Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup makemicromusic an apology from UnTwelve

Dear MMM listers and fellow musicians,

As the head representative and founder of UnTwelve, I would like to formally
apologize for recent events.

We were both shocked and outraged at Carl Lumma's decision to post his
private notes. We took at it as an understood trust that they were private
and that their appropriate place was Carl's own disk drive, not the public
arena where they might be perceived as thoughtless and cruel. Carl did not
*ask* our permission before hand (we would have rejected the idea as
absurd), thus violating our trust and sending us into 'damage control' mode.
Carl seemed to understand the same in his own post, saying it was a "bold
act"---in other words, potentially damaging to the readers, competitors, and
to UnTwelve itself. In any event, we would like all concerned, hurt or
unhurt by his writing, to understand fully that UnTwelve DID NOT condone his
actions. Nor do his philosophies about criticism reflect those of UnTwelve.
He acted alone and as a rogue soloist. He has since apologized in private,
and promised to post a public apology in this forum as well. In addition, at
my request, he deleted his original post.

UnTwelve has the mission of encouraging our fellow microtonal artists at all
stages of their careers, and DO NOT agree that the best encouragement comes
from harsh, non-constructive criticism. We apologize for any pain or hurt
that Carl's actions caused to anyone, directly or indirectly. Carl's
opinions do not reflect those of UnTwelve as an organization, nor those of
the other judges.

While we are on the subject, several people pointed out various things that
might be improved in the execution of our competition. Among those were the
rules themselves, the presence of an entry fee, and now, post-facto, the
conduct of a judge. We are considering all of these, and can promise that
they will all be given due consideration in the next iteration. As it
stands, we are proud that we launched such a competition, encouraging all
who competed to give their energy and effort to further our music with their
creativity. We appreciate all of your patience with us in our learning
process, and more than that, we appreciate your support and enthusiasm, and
hope that it will only grow and continue.

Best,

Aaron Krister Johnson and the UnTwelve crew
http://www.untwelve.org

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🔗Marcel de Velde <m.develde@...>

🔗Dante Rosati <danterosati@...>

🔗Marcel de Velde <m.develde@...>

>
> marcel why dont you take your complete ignorance about music in general and
> just intonation in particular, together with your sniveling personality,
> and
> go fuck yourself. I have been wondering why people on these tuning lists
> even bother to talk to you at all, but i just figured they were being kind
> and trying to gently point out to you the um..., "gaps" in your knowledge,
> but when you act like a complete asshole towards a friend and colleague of
> mine like Aaron, then I feel compelled to join in the chorus of voices that
> are encouraging you to take your bullshit and fuck off. goodbye.
>

Hello bald monkey with out of tune guitar :)

I was hoping allready that my message would draw out the other drama queens.
Untwelve sure is a nice collection of "great character" individuals..

Why people are sending you money and music is beyond me.
What the hell have you guys done for the unknown microtonal composer?
Nothing, you are enriching yourselves by scamming microtonal composers.
You people are the cancer of the microtonal community.
I despise you people. Such bad character it makes me puke.

As for my JI knowledge.
Talk is cheap..
Surely you know that I have a little competition of my own.
If you retune Beethoven's Drei Equali Andante (www.develde.net) better than
me you win $20.-
No "registration" fee required.

Adios,
Marcel

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🔗piccolosandcheese <udderbot@...>

> I was hoping allready that my message would draw out the other drama queens.

This is called "trolling". Seeing it here in this (potentially) wonderful & inspiring forum makes me sad.

> Untwelve sure is a nice collection of great character individuals..

Thanks! It's not easy (or looked upon very highly in our capitalist-saturated monoculture) to start and maintain a not-for-profit organization, especially one that looks out for such an abstract cause as "microtonality".

> Why people are sending you money and music is beyond me.

I think people were, at least, trying to win. It's a legitimate question: what does having a competition *do* to the microtonal community, which really hadn't had one before? What, out of that, do we want?

> What the hell have you guys done for the unknown microtonal composer?

Good question. Un12 has done a few things, hosted some events, as documented on our website. Of course it's never enough. What do you want done for the "unknown microtonal composer"?

> Talk is cheap..

No, it's not. Cheap talk is cheap, sure, but...

The way we talk drives society. We name the world in order to transform it. Acting with no reflecting is as useless as reflecting without acting.

Sorry if that sounds irrelevant to this list, but I think it's important, if you're on a discussion list, to be happy with the fact that you're engaging in the activity of discussing, and not just feeling guilty that you should be off composing. They need each other.

More composition, please!

Best,
Jacob

🔗Carl Lumma <carl@...>

Aaron called me Fri night and Sat morning and left messages, and
I called him back mid-day Sat and we had a longish chat, during
which I thought we'd cleared up many issues. He subsequently
called me again and we had a second chat. We made a plan for me
to draft a statement clarifying that I acted independently of
Untwelve, send it to him for review, and then with his signoff, I
was to post it here. He was also going to make his own post which
I would not review, though its approximate contents were discussed.

Unfortunately, Aaron ignored the draft I sent and posted his
message here with substantially different content than what we
discussed on the phone. He subsequently indicated to me offlist
that he is refusing to offer feedback on the draft I sent him.
I consider this crappy behavior.

As already stated, Untwelve solicited my participation as a judge
and I performed the service for free and to the best of my ability.
I also was consulted on the ballot method to be used to decide the
contest, and my suggestion was adopted (more or less).

Other than that, I did take pains to explain that I was acting
independently in my original post. It should also be noted that
I posted my reactions after the contest was over, and after all
ten tracks were made available to the public. So anyone could
have done what I did - it made no use of any of judge's privilege.

