Fractions of a comma for European tunings and temperaments c. 1500-1900
Posted: Tue May 24, 2022 5:18 am
Just got off an extremely informative video chat with Doug Blumeyer after meeting him at the recent Microtonal Adventures Festival in Bellingham, WA.
As someone who works mostly in Western European tunings and temperaments, I'm very interested in starting to use Saggital notation in my presentations. I think that the saggitals will be great for efficiently showing the adjustment of the Pythagorean backbone of western music as it moved through several stages of evolution after the Middle Ages from 1/4-comma meantone, through 1/5-comma, and 1/6-comma, and the explosion of circulating temperaments in the 18th century.
My question is this: it seems to me that the saggitals are indicating various important commas, but in the tunings I use, the adjustments to the chained 3/2s are (almost) always made by some fraction of a comma. Is there a way to use a saggital to indicate a fraction of a comma such as the syntonic?
Thanks!
Michael Kudirka - new member of the forum
As someone who works mostly in Western European tunings and temperaments, I'm very interested in starting to use Saggital notation in my presentations. I think that the saggitals will be great for efficiently showing the adjustment of the Pythagorean backbone of western music as it moved through several stages of evolution after the Middle Ages from 1/4-comma meantone, through 1/5-comma, and 1/6-comma, and the explosion of circulating temperaments in the 18th century.
My question is this: it seems to me that the saggitals are indicating various important commas, but in the tunings I use, the adjustments to the chained 3/2s are (almost) always made by some fraction of a comma. Is there a way to use a saggital to indicate a fraction of a comma such as the syntonic?
Thanks!
Michael Kudirka - new member of the forum