19 and beyond

Yow, thanks for the nice mention on my 19 tone music, Kraig...much appreciated. So, what Kraig said got me to thinking: first, I see 19 as a way to take 12 tone stuff to another place. I am a big fan/practitoner of American pop styles, including blues/jazz/country, etc, but I think they have, for the most part, been played out, and very little innovation is taking place in any of these styles now. In fact, I believe that's why jazz is so retro, for example; where do you go after Coltrane? Same with blues; Hendrix, to my way of thinking, took blues as far as it can go in 12...again, there's been very little, if any, sort of progression in blues since Jimi. But, as soon as you add a few notes, new doors start opening...and 19 is the perfect extension of 12. And, of course, equal temperaments are made for chordal, modulating music...and, yes, they're not "in tune" with the overtones, and that's the trade off. Personally, I don't like the real flat 5ths in 19, or the sharp b7...but, I do like what I can do with American music...and, I used a 19 tone serial row for my piece "The Spider," so 19 can get pretty out, if you will, and do some real eerie stuff.
As far as 34 goes, it IS really in tune, comparitively, with 3rds only 2 cents sharp, and a 4 cent sharp 5th...not a great b7, and I think that's why a lot of folks like 31. But, 34 also has a comma, and two separate cycles of 5ths, and a host of other interesting features as well, it's a marvelous sounding tuning...there's a lot of compositions in there, but it's really tough to play, so it takes a while to get something happening...the comma is a bitch to negotiate, takes a lot of planning and concentration. I used 34 for my piece "Snake Dance" on my latest CD, and it modulates through a number of keys, and was indeed very hard to record.
But, I am also composing in pure tunings lately, and I have performed my piece "Silver Woman" in concert several times...it's tuned 1/1 5/4 3/2 7/4 35/32 21/16, and I'm planning on having it on my next CD (along with a 12 tone piece). It's very difficult to play, and has taken me years to compose. But, I'm getting to where, with a bit of practice, I can nail the intervals pretty well...even though I don't, intellectually, know what they are. And, I've tuned my fretless acoustic to a slightly different scale,
1/1 5/4 3/2 16/15 9/8 45/32, and I'm messing around with it, looking for a tune or two.
It does seem, to me, that if you want to play chordally based music, that some sort of tempering is desirable, so there goes the overtone series...and, that's ok with me, cause I love that kind of music so much. And, if you don't play chords a lot, or modulate often, than you can keep your intervals pure. It's interesting to me how the Universe set that up...in a way, as I mentioned once before, you gotta jump through a lot of hoops to get Western style, modulating music to happen...it's not a real natural thing, for the most part. But, look at all the great music that has come from tempered intervals. Oh yeah, I'm also messing with 31 eq a bit, no big ideas yet.
And as far as popular and experimental...I know what Beardsley means when he says he's not experimenting, I agree. It does seem, however, that much of the micro music I've heard over the years is certainly more "weird" than "popular;" and I'm trying to make a point here, not be too literal. Most of the compositions I've heard have little to do with folk, blues, country, or any pop style...not judging, either, it's just what I've noticed. Since I genuinely like American pop styles, it's only natural for me to compose in them, regardless of tuning. And, I also believe that the only way non 12 tunings will hit the big time is for someone to make them "popular," and God only knows if that will ever happen. I sure hope so, cause I'm bored to death with 12 eq, it's time for a change...and that's why I keep composing in other systems...best to all...HHH
microstick.net

Neil,

It's good to see you posting on MMM. I had always hoped there would be a wide array of practitioners on this list, and your recent arrival broadens the perspective very well. Maybe in one of your posts you can put in some links to places to get your CDs, hmmmm?

BTW, your mention of Coltrane: just today I was reading an article in the New Yorker on Matthew Carter, who is an esteemed typographer, having designed many of the great typefaces used in print and electronic materials. As a young man, eager to find an identity in his creation, he had a visit to New York:

"In the spring of 1960, the John Coltrane Quartet played its first engagement. Carter was in the audience. Over several weeks, he heard them three or four times. "Sometimes they played the same songs in the second set as they played in the first," he says. "Not because they were lazy but because they wanted to surpass them selves, or find something in the music that they hadn't found earlier in the
evening. They were that acute." Listening to them, he decided that he owed it to himself to try and stay in New York. "Their seriousness of purpose was a lesson," he says. "Four great geniuses who would knock themselves out every night when instead they could have coasted. I felt I could have been dishonest enough to return to England and say I hadn't seen great design. But I couldn't somehow pretend that I hadn't heard the John Coltrane Quartet."

Were they experimenting? Could you dance to it? Did their audience diminish?

Interesting. Good to have you around, Neil.

Cheers,
Jon