response to various queries...

Hi all,

Thank you for helping us become aware of some points that perhaps we haven't adequately clarified, specifically around the purpose of the contest, hosting non-finalists, the mission of the organization and the way the contest was judged.

UnTwelve's mission can be found on our website (http://www.untwelve.org), but we can and will be clearer next year, and in the future, about why we are doing a competition at all.

Briefly, the purpose of the competition is to promote excellence in microtonal composition, and expose the general public to the highest quality work that comes out of this particular field; also, to interest already skilled, non-microtonally composers to try their hand at something they might not have explored. We like to think of it as dangling a carrot of cash so people can be motivated not just to write microtonal music, but microtonal music that would be attractive to the broadest cross-section of listeners. This is one of the reasons we picked a broad cross-section of judges. In short, by hosting this annual competition, we hope to fulfill one of the key missions of the organization, which is "to commission and perform musical works which display the excitement and beauty available to those who venture into this new territory, both for audiences and musicians."

We are not interested in promoting, per se, the judge's personal visions, although arguably that is what inevitably happens in any competition. Fundamentally, a piece is judged by how much it excites and/or moves the collective ear of the judges. By nature this is subjective, and collectively so. One hopes that by having a responsible panel of judges of varied tastes and positions in the musical field, a reasonable consensus is reached as to a work's merit. This is why we chose musicians from different disciplines, who are all exceptional in their fields. We also understand that contestants need to feel confident in the judging, and believe that our choice in judges also addresses this concern.

For example, we had 4 microtonalists and 3 non-microtonalists on this year's panel, all of whom are leaders in their field. They range from: Rob Voisey, founder of 60x60, who has heard every compositional trick in the book; to Kraig Grady, well-known and respected composer/performer and instrument maker; to David Schrader, a world-renowned organist and multi-keyboardist; and to Elaine Walker (ZIA), a microtonal space-pop legend. We know they took their responsibilities very seriously, and for this, and for their countless hours of time donated in listening to the submissions, we are very grateful.

About hosting non-winners: since UnTwelve doesn't own rights to pieces submitted, we'd have to ask the composers to grant their permission. We are learning as we go about what we could have done better, and this is a great example. We should have asked for contenstants' permission up-front to release their work for educational purposes after the event. But we didn't, and we didn't think of everything. So now, we'd have a lot of extra post-contest administration to make that happen. But it's a great idea, and something we will implement moving forward.

Right now, we simply need to move on to the next project, and as I am personally responsible for ~90% of the labor and sometimes cost of any project thus far, we don't have the resources or time to go back and do it.

We welcome your feedback, and are always looking to improve the way any contest is run, and we're thankful to everyone who submitted and who judged.

Best,
AKJ and UnTwelve.

Aaron>"For example, we had 4 microtonalists and 3 non-microtonalists on this
year's panel, all of whom are leaders in their field."

Now that is cool...I got the impression listening to last year's winner that
the judges were based more toward strict microtonal in taste...proves me wrong
in a very good way. :-)

>"Briefly, the purpose of the competition is to promote excellence in microtonal
>composition, and expose the general public to the highest quality work that
>comes out of this particular field;"

Kind of expected...it seems clear this is made as a cut off point, to, like I
had said before...try to help microtonality get/keep a good name by "filtering
out" everything but the best.

A side question would be...how many of the artists actually got ratings from
the judges of, say, less than 7 of 10? My professor once brought this issue
up...that his school was forcing him to give an average grade of C across all
students and only give A's to very few people and lots of D's to balance out the
B's...even if a majority of the class did excellent work, some did "pretty good"
work, and only very few did "bad" work. I say this particularly because so much
of the work I've heard from the "losers" in this contest (Gene, Chris,
Cameron...) came across to me as anywhere from strong to downright awesome work
with each quite deserving of being at least an "assistant ambassador" of
microtonality to the general music scene ...even if such pieces were not "the
best in the contest". The current system appears to judge "top percentile"
rather than overall rating as the cut-off for whether songs are promoted in any
form via Untwelve.

Ideally, I would hope at the end of these competition, everything that got a
good rating (say, 7 of 10 or above) from the judges, regardless of rank vs.
other songs, would be available on and promoted through Untwelve's
servers...though, of course, only the top 10 or so would be on the "contest
winners" page and those, understandably, would be the most heavily promoted.

