Talk:Xenharmonic music

Definition
The definition currently given is not accurate. Xenharmonic is not a synonym for microtonal. Xenharmonic tunings are tunings that do not sound like standard tuning. This is in contrast to the use of tunings like meantone and low limit just intonation, which sound like and can substitute for equal tunings in much music, without most listeners even noticing. Xj 00:13, 8 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Fixed. Hyacinth 19:07, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

That's a very good fix to the opening sentence. Thanks.

I'd like to propose removing the 'it often includes all microtonal music' as well unless there's a source or something. Either eliminate that or change it to something like "it is sometimes mistakenly used to mean all microtonal music, a usage in contradiction to Darreg's use of the term." But I think just cutting that part out would be best unless there's something someone's thinking of in particular here. Any one have any thoughts on this?

The example of 19 tone might be a bit misleading. 19 can indeed be used xenharmonically but one of its most commonly discussed strengths is its use as a 19 length version of baroque meantone tuning, and when used in that particular way its not xenharmonic, so I'd see 19 as a bit of a weak example. Now among the ETs 13tET, 23tET and 11tET are all good examples of more fully xenharmonic tunings. Pretty much all nonoctave tunings are xenharmonic, such as Carlos' alpha, beta and gamma, and 88cET. Ah shoot, I'm just going to make the changes on this one.

Also, no one really uses the term xenharmony compared to xenharmonic. Would it be better to have xenharmony point to xenharmonic instead? Or is it because xenharmony would be a sort of a noun instead of an adjective and nouns are preferred on wikipedia? I'll note that there's an article for microtonal music and not microtone - both microtone and microtonality redirect to microtonal music. Maybe the title of this page could be Xenharmonic Music. Xj 05:32, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

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Ivor Darreg coined this term largely because "microtonal" implies small intervals. It's a general term and there's no value judgement included on how foreign-sounding it has to be from common-practice music. And yes, xenharmonic is the root term, with "xenharmony" being used only occasionally. CKL

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I have to say that the latest version of this article is poor and misleading. The information about nonoctave tuning should not have been discarded. Ivor did NOT intent xenharmonic to mean macrotonal scales. 5 and 7 are xenharmonic, but removing mention of very xenharmonic scales like 11 and 13 is a terrible decision. Xj (talk) 04:41, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

xenharmonic a new section in pokhara.nepal —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.79.63.29 (talk) 07:16, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Just temperament
Interesting that Justly tempered scales are considered xenharmonic. That makes them foreign, but, of course they're from the same lands as where equal temperament was born. What's more, justly tuned music doesn not even sound foreign, which is one criterion this article gives for xenharmony. It's a rare listener that can even tell mean from just. 198.49.180.40 18:45, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

"Just temperament" is an oxymoron. CKL —Preceding comment was added at 16:58, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

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Is Brian McLaren meant to be the popular postmodern Christian author? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.144.65.147 (talk) 13:21, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Xenharmonic wiki
I sugesst to add a section for this wiki: http://xenharmonic.wikispaces.com/ Best regards Uncopy (talk) 07:35, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

A link to the Xenwiki and also the Tonalsoft encyclopedia would certainly make sense, but I still fail to see why a page on it and a listing on the list of online encyclopedias would not. Gene Ward Smith (talk) 15:56, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Ok, the intended section should probably be dedicated to the online community. --Uncopy (talk) 12:03, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Need a better example than the Easely Blackwood studies
I agree that it's a good idea to have an example of a composition that "does sound like 12-tone equal temperament" as an example of a non xenharmonic microtonal piece. But I don't think Easely Blackwood's compositions are what we need here, as is clear from his notes about the tunings. He says this for instance about his 13 notes Sostenuto

""13 notes: The most alien tuning of all: so disso­nant that no three-note combination sounds like a major or minor triad. Yet even this tuning contains a strange mode best described as "sub-minor.""

And even his pieces that have somewhat more familiar chords and melodies have unfamiliar changes of key that surely count as xenharmonic, e.g. his Easley Blackwood - Fanfare in 19-EDO which in its development section modulates entirely around the circle of nineteen fifths.

""This tuning contains diatonic scales in which the major second spans three chromatic degrees, and the minor second two. Triads are smooth, but the scale sounds slightly out of tune because the leading tone seems low with respect to the tonic. Diatonic behavior is virtually iden­tical to that of 12-note tuning, but chromatic behavior is very different. For example, a perfect fourth is divisible into two equal parts, while an augmented sixth and a diminished seventh sound identical. The Erude is in a sonata form where the first theme is diatonic and the second is chromatic. The development modulates entirely around the circle of nineteen fifths. An extended coda employs both diatonic and chro­matic elements.""

Also tunings that lie within Easely Blackwood's "Range of Recognizabilty" in his "The Structure of Recognizable Diatonic Tunings" still can be xenharmonic. For instance the major thirds of many of the tunings are unstable, and not suitable points to resolve to, see for instance his 16-notes Andantino

""16 notes: This tuning is best thought of as a combination of four intertwined diminished seventh chords. Since 12-note tuning can be regarded as a combination of three diminished seventh chords, it is plain that the two tunings have elements in common. The most obvious difference in the way the two tunings sound and work is that triads in 16-note tuning, although recognizable, are too discordant to serve as the final harmony in cadences. Keys can still be established by successions of altered subdominant and dominant harmonies, however, and the Etude is based mainly upon this property. The fundamental consonant harmony employed is a minor triad with an added minor seventh.""

