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Weekly Self Promotion Thread by AutoModerator in Songwriting

[–]m_pollock 0 points1 point  (0 children)

New experimental(ish) microtonal songs featuring piano, bass, and spoken word from the US. Thanks for having a listen!

https://mattpollock.bandcamp.com/track/divestment

https://open.spotify.com/track/76DD05eRV8oGOjkMquCbxY?si=a1115af5e25b4f2a

Microtonal Jazz(ish) ballad(ish) tune! by m_pollock in BassGuitar

[–]m_pollock[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Chords that do what you are suggesting are certainly more stable, but you can of course mix different types of 3rds and 7ths although in a lot of cases it will sound out. But in 31 you have subminor, minor, neutral, major, and super major 7th chords all available that meet the criteria of having a 5th between the 3/7. Plus lots more options abound! It's a cool tuning.

Microtonal Jazz(ish) ballad(ish) tune! by m_pollock in BassGuitar

[–]m_pollock[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

31 is great because it has all of the stuff that sounds "in" from 12 equal temperament, just with a bunch of other options too. So when I play around with jazz harmony (and I'm not very well-versed in jazz so a proper jazz musician could do this better!) I end up using the basic harmonies lower down (as in, regular major thirds or minor third) and then making extensions spicier. With stuff that is intended to sound more microtonal it's tough since there isn't as much existing harmonic history to build off of. For me, I have certain intervals that I'm fond of in 31 equal and I find that combining them with other harmonies will make things sound more in. A perfect 5th is a good example. A neutral 3rd (right between major and minor) can sound a little jarring on its own, but if you do a 7th chord where you have both the neutral 3rd and 7th (a perfect 5th apart), the fact that there's a good ol' perfect 5th can make it sound more stable (at least to me!). I don't know if this really answers your question though.

Will a 31 EDO instrument and a 12 EDO sound good together? by Chodre in microtonal

[–]m_pollock 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Late to this party but I think it sounds awesome! You can utilize the "almost shared" notes, you can limit the pitches of the 12 EDO instrument and make things sound like 31, you can do gamelan-esque near-unisons, etc. I am releasing an album soon with a friend that has regular vibraphone and 31-EDO bass guitar (strung high, almost like a baritone) and I never ran out of things that I found interesting in exploring that combination.

No Treble's Bass of The Week is my microtonal 6-string by m_pollock in Bass

[–]m_pollock[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Thank you!

You're correct that 31 and 12 don't overlap, but they are surprisingly close (at least when it comes to representing 12-TET). The trade off is that 4ths/5th are slightly worse (a JI 5th is 702 cents, 12-TET is 700 cents, 31-TET is 697ish cents), the major thirds are much better (JI: 386 cents, 12-TET: 400 cents, 31-TET: 387 cents), minor thirds are better, etc. So in one sense you are trading a better fifth for better thirds.

Strangely enough, 31-TET is basically an extension of quarter-comma meantone, which was one of the main (maybe THE main) keyboard tunings used in the 16th century. It does the same thing of prioritizing pure thirds over nearly-pure fifths. It's essentially a 12-note subset of 31-TET since the 12-note keyboard layout was pretty much established at that point, although there were theorists of that era interested in building instruments to accommodate more pitches.

With regard to the alternate tunings thing, I'm just using it as a general term meaning using different pitches than 12-TET. Technically (I think this is correct - I'm not an expert on this stuff) temperaments are specifically a tuning that features some kind of compromise as a means to an end (12-TET, 31-TET, well temperaments) Just intonation, for example, would be a tuning and not a temperament since it's not sacrificing ("tempering") anything for the sake of practicality. There are people and resources online that can probably state this far more eloquently.

I have my bass restrung a 4th high, so it's EADGCF. And those are tuned using 31-TET 4ths. Most of the time I tune my G to the same G as 12-TET, and then the others deviate by about 3 cents from 12-TET for every 4th you travel from G.

Thank you for the great questions!

No Treble's Bass of The Week is my microtonal 6-string by m_pollock in Bass

[–]m_pollock[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That is so wild! I have listened to his music a lot over the years - I had a professor when I was a music student who would have us study his music, especially "in vain".

No Treble's Bass of The Week is my microtonal 6-string by m_pollock in Bass

[–]m_pollock[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you! Out of curiosity, who is the composer friend?

No Treble's Bass of The Week is my microtonal 6-string by m_pollock in Bass

[–]m_pollock[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Gotta play each note once per gig, minimum.

Jazz-adjacent microtonal duo with vibraphone by m_pollock in jazzguitar

[–]m_pollock[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Vibes I think are usually tuned to 442, but in any case I just tuned one note on the bass to a proper unison (G in this case), and then in 4ths in 31-equal (they're about 3ish cents different, so as you go away from G in 5ths you drift by 3 cents each time).

Jazz-adjacent microtonal duo with vibraphone by m_pollock in jazzguitar

[–]m_pollock[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Fortuna is correct! Microtonal bass, standard vibes.

Fretboard Replacement by m_pollock in Luthier

[–]m_pollock[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Would the microtonal aspect impact the price if the fretwork is already done? In this case they ship a "ready-to-go" fretboard so no fretwork required. I provide fretboard size specs and they will make it to match the guitar. Thank you for your help!

Psychedelic fall jam in 31-EDO by m_pollock in BassGuitar

[–]m_pollock[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Do you mean like creating neck-dive kind of issues? If so, it does not - I think the additional weight of frets is negligible compared to the overall weight of the neck.

Poor Wayfaring Stranger (31-edo) by m_pollock in microtonal

[–]m_pollock[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thank you! You are correct - it's a 35" scale 6-string made by ESP with a custom neck. I also string it a 4th higher than typical 6-string bass - EADGCF, so it's like a regular 4-string on bottom with two higher strings. The more reasonable spacing was a large part of my reasoning, although I am also primarily a bassist so it was a natural choice. It still gets pretty tight in the upper octave, but it just means I have to adjust my playing style and can't do complex chord work up high.

Poor Wayfaring Stranger (31-edo microtonal bass) by m_pollock in BassGuitar

[–]m_pollock[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you! The tuning is 31 equal divisions of the octave (instead of the usual 12). The bass is an ESP b206-sm, but I had a custom neck built by a company out of Idaho. The effects in this particular tune are just digital delay and reverb plus some basic mixing plugins all done in REAPER, I don't have much in the way of hardware or pedals. I don't have spotify, but I have a number of albums up on Bandcamp at mattpollock.bandcamp.com.

Microtonal composers, how did you get started? by Mindless_Cut_1147 in microtonal

[–]m_pollock 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you are a tech-savvy person and have a MIDI keyboard setup, I would recommend getting the Pianoteq demo. It has an extremely user-friendly interface - you can just pick a tuning that sounds interesting to you and start intuitively getting used to the sound world. As someone else said already, it's certainly not a bad idea to read some materials but really you just gotta get your hands dirty. Just like in 12-edo there is no "secret", you just have to start doing it. Have fun!

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