I have on several occasions participated in music competitions as
a performer. And in my experience, the judges have always
offered feedback - sometimes quite harsh. I note there has been
a propensity to focus on the negative feedback in my post, despite
that by weight it containedmostly constructive and positive
comments, both general and specific. Which is more than we have
heard from the other judges.

On the occasion of Jacob Barton's first 17-ET piano concert, I
convinced a professional composer I know to listen to the entire
thing, and he returned written comments to me, which I posted
here. Kraig flew off the handle about that as well, and by now
I would like to suggest that he grow some thicker skin.

My normal mode of operation for the past decade on these lists is
to listen to everything and post only when I have something nice
to say. Only in the last 6-12 months have I been adding very
gentle constructive negative comments to that, and this has been
very deliberate. Because while there are positive effects of
positivity, over time the consequence is for feedback here to
read a bit like autofellatio. It is of course much harder to make
music while having to invent instruments and scales along the way,
but eventually microtonal music will have to compete with real
music in terms of effectively communicating with the listener.
Sadly, much microtonal music utterly fails to do so. I don't have
any magic way to make talking about it easier.

-Carl

🔗Magnus Jonsson <jmagnusj@...>

🔗Michael <djtrancendance@...>

Carl>"My normal mode of operation for the past decade on these lists is
to listen to everything and post only when I have something nice
to say. Only in the last 6-12 months have I been adding very
gentle constructive negative comments to that, and this has been
very deliberate."

Though I haven't had any recent problems in the last couple of months concerning that kind of attitude, I have in the past. I, from experience, learned that writing a "constructive negative comment" is far from a trivial thing to learn how to do well, regardless of your intentions.

Truth is anyone who is asked to judge can...and I don't believe should be slammed for first-time mistakes (if this is indeed Carl's first time getting into such problems when judging). IMVHO, it's not fair to punish someone for something they weren't alerted about beforehand and/or something they made a strong effort to avoid on a first-effort.
On the other hand, to continue judging and reviewing, IMVHO, one should either find creative (yet still stern) ways to produce constructive reviews or not be allowed to judge...in the same way a first-time driver may obtain a license, drive, crash once & still keep driving but, if he crashes several times, he may lose his license. Statements like "grow a back-bone" to the guy you just rear-ended or his relatives, I figure, most likely won't help.
****************************************************
In general, can we all (or at least most of us on this list) agree that any criticism that says something like "stop producing music" (IE a criticism with no alternative solutions) or "someone who'd have learned the basics would know that" (IE very passive-aggressive not to mention ridiculous if the person has already learned the basics) comes across as simply flaming and not constructive criticism?
***************************************
For a long time I regularly reviewed on a site called Trax In Space. And I gave over 50% negative review IE I was far from sugar-coated. Even not too long ago, I gave what was considered by many to be the best song on the site (Watching a Deep Blue Ocean by Analysis) for about a year a negative/"badly rated" review and even then got positive feedback. So I find it hard to believe you can't be strict and well received by artists you are reviewing/"judging".

Some of the keys to getting positive feedback even from harsh reviews, I swear, are
A) I'm very careful both to give several detailed, non-passive-aggressive solutions for every problem I find...often noting the exact times/points in the song where the problems occur and not making the artist "guess" where they are. If the artist has bad-sounding samples, I direct them to what I consider a good free sample site (or a paid one if they've admitted to spending a good deal of money on samples)...I don't just say "your samples stink" and leave them in a hole as to how to fix that.
B) I try to find examples in their past works where they avoided said problems
C) I don't go black-or-white: I find at least one thing that has promise even in a song I hate.
D) I never generalize IE say "this must be your problem" or "you must have never looked at X kind of music theory"...unless they've said that themselves and I know it for a fact.
E) I'm very careful to keep my biases aside IE if I'm reviewing ambient music I won't say "this lacks energy and drive" but I may say "I usually listen to much more energetic music...but, out of personal bias, this felt empty and lacking in energy in comparison, though this might not be an issue for fans of ambient music". I might even say "adding some quick, but soft and feathery sounding instruments and even light break-beats may let you keep the relaxed feel of the song while adding energy that may attract fans of more energetic genres".
F) If the artist makes an effort to correct a problem from a previous song, even if you don't like the effort, >at least< acknowledge that you notice it's there and don't say it's their "personal ego issues and the 'fact' they're not trying" that made their effort fail.
G) Don't have a cow if, say, an artist takes 1 of your 3 suggestions in a review: they are allowed to intelligently say "I don't agree with your opinion, that does not mean I didn't listen to everything you said and at least take it into consideration". Again...you never know exactly why the artist did what he/she did and certainly should avoid going around attributing such 'failure' to "permanent faults of personallity and ego".

Again, these are simply ideas I've gathered from experience, I just hope they may help some of you.

All the best, Michael

________________________________
From: Carl Lumma <carl@...>
To: MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Mon, November 2, 2009 12:39:26 AM
Subject: Re: [MMM] an apology from UnTwelve

-Carl

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

an apology from UnTwelve

🔗Aaron Johnson <aaron@...>

🔗Marcel de Velde <m.develde@...>

🔗Dante Rosati <danterosati@...>

🔗Marcel de Velde <m.develde@...>

🔗piccolosandcheese <udderbot@...>

🔗Carl Lumma <carl@...>

🔗Magnus Jonsson <jmagnusj@...>

🔗Michael <djtrancendance@...>

🔗David Beardsley <db@...>

🔗Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...>

🔗Carl Lumma <carl@...>