The Future of Music, the Spiral of Fifths and the iPad - Going Old School Star Trek with Mugician &

There is a fascinating thread going on currently in General Conspiracies titled, The Devil's Chord: The conspiracy to open the portal of consciousness and mystery of the octave where fulllotusqigong explains the history and math of eastern vs western tuning. He explains that western tuning, the Circle of Fifths, is mathematical averaging so that we get an approximation rather than an exact ratio tuning--think fretted instruments. Pythagoras figured out much earlier that by tuning to fixed ratios you actually get a Spiral of Fifths.

I'm still digesting it and the thread is 28 pages and growing. It's a fascinating read and takes some study to get your head around but it is well worth it.

While searching for examples of Pythagorean tuning I stumbled upon some pretty cutting edge and complex lab work using the ipad. rrr00bb has a site where he has downloadable versions of Mugician which he wrote to use the Pythagorean math-based tuning to create an instrument similar to what Spock would play on the original Star Trek series.

The software allows the player to play basically fret-less (eastern) and have to deal with the infinite spirals and harmonic resonances that occur resulting in ethereal outer space type music. Now much of this has been done using fret-less instruments and the pitch bend wheels on modern synths (which interestingly because they are digital, they can be tuned to use Pythagorean tuning). But with the ipad app you can create very deep harmonic and near harmonic musings that resonate.

Here is a video of rrr00bb using his Pythagoras software on the ipad along with some background explanation.


Here is a demo of rrr00bb playing some metal-type music using his software Mugician. Very Eastern or Turkish sounding. You can see the possibilities. And you can see one could make some pretty harsh dischord as well--haha.



He has a bunch of videos on the stuff he's experimenting with. I put it in Space Exploration since it seems pretty fitting.

I listened to those guys playing the Pythagorean scale. It occurred to me that the band Yes may have favored such musical structures. Just the feeling of the sounds - big, solid, natural, reminded me of some Yes compositions.

I flagged this late last night. Makes me wish I had an Ipod.
Never wanted one before but this is just too cool!