And, meanwhile, I'd hope everyone (regardless of if they won) could see what
the judges (not giving names, of course) thought of their music so far as
strong/weak points for the sake of their own learning and musical development.
I just figure, hey, isn't the greater point to get more great music on the
microtonal scene, rather than to (excuse my French) just take the top artists
and leave the others somewhat in the dark with a hypothetical note "sorry, we
didn't want to show any of these 'losing' songs as affiliated under our label as
we were afraid it might damage our efforts toward only promoting quality
music". Not to say it was meant that way...but, in many ways, that's how it's
coming out....as a great movement, but one with a fair deal of "major label"
ethics involved.

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

I don't think there is anything wrong with how the contest is being conducted, and certainly nothing wrong with the judges voting as they pleased.

A great improvement to clarity could be made by telling us how many judges there were altogether- nowhere has this been stated.

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "akjmicro" <aaron@...> wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> Thank you for helping us become aware of some points that perhaps we haven't adequately clarified, specifically around the purpose of the contest, hosting non-finalists, the mission of the organization and the way the contest was judged.
>
> UnTwelve's mission can be found on our website (http://www.untwelve.org), but we can and will be clearer next year, and in the future, about why we are doing a competition at all.
>
> Briefly, the purpose of the competition is to promote excellence in microtonal composition, and expose the general public to the highest quality work that comes out of this particular field; also, to interest already skilled, non-microtonally composers to try their hand at something they might not have explored. We like to think of it as dangling a carrot of cash so people can be motivated not just to write microtonal music, but microtonal music that would be attractive to the broadest cross-section of listeners. This is one of the reasons we picked a broad cross-section of judges. In short, by hosting this annual competition, we hope to fulfill one of the key missions of the organization, which is "to commission and perform musical works which display the excitement and beauty available to those who venture into this new territory, both for audiences and musicians."
>
> We are not interested in promoting, per se, the judge's personal visions, although arguably that is what inevitably happens in any competition. Fundamentally, a piece is judged by how much it excites and/or moves the collective ear of the judges. By nature this is subjective, and collectively so. One hopes that by having a responsible panel of judges of varied tastes and positions in the musical field, a reasonable consensus is reached as to a work's merit. This is why we chose musicians from different disciplines, who are all exceptional in their fields. We also understand that contestants need to feel confident in the judging, and believe that our choice in judges also addresses this concern.
>
> For example, we had 4 microtonalists and 3 non-microtonalists on this year's panel, all of whom are leaders in their field. They range from: Rob Voisey, founder of 60x60, who has heard every compositional trick in the book; to Kraig Grady, well-known and respected composer/performer and instrument maker; to David Schrader, a world-renowned organist and multi-keyboardist; and to Elaine Walker (ZIA), a microtonal space-pop legend. We know they took their responsibilities very seriously, and for this, and for their countless hours of time donated in listening to the submissions, we are very grateful.
>
> About hosting non-winners: since UnTwelve doesn't own rights to pieces submitted, we'd have to ask the composers to grant their permission. We are learning as we go about what we could have done better, and this is a great example. We should have asked for contenstants' permission up-front to release their work for educational purposes after the event. But we didn't, and we didn't think of everything. So now, we'd have a lot of extra post-contest administration to make that happen. But it's a great idea, and something we will implement moving forward.
>
> Right now, we simply need to move on to the next project, and as I am personally responsible for ~90% of the labor and sometimes cost of any project thus far, we don't have the resources or time to go back and do it.
>
> We welcome your feedback, and are always looking to improve the way any contest is run, and we're thankful to everyone who submitted and who judged.
>
> Best,
> AKJ and UnTwelve.
>

Hi Michael and everybody,

By the way, I enjoyed your piece! I think the tuning is an excellent one with much potential, and I applaud you for passionately searching for scales to create your music in. I enjoyed listening to all the music, and was thrilled to see the creation of so much microtonal music at one time. But for sure, some pieces created more positive impressions than others, which is true for any piece of music and any given listener.

Let me re-iterate that "exposing the general public to the highest quality work" doesn't mean that anything that didn't make the finals was deemed "unworthy" per se. Certainly, it must be honestly said that certain pieces did spark negative reactions. The judges, coming from different places, often had widely varying opinions. This was, we think, a good thing. Again, the judging process is subjective. No one is claiming "objectivity". No aesthetic work is of any objective value whatsoever, except perhaps in the sense that certain works have a historical consensus cultural value. Quite possibly, there are masterpieces in the lot of non-finalists that would be unrecognized for now. There is, admittedly, something imperfect about competitions. However, it's also nice to spur creativity and dialog by worldly motivation, since in general it seems so many more words than notes about microtonality are created. So we think it's a worthwhile trade-off.

