Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup makemicromusic Re: [MMM] A music for many seasons: Robert Walker's CD

Hi Margo,

Thanks so much for this, it was a real treat. Robert Walker is one of
the real sweethearts on these lists, and it sure is nice to see him
getting some love--a genuine, cuddly math guy, who woulda thunk it!

Anyway, I must also say that I think that an essay-review of this
length and quality really does belongs in something like Jacky's
Microtonal Activist. To my mind it's simply too good (or perhaps
formal would be a better way to put it) for these types of forums
which by their very nature excel in quick communications but are at
the same time all but indifferent to anything that wasn't fired off in
a second's time--it's sort of like the difference between an informal
discussion amongst friends and a prepared speech, each has a place
where its impact will be best appreciated.

Anyway, don't pay any attention to me droning on--it made my day one
way or another and if only it weren't a rarity to be so sagaciously
reminded that "that's the point of having not only many scales, but
many musicians"!

thanks,

--Dan Stearns

----- Original Message -----
From: "M. Schulter" <MSCHULTER@...>
To: <MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2002 12:57 PM
Subject: [MMM] A music for many seasons: Robert Walker's CD

> ------------------------------
> A Music for Many Seasons:
> Hearing a Robert Walker CD
> ------------------------------
>
> 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
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
> ADVERTISEMENT
>
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
>
>

Re: [MMM] A music for many seasons: Robert Walker's CD

🔗D.Stearns <STEARNS@...>

🔗jpehrson2 <jpehrson@...>

🔗Jonathan M. Szanto <JSZANTO@...>

🔗jpehrson2 <jpehrson@...>

🔗Robert Walker <robertwalker@...>