The past, present, and future of the 13 series.
As far as I know, there have been no other attempts to define the 13th series tuning/setup on the PSG…it is however not too far from that used on the concert harp with less strings and more changes.
A few decades ago I was reading/studying a book by Arnold Schoenberg named THEORY OF HARMONY. Chapter IV had the title = THE MAJOR MODE AND DIATONIC CHORDS. The information caused me to think of expanding the principle to include up to 13th chords and apply it to the PSG.
The result was to pick a note as the “system root”, and tune to the diatonic scale for that note as in C,E,G,B,D,F,A = 1,3,5,7,9,11,13 etc.. As intervals, this can be applied to any note as system root, hence can be added to an existing setup/coped with little effort as in the E9/A6/B6 universal, or an A6, Bb6 or C6 instrument.
The result was that the common changes like E to F, E to Eb, B to Bb, middle E to D and so forth gave the M13, 13, m13, mM13 and so forth. Also, any note in the tuning could provide a system root for the 13 series. This makes available a cascade of chord structures. I had a batch of 10 of these made. They had 4 pedals, 5 levers, and 14 strings. The tuning/setup is shown below. The first chart is in E, and the second is in C for easy discussion. I actually use Eb/Ab/Bb, E13series.
This was interesting enough that I decided to tune and rod one of my 4X5s to Bb13 series only(the discussion will use C as the primary system root),,,the changes (P&L) are initially set to raise and lower each note by a single halftone. This provides the s4, b5, #5, etc. for the “system root”, These variations provide the raising and lowering of other intervals when other strings are used as the root…AND each other string provides the possibility of another 13 series system root.
The full 13 system requires 14 changes plus NC = no changes. This can mean 9 pedals and 5 levers…as loaded as an E9/B6 Uni. The task became to assign the possible interval changes such that the cream of the crop were concentrated in the first 3 or 4 pedals and the 5 levers commonly used on the various E9 and similar tunings/setups.
The guiding light was to set up so as to provide the M13,13,m13, and mM13, via changes, that could be used with each string as the root. The next chart shows the result.
This leaves a lot of changes to use with other than the single halftone changes to get any interval structures not covered by the halftone raises and lowers.
For those that might like to prowl around in the details of this and other tuning/setup related charts (sans text) go to:
http://s75.photobucket.com/albums/i287/ ... TRUCTURES/