tip for 19-TET: Stretch the octaves to compensate for the overall flat tendency on the natural harmonics. Mathematics says that the optimal step size is 63.3 cents; in reality, anything between 63.2 and 63.4 cents would be best. The most extreme is 63.8141 cents, which corresponds to 11EDF (11 equal divisions of the just perfect fifth).

[@ValkyRiver]

misatetarta (19-TET): kzbin.info/www/bejne/gmndnISmacqappI This piece is mostly based on 4\19.

[@RememberGodHolyBible]

Would you do a video on 53 Pythagorean tuning ? Not 53 edo, but all pure fifths, D as the center note with 25 fifths up and 25 fifths down from it. Perhaps with perfect 5ths running right and left and whole tones running up and down ? Or wicki Hayden?

[@YourAverageLink]

I love 19 TET. I like to think that, if 12 TET is a closed Pythagorean spiral, 19 TET is a closed Meantone spiral (though it's 1/3 comma Meantone instead of 1/4 comma)

[@RememberGodHolyBible]

See that's the probelem though with19 edo. Pythagorean tuning is based on a pure interval, the 3/2, and meantone is based off of a perversion of the pure 3/2, and all because it has a wrong conception of what a major third is. The just and ideal major third is 81/64, both aesthetically, and functionally, and conceptually, yes, even in chords and triadic harmony,

[@mr88cet]

Great topic and video; thanks Lumatone & Dave! 3:38 - way-minor (haha!) nitpick: C to C# by definition is an augmented unison, not a diminished second. C to Dbb is a diminished second. Yes, in 19TET, Dbb = C#, but not so in 12TET, 31TET, and most other tunings. Enharmonic equivalences like that vary from tuning to tuning, but C-C# is always an augmented unison in any tuning where the concept (and keyboard mapping) makes sense. 6:24 - Again, if/where consistent terminology is important, C up to B# is an augmented 7th, not supermajor seventh. A supermajor seventh is on the order of a quartertone between major and augmented. Again though, these are just waaaay-minor terminology nitpicks. The only thing that ultimately matters is making satisfying and intriguing music with your Lumatone! 😀 Nevertheless, consistent terminology helps when it comes to putting many different tunings in context with each other.

[@lumatone]

Good call Gary!

[@stephenweigel]

It’s more acceptable to label C#-B# as a supermajor seventh in 19-TET than to label C-C# as a diminished second.

[@mr88cet]

@@stephenweigel, perhaps I’m missing something, but C# up to B# is a major seventh, right straight out of the C# Major scale. Did you mean C to B#? If so, tell me more about your thinking.

[@camtaylormusic]

I'd have to agree, especially if sticking to the closest obvious mappings on the keyboard. Here we see C-C# labeled as a diminished second and C-Cx labeled as a minor second, so the labels are not consistent with the keyboard mapping, or with each other. Consistency would help someone new to tunings understand more is shared between them. I would say, subminor and supermajor are sound labels, which can hold across a bunch of tunings, especially where there are two or more options, but generally, I think of supermajor as being an observable amount higher than the regular major sound through the chain of fifths (true here), and vice versa for subminor. As for mapping labels, particularly helpful for the keyboard, the regular chain of fifths names are great, consistent, and work across all tunings that have a chain of fifths, so, C-C# augmented unison, or #1, C-Db minor second or b2, C-D major second or 2, C-D# augmented second or #2. If you decide to play Dbb instead of C# (enharmonically equivalent here), then go ahead and call that the diminished second, as it totally is. But this kind of loose enharmonic equivalence is all over the place in 12-equal practice around most parts, and as long as those musicians can find their way around and have a label, I guess that's fine.

[@mr88cet]

@@camtaylormusic, yeah, there are two separate things going on here: - Practical: Making inspired and inspiring music, and - Theoretical for discussion: Consistent nomenclature can be a pain, but discussion requires agreed-upon terminology. For the former - just making awesome music - I’ll never forget two oh-so-wise statements: 1. I once told Ivor Darreg, “I want to be a composer,” and he responded, “OK, compose!” 2. My original (traditional) Theory professor, early on, told us, “taking Theory does not help you compose music! Before you take Theory, you get up to a point in your music and you say, ‘I have no idea what to do here!’ Then after you take Theory, you get to that point and you say, ‘there must be a thousand different things I could do here!’” In other words, Theory or not, the only things that ultimately matter are Creativity and Ear Training! For the latter, it’s very helpful to have consistent terminology, when you’re trying to apply concepts you learn in one tuning to another tuning. For example, clearly defining chromatic vs. diatonic semitone allows us to see that, in 17TET, unlike 19 or 31 and many other tunings, the chromatic semitone is *larger* than the diatonic. That makes 17TET work like an exaggerated-Pythagorean, where thirds and sixths are dreadful dissonances that have to be resolved to fourths and fifths - exactly the opposite of traditional Theory!

