AXIS keyboard demo for BP Scale (Part 1)

Listen to a song in the BP Scale here:
http://www.ziaspace.com/elaine/BP/BPmusic/LoveSong_BPscale_EW.mp3

C-Thru Music has lent me this keyboard, called the AXIS, for a few months, and I am rearranging the keys for the Bohlen-Pierce Scale, a macrotuning based on a 3/1 frequency ratio, divided by 13 equal steps. See http://www.ziaspace.com/elaine/BP for research on the BP Scale.

This particular AXIS toured with the Lionel Richie Band on loan, went to me, and in two weeks I will be flying to Boston to give this AXIS to the Berklee College of Music, Synthesis Department - namely to Dr. Boulanger who will use it for his classes and for the new microtonal club.

I teach Electronic Music at Scottsdale Community College. Come join the fun!

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• AXIS
• keyboard
• C-Thru
• Bohlen
• Pierce
• Scale
• electronic
• music
• controller

[zonedout245]

I thought it would take me a while to get used to the sound of the Bohlen-Pierce scale, but I actually enjoyed "Love Song". I'm going to do some research on this.

[miselaineeous]

@zonedout245 - awesome! That is the idea. I don't see any reason micro/macrotonal music needs to be too strange. I find that if it's composed in an accessible way, people's ears lock in to the new tonality pretty quickly.

[wallywalt]

Holy Crap! What a Huge Cat!

[miselaineeous]

Baloney? She's an itty bitty thing.. skin and bones at 16 years old! Maybe the camera makes everyone look fat. :P

[dangerrrdoll]

How did all the genius DNA skip me? Srsly.

[miselaineeous]

ha! YOU'RE the one who was doing algebra when you were 3 and programming php when you were 12 (and looking good doing it)! I always tell people my niece is a brainiack. ;)

[xguitarxchan]

does your "keyboard" double as a tekken 3 controller? i bet you could so a bunch of awesome combos with that many buttons.

[orboksanci]

I am looking forward to watch all the parts! Never thaught a woman could be interested in such things. Ok, i admit, it turns me on.

[MrGuyfella]

We all miss Baloney.

All of us.

[13eastie]

Absolutely fascinating, but you're hot!

[spectralmusic]

@rguitar87 I suggest reading the book 'How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony (and Why you should care)'. It's an excellent overview of western temperament and easy to understand.

[rguitar87]

This is all so very fascinating. I just embarked on the journey that is studying temperament.

Does Baloney run away when you play microtonal harmonies?

[spectralmusic]

@JLMoriart Equal Temperament was never actually used until the 20th century, although it existed as an ideal from about 1850. There was no way to measure it precisely enough untill about 1900. J.C. Bach and Mozart advocated meantone temperaments, and a variety of compromises for keyboards. Some keyboards even had split keys! Mozart apparently hated Equal Temperament as did most composers at that time.

[spectralmusic]

A lot is being overlooked by acoustic scientists about tonal systems. For starters, traditional scales did not 'grow out of major triads' but from cycles of fifths to produce pentatonic and diatonic music. Traditional 12-tone octaves were really a western compromise for keyboards to play diatonic scales and harmony. This is only possible because each progresses to its adjacent 5th via #4 or b7. What is the equivalent of this in BP tonality? Can octaves really be ignored? (I'm just interested.)

[spectralmusic]

I find that alternative tonal systems seem to be restrictive with regard to expression. Atonal music can only express tension and unrest, whole-tone music 'dream-like' indifference and Pierce-Bohlen a sort of sparse, steep tangent structure. There doesn't seem to be any restrictions with traditional tonality. There are new theories (some involving Euclidean geometry) that suggest there's more to tonal systems than acoustic consonance. Traditional scales exist in cultures without 12-note octaves.