Date: Sat, 1 Nov 1997 21:42:07 -0600 (CST)
To: rusin@math.niu.edu
From: sambetsy@voicenet.com (Sam or Betsy Smith)
Subject: Alternative scales

Dave Rusin,

By Web browsing, I have discovered your interest in a 41-tone scale.

A student and I have used continued fractions (with the help of PARI) to
investigate alternative scales, especially John Pierce's eight-tone scale
and his tritave (see J. R. Pierce, *The Science of Musical Sound*, Revised
Edition, page 100).  The tritave scale might have interesting possibilities
as a musical medium.  Like the diatonic scales, it has lots of frequency
ratios of small integers.

We want to listen to music composed in tritave, so we wrote to Max Mathews
and John Pierce.  Pierce kindly sent us a recording of his Eight-Tone Canon
written in his eight-tone scale. Neither knew of any tritave recordings.
Mathews suggested that we write our own tritave compositions!  If you know
of any tritave recordings, or of recordings in any alternative scales, we
would be grateful to hear from you.  Thanks!

Sam Smith
George School
Newtown, PA 18940

sambetsy@voicenet.com

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Date: Mon, 3 Nov 1997 15:47:07 -0600 (CST)
To: rusin@math.niu.edu
From: sambetsy@voicenet.com (Sam or Betsy Smith)
Subject: Alternative scales II

Dave,

The only recording I have found of music composed in an alternative scale
is John Pierce's Eight-Tone Canon, which he sent to us on the CD "Computer
Music Currents 13", Wergo, WER 2033-2.  This CD is probably available from
Stanford's CCRMA.  This CD also contains Max Mathews' delightful "Bicycle
Built for Two", which inspired Hal to sing as he was being disconnected.

Sam Smith
George School
Newtown, PA 18940

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[Note: nowadays it's comparatively easy to find composers placing their works
on the web in  MIDI  format; this includes 41-tone compositions (etc.) as
well as "normal" ones. -- djr]