A music for many seasons: Robert Walker's CD

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A Music for Many Seasons:
Hearing a Robert Walker CD
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Over the past months, I have found great edification and delight in
following the contributions of Robert Walker to our community,
expressed both in wise and peacemaking words, and in the music which
he and others have created using his fine application, Fractal Tune
Smithy. However, not having the means to listen to MIDI files or audio
files on the Web -- although I can create the former, and with the
help of generous people such as Jacky Ligon and a number of others who
have most generously offered their assistance also the latter -- I had
until recently experienced only his words, but not his music itself.

That music is indeed copious and diverse, showing a love of many world
traditions and the ability, also featured by xenharmonicists such as
Jacky Ligon and Mary Beth Ackerley, to bring them together in a
special kind of synthesis. My initial impressions of the CD he sent me
as a kind of Christmas and New Year's gift can only hint at the beauty
of his achievements, which, happily, many of you can hear in forums
such as this, or on his Web site:

http://members.tripod.com/~robertinventor/tunes/tunes.htm

The opening piece on the CD I received is in a tuning called
Sesquisexta, one in which two 12-note Pythagorean chains of fifths are
placed at a pure 7:6 apart. Robert's piece in this scale is a chant, a
statement of pure melody, and one most eloquent. Having seen his
discussion of this piece, maybe in this forum, I recalled that there
was a 64:63 comma shift -- but found myself simply taking in the
eloquent flow of the music.

Maybe this ties in with Jon Szanto's observation that one can listen
for "microtonality" or simply for music, and that the latter approach
has its own virtues. One thing I can say is that it's a delight to see
and hear the Sesquisexta tuning being used in ways that only other
musicians can come up with, and to reminded that pure melody has its
own possibilities. Robert's piece, like a Gregorian chant or an
English folk melody of the kind that Ralph Vaughan Williams might set,
is a welcome reminder of this point for those of us often enamoured of
polyphony and counterpoint.

The next piece, "2001: A MOS Odyssey" is subtitlted "One of Jacky
Ligon's scales," and the music seems nicely to fit the title, with a
bit of _Switched-on Bach_ feeling. Since Wendy Carlos was producing
the original _Switched on Bach_ around the same epoch that produced
the movie _2001: A Space Odyssey_, this association was a pleasant
one. Carlos herself has become an advocate through music as well as
words of the movement to liberate not only synthesized sound, but the
tuning systems in which it can operate.

The third piece, an excursion in David Canfield's 13-limit tuning with
12 notes, brought various images and associations: a snatch of
pentatonic, maybe a bit of Schoenberg, and then a wonderful melody
which seemed to me either "raga-like" or "Arabic." Robert shows that
"JI" music can mean many things, with the structure of the scale
itself as a starting point rather than a definition of style.

Now we come to something really exquisite, an improvisation or
improvisation-like piece in a Chopi scale which sounded to me as if it
could have been taken from a recording of a traditional performance --
in my view, the highest compliment. There are beautiful fifths and
fourths, with a xylophone-like timbre: this is world-class music,
which makes me intensely interested in the Chopi tradition. I hope
that this piece will take an honored place in our global village,
serving as a bridge of understanding and encouraging a greater
awareness in our xenharmonic community and elsewhere of the pluralism
of world musics and the need to appreciate and cherish this variety.
Here Robert's Web site includes some links to lots of information about
the Chopi people of Southern Mozambique and their music.

The next piece is a delightful journey from medieval to Baroque, at
least as I hear it, in Dan Stearn's diatonic scale in 20-EDO. Here we
can savor the ability of a strikingly "new" tuning to evoke some
European history -- not its only ability, as Dan Stearn reminds us in
observing that 20-EDO also contains within itself 5-EDO, a rough
approximation of the slendro scale of gamelan.

A piece in Graham Breed's blues scale has lots of delicious fifths and
fourths, and a pentatonic feeling -- a kind of music that catches my
ear both on this CD, and also in live performances such as one at a
bookstore I was browsing at maybe a couple of years ago. The ensemble
there was playing some kind of jazz or the like, which I rather
passively accepted as "background" -- but when they started playing
those fifths and fourths, I took enrapt notice. Robert's piece, also,
deserves this kind of notice: I'm not sure that Graham Breed's music
in the same scale would sound anything like this, and that's the point
of having not only many scales, but many musicians.

The eighth piece is another exquisite improvisation in the Chopi
scale, one happily extended as a traditional musicmaking session might
be. Some of the figures are a bit like Chinese music, or the music of
Southeast Asia I often listened to about 30 years ago. Such a piece
suggests to me an ongoing project: to produce CD's or other recordings
showcasing both traditional world musics and some music using
nontraditional sound generation to arrive at similar scales and
styles. Maybe "Xenharmonics Old and New" could be one theme, if that's
the right statement: intonational diversity is a global reality, and
there's a need to honor its many traditions, which have themselves
evolved and maintained their integrity despite sometimes most daunting
crises both for the traditions and the cultures which have created
them.

The ninth piece, "Octany Lullaby," is a bit like a music box, maybe a
curious metaphor for the Combination Product Set (CPS) of Erv Wilson;
my notes say: "Kind of like 18th-19th century, but different." What I
heard as an allusion to the Classic-Romantic eras in Europe isn't the
only item on this agenda, however: I also heard what sounded like a
6:8:9 sonority, common in many world musics ranging from Georgia and
medieval France to Malaysia (which might be described in one way as
the fifth and fourth above the lowest note).

The tenth, "Twilight Bells," has a different mood which I described in
my notes as "Setharean," recalling the customized timbres of William
Sethares often tailored to a specific scale, or vice versa; the timbre
is realized in a piece with neat rhythms.