Which makes it pretty clear that he thinks of this tuning as recognizably similar to 12 note tunings, but still xenharmonic in the sense that it "does not sound like 12-tone equal temperament". Anyone got a good suggestion to replace it? Robert Walker (talk) 10:47, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

No responses yet, will leave it for a few days. Meanwhile I had a thought, I think the Easely Blackwood pieces are well worth mentioning, but in the other direction, as examples of pieces to show that recognizably diatonic tunings can sound xenharmonic.

As for examples of non xenharmonic microtonal music, I haven't had any suggestions yet. I think it may be a tricky thing to provide, possible reasons below, collapsed.

The obvious thing would be temperings of music composed for twelve equal or earlier non twelve equal music that is now played in twelve equal. Even Chopin originally tempered, you could say is "microtonal" in the broadest sense, but obviously not xenharmonic. But it's a bit of a trivial example. And there's still the issue that a few musicians with very keen ears can tell the temperament for a piece just by listening to them. And sometimes for them the chords you get in the more extreme forms of temperings used historically, which to most of us sound just to be a mild variation on twelve tone music, can seem quite xenharmonic in their descriptions (I'm thinking especially here of a discussion I had with a piano tuner who tuned pianos to microtonal temperaments on what various tunings sounded to him - he of course would be especially attuned to small distinctions of pitch). So it is obviously also rather a subjective thing whether music sounds xenharmonic. Others can listen to the likes of the less "out there" Easely Blackwood's pieces, e.g. the fanfare in 19-et, and so long as they use familiar sounding melodies and progressions, they may not sound that xenharmonic at all, not much affected by the large leading tone or the modulation through 19 keys at the end.

Or even more extreme, most microtonalists have that experience of playing a piece that is very xenharmonic to their ears to someone else who appreciates music, but not especially familiar with microtonal music, who doesn't notice anything remarkable, it's just music for them, so long as it has a reasonable coherence and sounds musical. Just about everyone with musical appreciation notices sudden shifts of a chord or a note by a microtone, or unfamiliar forms of composition combined with microtonality (e.g. gamelan), so you do have those two extremes where just about everyone would say it is xenharonic, and at the other end of the range, just about everyone would say it "sounds like twelve equal" but in between there seems to be great deal of variety in where they draw the line.

So - none of that is for putting in the article of course, it's just to say why I think we might find it hard to come up with good examples of microtonal non xenharmonic music, in any absolute sense, though anyone individually will have pieces that work for them as examples of this.

So not sure what the answer is here, interested in any suggestions, anyone got any ideas for a microtonal piecethat just about everyone would agree are interestingly microtonally tuned yet "does sound like 12-tone equal temperament"? The best suggestion I have myself so far is the idea of a slightly tempered piece, e.g. Chopin played on the original tunings of his pianos, late Victorian type mild tempering, I think just about everyone would agree that's not xenharmonic, even those super sensitive to temperaments of twelve equal, but it might be a rather trivial seeming example. Robert Walker (talk) 13:48, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Removing second Greek word with no citation
Removed (Greek)|Xenia, in favor of leaving xenos.

"Xenos" is the only Greek discussed in the cited archived 1974 paper (by Ivor Darreg, the originator of the term "Xenharmonic Music.")

His post that is the only citation for the section, citation 1 of the page at this time. Here: https://web.archive.org/web/20120205142523/http://sonic-arts.org/darreg/XHB2.HTM

In that paper, Ivor Darreg wrote in 1974: "The term `xenharmonic' is derived from the Greek ξένος, xenos, meaning 'strange.' The other meanings of this Greek word, such as 'foreign' and 'hospitable,' also seem appropriate enough. The models for this neologism are of course such terms as enharmonic and philharmonic.: ...

Also, the Wikipedia page for the Greek word he uses: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenos_(Greek) confirms both meanings, "foreign" and "hospitable".

The part I removed was either wrong or well-meaning "Original Research" that cited nothing, and also I can't seem to find a citation for it anywhere on the Internet.

If anyone returns the other Greek word, please provide a reputable citation. That's better than no citation. Thank you.

Error in Greek typography in Ivor Darreg's original essay
In the citation for the section about Darreg coining the phrase, citation 1 of the page at this time.

Here: https://web.archive.org/web/20120205142523/http://sonic-arts.org/darreg/XHB2.HTM the Greek word for Xenos is slightly wrong, though from context we can tell what he meant.

A Greek native speaker has confirmed what was meant by context here: https://twitter.com/xipteras/status/1649689031423188992 as a reply to the question here: https://twitter.com/FreedomFeens/status/1649688041118904320

Since installed fonts of some readers of Wikipedia may not render correctly, this image: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FuTeN8EaMAEHA1Q?format=jpg&name=small on this Twitter post: https://twitter.com/FreedomFeens/status/1649688041118904320 show the two renderings.

The reply below that tweet, from Panagiotis Xipteras, says "Yes, they (supposed to) mean the same but only the first one ξένος is written correctly. It means “foreigner”. The other one has a σ at the end, which is a tiny but funny looking spelling error."

The first one is the correct way, which was copied from the Wikipedia article for the Greek word "Xenos": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenos_(Greek)

and is the same as in the Xenharmonic Music Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenharmonic_music

The second, incorrect, one is from Ivor Darreg's "Xenharmonic Bulletin No. 2 May, 1974 ~ Reprint Edition of July, 1977."

It is not known if Darreg made the error or if something was "lost in translation" of reprinting pre-Internet to Internet fonts, then re-sharing, then being archived by archive.org

But it is obvious from context, as confirmed by native Greek speaker in Greece, that Darreg meant Xenos, as written in the Xenharmonic Music Wikipedia article.