[@camtaylormusic]

Thanks for putting this out. Although I still kinda like the colour scheme, I so wish I had decided on my black+white + 7-colour dark+light rainbow before making these presets, as I feel like the new colourings are so much easier to get around from the traditional piano - white keys are still white, equally divided black key semi-tones are still black, and then warm colours (yellow, orange, red) are higher in pitch and cool colours (green, blue, indigo, violet) are lower in pitch, than expected... Wish Lumatone would put up their mappings library so I could make my sort of "semi-official" updated presets.

[@mr88cet]

I’m glad to hear you say that, Cam, because I remapped the colors on 12, 19 and 31: 12: white naturals and black chromatics (actually, I gave them a dark purplish tone, because…) 19: white naturals, red sharps (red=hot=sharp), blue flats (blue=cold=flat), and purple for B#/Cb and E#/Fb (since they are both sharps and flats). 31: white naturals, red sharps, blue flats, yellow double-sharps, green double-flats, thus a cyclic-rainbow of sharps circling around to flats.

[@ValkyRiver]

@@mr88cet I use pink sharps, blue flats, and green B#/Cb and E#/Fb in misatetarta. kzbin.info/www/bejne/gmndnISmacqappI

[@lumatone]

Nice Cam! I like the sounds of that color scheme. I’m also still a fan of your original 19. We tend to stick to the factory preset mappings when doing the more basics videos, so it looks familiar to folks who are just getting their Lumatone. But I’m sure that will change once the community section is up on the website, which I’m really hoping will be up soon. I’m sure you’re sitting on a mountain of fantastic LTN’s for all of us to use. But for the meantime I really appreciate the patch storage uploads you’ve provided!

[@Muzikman127]

@@mr88cet it's obviously arbitrary, but I feel very strongly that flats are warm, and sharps are cold haha On keyboard instruments, flats keys are warm, soupy, dark, brown sugary; sharp keys are pointed, icy, spiky, bristling, bright. I don't know precisely why, but I feel this strongly haha

[@sh1r013]

@@Muzikman127 same xd

[@LeReubzRic]

Why am I watching this I cant even dream of affording one of these 😂

[@JonathanOvnat]

They are grossly overpriced

[@billsbeats419]

​@@JonathanOvnat it's a premium instrument. get a hexboard if a lumatone is too expensive kzbin.info/www/bejne/eKeohmyPj5efb9Esi=AbmXJAwPRSbaQ-yZ

[@Fabio_Costa_Music]

Great video. Now, I noticed that you usually refer to the just-intonation minor third as being 6:5 - but it could just as well be thought of as 19:16, which in a way could make at least as much sense because it relates to the fundamental 1 (=2=4=8=16), while the 6:5 would imply a (minor chord in a) major seventh harmony. Thanks, keep it up! 🙂 PS: 19:16 is nearly just in 12-edo, the difference tone (beating) of that interval is 19-16=3, and 24-19, the major third of the minor chord generates 5, the major third (just!) of the same fundamental 1. In my view, right here a reason more why the minor chord/mode sounds so great in 12-edo and has established itself so pervasively! 🙂

[@galoomba5559]

19-16 is not 5.

[@Fabio_Costa_Music]

​@@galoomba5559right, sorry. 24-19 is, the difference of the major third. So the minor chord in 12-edo generates 19-16=3 and 24-19=5, the fifth and the major third virtually just.

[@Fabio_Costa_Music]

@@galoomba5559 I corrected, thank you.

[@someoneelse1534]

friend: complains about whether to pursue Sax or Clarinet. me: "bra, you have no idea of my hardships."

[@user-yv6xw7ns3o]

Relatable

[@fonwoolridge]

Very interesting.....

