An Automatic Pitch Analysis Method for Turkish Maqam Music

Shota

Παλαιό Μέλος
I found this Matlab package:

ftp://ftp.iyte.edu.tr/share/ktm-nota/TuningMeasurement.html

Although I'm not into the subject, it might be helpful for those performing the pitch analysis for the Byzantine chant. I attach the corresponding paper dealing with the theory.

From what I understood, the software is based on the state-of-art method for determination of the fundamental frequency, YIN:

http://labrosa.ee.columbia.edu/doc/yin.html

Furthermore, it allows simultaneous analysis of a large number of recordings (the analysis attempts for the Byzantine chant that I have seen seem to be based on a small sample of recordings). So it might be worth looking at. Again, I'm not an expert in the field, so the users decide themselves.
 

nikosthe

Νίκος Θεοτοκάτος
I found this Matlab package:

ftp://ftp.iyte.edu.tr/share/ktm-nota/TuningMeasurement.html

Although I'm not into the subject, it might be helpful for those performing the pitch analysis for the Byzantine chant. I attach the corresponding paper dealing with the theory.
Very interesting! There is also a discussion at the greek part of Psaltologion about the divergence between turkish music theory and practice, based on an article by Bozkurt. I wrote about this here. Bozkurt's article, on which my opinion was based, is called "Automatic Classification of Turkish Traditional Art Music". You can download it here.
 
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Shota

Παλαιό Μέλος
Very interesting! There is also a discussion at the greek part of Psaltologion about the divergence between turkish music theory and practice, based on an article by Bozkurt. I wrote about this here. Bozkurt's article, on which my opinion was based, is called "Automatic Classification of Turkish Traditional Art Music". You can download it here.

Bozkurt with coauthors has a paper on fret positions of a tanbur in theory and practice:

http://cim09.lam.jussieu.fr/CIM09-fr/Actes_files/18A-GedikBozkurtCirak.pdf

The part I found particularly interesting is this one (see Section 2.2, the part discussing fretting suggested by Yekta):

The interesting point in the table is that fret placements are simply reflections of frequency ratios applied to a tanbur with 106.4 cm length. In fact it is not practically possible to have an octave relation (2/1) between the frets yegah and neva given as 1064 mm and 532 mm with reference to bridge, due to the change in the length and tension of the string when pressed by a finger. This mismatch is also valid for other fret measures.

My understanding is that this has implications for interval ratios derived by Chrysanthos. Let's argue in the opposite direction. I assume that first Chrysanthos would produce an interval with his tanbur (playing two sounds), then check that it agreed with what he heard when chanting, and finally measure the length from the bridge to derive the ratio. However, this final step he probably did for the string being in still position, and hence the derived ratio would have a certain mismatch with the actual ratio of the interval he played. Now I don't know how noticeable this mismatch was in Chrysanthos' case. I would be interested in hearing opinion of expert tanbur players (e.g. Ioannis Arvanitis).
 

Shota

Παλαιό Μέλος
My understanding is that this has implications for interval ratios derived by Chrysanthos. Let's argue in the opposite direction. I assume that first Chrysanthos would produce an interval with his tanbur (playing two sounds), then check that it agreed with what he heard when chanting, and finally measure the length from the bridge to derive the ratio. However, this final step he probably did for the string being in still position, and hence the derived ratio would have a certain mismatch with the actual ratio of the interval he played. Now I don't know how noticeable this mismatch was in Chrysanthos' case.

What I basically suggest is to reproduce Chrysanthos' measurements: position a few frets (say starting from Rast) so that they match Chrysanthos' ratios for the intervals Ni through Ga and then measure the corresponding intervals via some software (possibly repeat the procedure many times, or maybe even play some piece with this tuning). Major differences are not to be expected (that's what I was also told via the PM), but I would still be interested in seeing the results for Bou-Ga.
 
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