The eleventh, "Andante in Quarter-Comma Meantone," uses a tuning I
often favor for 16th-century European styles in a somewhat later kind
of genre, "rather like Bach or Scarlatti?" according to my notes, when
meantone was still the norm for much organ music, for example. Like
much Baroque music, the texture is filled with active melodic themes,
and this electronic rendition includes some neat "winds" in its
virtual ensemble.

The next four items (12-15) are the four movements of a "7-tet trio"
(or 7-EDO, in the Monzian style). The opening portion includes some
fifths, and pleasant stringlike timbres with a "fiddle" sound, and
what I describe in my notes as a "glissando kind effect almost."
The music builds to what I noted as "more discrete patterns," with an
engaging rhythmic counterpoint in the final movement.

Item 16, "17-tet hurdy-gurdy player," is gorgeous in its somewhat
pentatonic style; while the CD includes only part of the piece because
of a technical complication, that was enough to let me know that this
masterpiece and the Chopi scale pieces are my favorites. Again, as an
enthusiastic for 17-tET/EDO and unequal 17-note well-temperaments or
"circles" of various kinds, I am delighted to hear Robert making the
most vigorous advocacy possible: music that says it all, in a way that
reflects his special musicianship and imagination.

Item 17, an improvisation in 13-tET/EDO with diminished sevenths, is
quite different -- but maybe, like some other pieces on this CD, a bit
Baroque -- or could it be Near-Eastern? This is another side to
13-EDO, which along with the music of xenharmonicists such as William
Sethares shows the musical beauty to be found in this often
undervalued and too often unknown tuning. As someone who has
improvised neo-Gothic music in this same scale, I can say from the
experience both of playing and of listening to Robert's piece that
these scales open the way to creativity, inviting odysseys that may
take divergent paths each lending its own allure to a system such as
13-EDO.

Item 18, in "Jacky Ligon's golden meantone non-octave scale," sounded
"Bluesy" to me, with some percussion. There's been a great deal of
interest in nonoctave (or sometimes stretched/compressed octave)
scales in our tuning forums, and also in Jacky Ligon's electronic
journal TMA available on the Internet; Robert shows that such scales
can be used for music at once not too unfamiliar, and yet new. I'd be
ver interested to hear what he might come up with in something like
the Bohlen-Pierce scale.

Item 19 lives up to its name, "Jacob Van Eyck's Boffons with zany
percussion arrangement." This has a catchingly jazzy flavor, and
indeed is a 21st-century reprise of a kind of 17th-century Netherlands
jazz (if I have my chronology of Van Eyck right): theme and
variations, an artform also expressed in much Spanish and English
music, for example, of the 16th and early 17th centuries. This could
be a Carlos album, _Switched-On Van Eyck_, and although this era is a
bit "modern" for me <grin>, I delight in the "modernism" of Monteverdi
and Frescobaldi, and would love to hear more of this.

Item 20, "Golden ratio 'cello fractal tune" is slightly truncated, but
the portion on the CD includes an engaging string-like timbre and a
musical moment which seemed a bit "Japanese" to me.

Item 21, "Improvisation in Werckmeister III," has fifths and fourths
in what I described in my notes as a "multicultural" style, reminding
us again that an 18th-century European tuning isn't limited to
18th-century European styles. The many pure fifths of Werckmeister III
make it, in my view, from one perspective a partly "just" tuning
despite its place also as representing the essence of temperament in
one historical manifestation, and I'd like to hear more global
excursions of this kind.

Item 22, "African-style complex rhythms," is a study in percussion,
focusing on meter as the opening piece focuses on melody.

Item 23, "Atmospheric polyrhythms," came with a very thoughtful
advisory from Robert, taking note of my sensitivity to loud sounds: he
cautioned me that this has some high volume levels. Accordingly,
following the rules of audio safety, I turned my amplifier to the
lowest volume for this piece -- avoiding any problem, and finding that
he had offered lots of sounds and patterns. Others might want to
adjust the volume to taste with due caution; I'd add that there are
some great pieces of William Sethares, also, where percussive timbres
made me a bit cautious about volume.

Anyway, Robert, you've shown that our community has already produced
some fine music deserving notice as music, however interested or
otherwise people may be in the fine details of "microtonality" -- and
reminded us that many cultures have been doing so for uncounted ages.
Thank you for this special gift, which has also given me the
opportunity better to appreciate what you've made available on this
forum and elsewhere via the Internet.

Most appreciatively, in peace and love,

Margo

"Robert!" (he shouted publically),

"Where and how can anyone besides Margo get a copy of your CD?"

...and the story continued from there...

Hi Margo,

Thanks for the wonderful review of my cd.

Looks like everyone is wanting copies now.
It's interesting that you liked the Chopi scale
ones as that's also one I part. want to learn more
about.

Robert

Hi Jon,

> "Where and how can anyone besides Margo get a copy of your CD?"

I can do you a copy, or anyone else on this list for that matter.
I've got this very fast new cd writer (16 times write for CD - R) so
I could do a few in no time.

It's fast because I got it (as my 1st cd writer) just a couple of months ago.

I see you've just posted to the list offering to do the cds for me.

I wonder, maybe since my cd writer is fast, I could do the cds here
and send them all to you in a bunch to send on to everyone?
Or you could do some too, whatever.

Robert

Robert,

{you wrote...}
>I've got this very fast new cd writer (16 times write for CD - R) so I >could do a few in no time.

I recently upgraded to a faster cd burner, and it is almost embarrassingly fast.

>I wonder, maybe since my cd writer is fast, I could do the cds here and >send them all to you in a bunch to send on to everyone?

That sounds like a perfect idea! Give me a moment (well, at least a morning) to think about the logistics and I'll post back to the list. We'll get a head count and figure how to send mailing addresses, etc.

This way you can label it however you went, and so on.

Cheers,
Jon