some personal revelation experiences with "atonal" or other complex harmony in JI (Feldman & Messiaen)

I suppose a lot of this will be obvious to many on this list, but others
may find points of empathy, and/or interest.

A while ago, I posted this String Orc piece on metatuning:

http://music.columbia.edu/~chris/sounds/medit.c.mp3

Paul Erlich remarked:
>this sounds
> like it would be
> exceptionally well-suited to a john
> delaubenfels adaptive tuning
> treatment, run in 19-limit otonal mode . . .

I at first was skeptical about this idea, since it had seemed to me up to
then that atonality (or what I had thought of as "atonality) was really
not suited to be "converted" or even composed originally, in JI. JI
seemed to be a wholly "tonal" basis for composition. I figured atonality
was best suited for an ET. This was based on some (obviously very
spotty) experiments I had done.

But after doing some more recent experiements, I've completely changed my
mind. Not only about converting the harmonies in that (the String Orc
piece) and other, pieces from 12tet into JI, but about, for example, all
the stuff Monz talks about regarding Schoenberg's music as "composing out
higher overtones". It seems that it may be all true.

I mentioned, for example, that tuning up the set "014" (in forte's
set-theory notation) seemed pointless---- 1/1: 16/15 : 5/4 just didn't
seem that exciting. This is the kind of thing I had tried in my initial
experiments.

Paul suggested 16:17:20 (I believe) , and I thought about this. The
most powerful aural experiences I had had with JI were when I could really
hear the caressing "buzz" of partials locking in together. so perhaps
there might be something to the idea of realizing every harmony, as much
as possible, as some sort of segment of the overtone series. 1/1 :
16/15 : 5/4 would NOT be such a harmony, since 16/15 is not a partial
of 1/1.

so anyway, I took one of the chords from my string orc piece, namely

Eb3, G3, Bb3, F4, A4, E5, F#5.

(4=middle C octave.)

I tried to make every tone an overtone of Eb. Hence,

4:5:6:9:11:17:19

It worked!! It totally locked in. by ear, I could tell that this is what
I was trying to achieve in 12Tet. Partch might say this couldn't be,
because some of those tones are 50 cents off or more between the
JI-version and the 12tet-version, (he says something about this in
Genesis) but I think he's wrong (or maybe I'm
misremembering/interpreting his text). At any rate, I could tell that my
ear had surely been trying to compose out this Otonal-segment.

In fact, I realized that in spacing out all the chords in this piece, I
was just composing out selections of the overtone series, often with
(seemingly random) higher overtones (i.e. 13+)!! It was a depressing and
cool revelation at the same time!! I thought I had some sort of unique
sense of harmony, but no, I'm just an overtone guy!!

So now I'm thinking that the juiciness in the harmony of Feldman &
Messiaen, from where I learned the sense of harmony that went into this
string orc work, may also come from this
desperate-attempt-to-find-higher-overtones-in-12-eq.

fun fun fun. more experiments. more music. yay.

***From: Christopher Bailey******************

http://music.columbia.edu/~chris

**********************************************

--- In MakeMicroMusic@y..., Christopher Bailey <cb202@c...> wrote:

/makemicromusic/topicId_2244.html#2244

>
> I tried to make every tone an overtone of Eb. Hence,
>
> 4:5:6:9:11:17:19
>
> It worked!! It totally locked in. by ear, I could tell that this
is what
> I was trying to achieve in 12Tet. Partch might say this couldn't
be,
> because some of those tones are 50 cents off or more between the
> JI-version and the 12tet-version, (he says something about this in
> Genesis) but I think he's wrong (or maybe I'm
> misremembering/interpreting his text). At any rate, I could tell
that my
> ear had surely been trying to compose out this Otonal-segment.
>
> In fact, I realized that in spacing out all the chords in this
piece, I
> was just composing out selections of the overtone series, often with
> (seemingly random) higher overtones (i.e. 13+)!! It was a
depressing and
> cool revelation at the same time!! I thought I had some sort of
unique
> sense of harmony, but no, I'm just an overtone guy!!
>
> So now I'm thinking that the juiciness in the harmony of Feldman &
> Messiaen, from where I learned the sense of harmony that went into
this
> string orc work, may also come from this
> desperate-attempt-to-find-higher-overtones-in-12-eq.
>
> fun fun fun. more experiments. more music. yay.
>

****This is really interesting, Chris, since I remember that when you
posted your piece, which I really like by the way, some were saying
that such music and Feldman *had* to be in 12-tET.

There may be more *doubters* now... ??

jp

Joe,

{you wrote...}
>...some were saying that such music and Feldman *had* to be in 12-tET. >There may be more *doubters* now... ??

Not those of us who brought it up in the first place... :)