The Story of No

[smueske]

Finished my sad ambient piece called The Story of No. It's a microtonal piece in 15 EDO. Hope you like it.

https://soundcloud.com/steve-mueske/the-story-of-no

[kenz]

This is pretty cool, first time I hear 15 EDO. Nice track. :)

[LightOfDay]

I find this very, very interesting. complete different attitude than the usual 12-step temperament.

but: how the hell do you do that with plugins and how with keyboards usually not having 15 keys per octave???

[g4greg]

I like this a lot man!

funny how we are limited in 12 tones in our western culture, when in fact there's a lot more out there.

When I sing, I sometimes go precisely a half tone higher than a "standard" note, but it doesn't sound off..

I really have to get into microtones a bit more, that's cool stuff right there ;0

[smueske]

kenz, thank you very much for listening. I deeply appreciate your time.

Light of Day, thank you for listening and for the good words. The short answer is that some plugins support retuning. Although those that do ship with a limited number of tuning files (usually in .scl or .tun format), most microtonal composers use a program called Scala, which is free.

Here is the link:

http://huygens-fokker.org/scala/

This program outputs text files that you load into your softsynth.

There is a large microtonal community and thousands of temperaments, theory, etc. ready to go. I've only been doing this sort of thing for about 3 years (out of the fifteen I've been doing electronic music).

About the keyboard. Some DAWs, like Reaper, will allow you to create your own keyboard layouts. I don't do that. I just know that "15 EDO" is an octave divided into 15 steps, so I count. Its fairly easy because you just start thinking in terms of intervals rather than note names. Some people use little stickers. Some invest in cool MIDI controllers and create maps. It does get weird with non-octave scales (such as divisions of the fifth or tritave), but that's a whole 'nother discussion. I'm a cheap bastard. I do everything manually. :)

In short, it's not a complicated process. It can just seem overwhelming because the subject is so big.

g4greg, ha! thank you so much. you gave me a big smile. Yes, I would encourage everyone to try alternate tunings. It feels very weird at first, but it literally opens up a world of opportunity. I work very simply and I find, for me, it is much easier to capture an emotion or mood if I am not concentrating on keys, cadences, and such. I mean, you do have to come back to traditional theory, but a lot of microtonal music is beyond traditional theory. There are intervals, chords, etc., etc. that simply don't exist in 12 edo western music. The more I think about it, the weirder it is that one tuning system has become synonymous with the very idea of music. It's a beautiful tuning, but there are thousands and thousands of others.

[Jorgen]

Sad and lonely is the impression I get. Beautiful too. You make good use of silence. I wasn't aware of the micro tonality, didn't sound weird at all.

[msore]

Good music. Both interesting and emotional, nicely arranged. Thanks for the info on Scala.

[smueske]

Jorgen:

Thank you for listening. You've always been kind to me, and I appreciate that. When my last poetry book was released in 2014, you were one of the first to congratulate me.

I do try and make pieces sound sonorous, regardless of the temperament. My goal is not to be as weird as possible but to use different tools to achieve emotional results. I am so happy to hear this works for you in this piece.

msore:

Thanks for the comments. No problem on the link to Scala. If you ever want more info or a path into the community (if you grow interested), send me a PM and I'll do my best to help out.

Steve

[LightOfDay]

About the keyboard. Some DAWs, like Reaper, will allow you to create your own keyboard layouts. I don't do that. I just know that "15 EDO" is an octave divided into 15 steps, so I count. Its fairly easy because you just start thinking in terms of intervals rather than note names.

that was the part I was looking for. :-) thank you very much!!! now that is clear.

I think I will put my toes a little into that, inspired by you. your music opens a complete new window, the sound is - psychedelic. I guess because its different, but not so different that it would alienate me in listening to these things. your microtonal approach isnt obvious.

beside the fact, that the songs (<- are that songs?? no, but I dont know another term) are really catching me and the compositons are really awesome and unique.

thanks again for the info! (I guess if I dive into it I can forget all my guitars - or I use a slide...)

[smueske]

Light of Day:

I see here that your concern was addressed. Thanks, again, for the kind words. I do think of my pieces as songs, just not commercial songs. If you have Spotify look up some old work by Vladimir Ussachevsky, some newer work by Oneohtrix Point Never, etc. There is, literally, a completely different world out there, one that bears strikingly little resesmblance to the endless regurgitation of pop forms we hear on the majority of radio stations. There is a lot of really interesting, really good music out there, but it's not on the surface. I only finish two or three songs a year and give them away. There is no market for them. But, you know, I knew that going in. What I do feels right to me, and in the end, that's what matters most.

One more thing, Tall Kite, a Reaper user, has invented a tuning plugin to tune regular synths. It's a bit prioey, so I don't use it. I use Scala. But if you are interested and can afford it, the link is here:

http://www.tallkite.com/alt-tuner.html