Owner`s manual

47
Vallotti & Young chromatic: A twelve-tone scale. Another derivative of the
Pythagorean scale designed to allow arbitrary keys.
Barnes-Bach (chromatic): A twelve-tone scale. A variation of the Vallotti
& Young scale designed to optimize the performance of Bach’s Well-
Tempered Clavier.
ETHNIC TUNINGS
Indian: This 22-tone scale is used in India to perform ragas.
Slendro: This five-tone Indonesian scale is played by ensembles
called gamelans.
Pelog: This seven-tone Indonesian scale is more interesting than Slendro
and is now the primary scale in Balinese music.
Arabic 1: This 17-tone scale is the original Arabic scale adopted from
the Pythagorean scale.
Arabic 2 (chromatic): This twelve-tone scale is the modern version of
the Arabic scale popular in Arabic music today.
CONTEMPORARY TUNINGS
Equal tempered scales with a large number of tones are typically used to
play common tonal harmony with greater purity of intervals and chords.
The typical approach is to analyze a passage (or less) of music and select
tones from a scale that will best approximate the desired pure intervals.
19 Tone: This scale has greater purity of minor thirds and major thirds (and
conversely, minor and major sixths) than twelve-tone equal temperament.
A disadvantage is that perfect fifths are narrower than those found in
twelve-tone equal temperament.
24 Tone: Also know as the quarter tone scale, this scale is used for
variety but has no advantage in terms of ratios that better approximate
pure intervals.
31 Tone: In addition to intervals that better approximate pure intervals,
this scale also contains good approximations to Indonesian pelog and
slendro scales.
53 Tone: Related mathematically to the cycle of fifths, the 53-tone scale has
very pure major and minor thirds, and fifths and fourths.
Partch: Harry Partch is considered the father of modern microtonality.
This scale was devised by him and used in instrument building and
performances.