George Secor

George Secor (November 8, 1943 – March 2, 2020 ) was an American musician, composer and music-theorist from Chicago.

He was the discoverer of miracle temperament and eponym of the secor.

As an inventor, Secor and Hermann Pedtke's Motorola Scalatron (1974) is an example of a Bosanquet generalized keyboard featuring a multicolored arrangement of 240 tunable oval keys, about which Secor said: "There is not much point in using this alternative keyboard for systems below 31 tones in the octave."

However, "even if it were completely impractical musically, it would make a wonderful prop for a futuristic movie."

Though its synthesizer capacities may not reach performance level, according to Easley Blackwood, "It has rock-steady tuning capabilities; you can always count on it to be right."

George demonstrating the micro-tonal keyboard instrument can be seen in this demonstration video.

George was also an accomplished musician and proponent of the Moschino Free-Bass Accordion system.

A YouTube channel with some of George's performances on Moschino Accordions illustrates his abilities on their unique keyboard, which allows for chromatic runs and open chords with the left-hand buttons, a Free-bass system, rather than the more common Stradella bass system, which has fewer bass notes, plus preset chord buttons.

In music, miracle temperament is a regular temperament discovered by George Secor in 1974 which has the eponymous secor as a generator, serving as both the 15:14 and 16:15 semitones.

Because 15:14 and 16:15 are equated, their ratio 225:224 is tempered out, and two secors give an 8:7 interval, a septimal whole tone.

Three of these 8:7 intervals, or six secors, make up a fifth, so that 1029:1024 is also tempered out.

This gives the seven-limit version of miracle.

A septimal whole tone of 8:7 as we have seen is approximated by two secors, and a neutral third of 11:9 by three secors.

In miracle, a minor third plus a septimal whole tone is also equated with the 11th harmonic.

This means that the gap between a minor third plus a septimal whole tone and the 11th harmonic (an 11:8 ratio), 385:384, is also tempered out.

Miracle, therefore, is the temperament tempering out 225:224, 1029:1024 and 385:384 at the same time.

For tuning purposes, a secor of seven steps of 72 equal temperament can be used.

While this also tempers out 4375:4374 (the ragisma), doing this is not regarded as a part of the definition of miracle temperament.

Miracle temperament, particularly in the ten note Miracle scale and the distributionally even scale known as Blackjack.

The twenty-one note Blackjack scale is derived from twenty successive secors and has been used by several composers, including New York composer Joseph Pehrson.

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0' s s s s s s s s s s +q

q +r q +r q +r q +r q +r q +r q +r q +r q +r q +r +q

0 >0 1 >1 2 >2 3 >3 4 >4 5 >5 6 >6 7 >7 8 >8 9 >9 <0 0' q r q r q r q r q r q r q r q r q r q r q this may also be viewed as a chain of 20 secors:

>0 >1 >2 >3 >4 >5 >6 >7 >8 >9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 <0 s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s

George was interviewed in 2018 about the origin and organization of the Moschino accordion system here.

The system is explained in a video Additionally, a written discussion of the organization of the system, including Georges own explanations and diagrams is included on accordionists.info.

In music, a secor is the interval of 116.7 cents ( (18⁄5) 1 / 19 ) named after George Secor.

Secor devised it to allow a close approximation, generated from a single interval, to Harry Partch's 43 tone just intonation scale.

All 11-limit consonances are approximated to within 3.32 cents.

It is approximated in 31, 41 , and 72 equal temperament.

For tuning purposes, a secor of seven steps of 72 equal temperament is often used.

Two secors (233.4 cents ) approximate an 8:7 interval (231.17 cents), a septimal whole tone.

Three of these 8:7 intervals (693.51 cents), or 6 secors (700.2 cents ), approximate a fifth (701.96 cents).

A neutral third of 11⁄9 (347.41 cents) is approximated by 3 secors (350.1 cents ).