[@the_eternal_student]

Why is this called 19 instead of 18 edo, since 12 edo is 12 intervals divided by 13 notes?

[@YoVariable]

Actually, 12edo is dividing the octave into 12 equally spaced notes, hence the name 12edo (12 equal divisions of the octave). 18edo, which you mentioned, doesn’t even have a good perfect fifth (10\18 and 11\18 are both bad approximations of 3/2, the just perfect fifth). 19edo is 19 equally divided notes per octave, hence why it is 19 and not 18.

[@the_eternal_student]

So the chromatic scale is 13 edo and 31 edo is 5 notes per whole tone ?@@YoVariable

[@YoVariable]

@@the_eternal_student the chromatic scale in 12edo is just 12 notes, you can count them to make sure. 5 steps of 31edo do make a whole tone and 3 steps of 19edo make a whole tone as well

[@blopartDGRI]

@@the_eternal_student in your representation of the octave, you seem to be counting the C twice. Which would give you the false impression of "13 notes per octave", but actually the higher C (usually played in scale exercises in 4/4 time signature which makes us want to play notes in groups of 8 rather than 7) does belong to the higher octave. So standard scale is 12 EDO, because the [C->C[ interval has 12 distinct note names.

[@kpra.2pro590]

i will learn this, on guitar

[@RememberGodHolyBible]

In truth, Db is a lower pitch than C#. All these tunings and edos that have Db as a higher note than C# are fundamentally confused and are the result of confusion. Sharps are overtonal and slightly higher than their enharmonic flat note variants. So 31 edo, 19 edo, so-called "just intonaiton", even Dave's conception of 53 edo is based upon this very confusion of having "many flavors of thirds" this is a concept founded upon a bedrock of confusion. I het the appeal of it, but it is not right and makes all your music out of tune and limits you to forever playing in imperfect tunings and having your knowledge of music drastically limited. True just intonation is Pythagorean just intonaiton, or as I more rightly call it, True Intonaiton. What Dave says here about the over tones of a note all being in the same key as the fundamental frequency, this is totally wrong and harmful. Most of the notes in the harmonic series are NOT in the key of the fundamental. But this means you must understand what a "key" really is. A "key" is a group of SEVEN notes derived from an UNBROKEN chain of six 3/2 fifths. When you really meditate on this fact, you can start to see how terribly out of tune your music actually is when tuning pitch classes to harmonics with a prime number of 5 and above. Because 5's can never be reached by the 3's of true intonation. The 5's are quite literally in a different key, and one that is outside of the musical plane of the fundamental. Not all timbral notes are for tuning pitch classes to, most are their to give distinction to the sound of a note, not to tell you the notes of the key of the fundamental pitch. The lumatones bosenquet layout though is quite a poor layout in general, and definitely poor for playing in tune in true intoantion. It is mostly for playing in out of tune perverted tunings like 31 edo and 19 edo, and even 53 edo. If you wish to play in true intonation in a wickihayden layout, you cannot use the kind find on the lumatone. I mean, you can, but it is not good ergonomically. To get the best orientation of the wicki hayden layout for playing in tune, you must find middle C, C4, then go up an octave to C5, and then make sure that B#, the one that is 6 whole tones above C4, is in a straight line across from C5, going from left to right. The other very important thing, YOU MUST have the whole tones ascending up in pitch going diagnoally up and to the left away from you, which will make the octaves ascend up and to the right. Even though this might seem unintuitive given how the conventional piano is laid out, it is not very difficult to adjust to and it is very important. It makes it so that your hands will not be on top of and running into one another, AND it makes it so that your hands can function separately while still maintaing perfect ergonomics for the hands for chords and scales. It will also keep your right hand in the treble and your left hand in the bass (generally speaking). This is contrary to the wicki hayden layout on the lumatone which has the whole tone going up and to the right and octaves up and to the left, the exact opposite of what is needed. The lumatones version of the wicki hayden layout makes your hands have to cross, and has poor ergomnomics for the hands, and encourages you to constant play treble parts with your left hand and bass parts with your right hand. But I am writing this so people do not waste years of their lives in perverted tunings and can go straight to true intonation and start making good music from the beginning. There is no point getting side tracked with wrong ideas which will steal years off of your music making, if not your whole life as it has done with many.