UnTwelve certainly wishes to maintain a good relationship with the community that gave impetus to its creation. This is why I monitor with interest what is being said in these forums. Feedback is welcome. Even more welcome is active involvement. If anyone wants to draft a list of things you'd like to see to make a better process that can be reasonably implemented, we're all ears. If anyone wants to lend a hand coding, streamlining a process, organizing, helping with administration of the website, etc., step right up.

Hosting costs money, especially if there is a storage and bandwidth quota. I've been paying for the UnTwelve site since 2005, before it was UnTwelve (midwestmicrofest), and although we are now able to legally raise tax free dollars, we still lack a dedicated fund-raising agent, and a public relations agent. Right now, I'm coding submission engine scripts, maintaining the website, fielding questions, raising money, organizing concerts, bookeeping, making mailing list announcements, doing public relations (like now!), etc. I will also be conducting interviews and promoting the finalists in the upcoming weeks. I simply do not have the time to add any more to my plate without badly hurting my family and work life. And--it's been a while since I've been able to sit down and write anything worthy of sharing with the world, and I miss that.

That said, with help, we are willing to implement useful ideas for documentary and educational purposes. We certainly have no problem documenting that so-and-so wrote a piece for this year's competition, and it's available "at so-and-so"...however creating HTML markup for that takes time. Perhaps there is a way to have a free site like archive.org host some data that any contestants would agree to once I need to clear the current crop off the site. Or perhaps, the artists themselves can host their own music, and send us a link (once they agree to have their piece linked from our site). We've even batted around the idea of a "listener's choice award" which would not be a cash prize, but a way for the general public to give their votes and feedback--similar to the "audience choice award" at a film festival. But not all of the contestants may agree to such a process, esp. after the fact. But if anyone can suggest a web architecture that would make such a polling script possible, do suggest. Preferably, such a structure would stay within the untwelve.org domain....

So, to reiterate, we're open to what you're all saying. We can say that it's probably not realistic to ask the judges who already gave hours of free time to give a paragraph of feedback to 40+ contestants. This becomes much less realistic as the contest grows every year as we want it to. I already get in trouble in my life for the time this project takes away from other pressing concerns and duties. Quick thought--maybe there might be a way for contestants in the future to get a password to access judges (brief) notes after a competition, should they want it, built into the submission engine (which, I hand coded myself in Python, BTW!). However, this has its own dangers, so the contestant would have to agree that UnTwelve would not be held liable to any ego-bruising which resulted from their curiosity! :)

All of this takes time, sweat and money. I'd love more help.

Thanks again for all the feedback, folks.

Best,
AKJ

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Michael <djtrancendance@...> wrote:
>
> Aaron>"For example, we had 4 microtonalists and 3 non-microtonalists on this
> year's panel, all of whom are leaders in their field."
>
> Now that is cool...I got the impression listening to last year's winner that
> the judges were based more toward strict microtonal in taste...proves me wrong
> in a very good way. :-)
>
>
>
> >"Briefly, the purpose of the competition is to promote excellence in microtonal
> >composition, and expose the general public to the highest quality work that
> >comes out of this particular field;"
>
> Kind of expected...it seems clear this is made as a cut off point, to, like I
> had said before...try to help microtonality get/keep a good name by "filtering
> out" everything but the best.
>
>
> A side question would be...how many of the artists actually got ratings from
> the judges of, say, less than 7 of 10? My professor once brought this issue
> up...that his school was forcing him to give an average grade of C across all
> students and only give A's to very few people and lots of D's to balance out the
> B's...even if a majority of the class did excellent work, some did "pretty good"
> work, and only very few did "bad" work. I say this particularly because so much
> of the work I've heard from the "losers" in this contest (Gene, Chris,
> Cameron...) came across to me as anywhere from strong to downright awesome work
> with each quite deserving of being at least an "assistant ambassador" of
> microtonality to the general music scene ...even if such pieces were not "the
> best in the contest". The current system appears to judge "top percentile"
> rather than overall rating as the cut-off for whether songs are promoted in any
> form via Untwelve.
>
> Ideally, I would hope at the end of these competition, everything that got a
> good rating (say, 7 of 10 or above) from the judges, regardless of rank vs.
> other songs, would be available on and promoted through Untwelve's
> servers...though, of course, only the top 10 or so would be on the "contest
> winners" page and those, understandably, would be the most heavily promoted.
>
> And, meanwhile, I'd hope everyone (regardless of if they won) could see what
> the judges (not giving names, of course) thought of their music so far as
> strong/weak points for the sake of their own learning and musical development.
> I just figure, hey, isn't the greater point to get more great music on the
> microtonal scene, rather than to (excuse my French) just take the top artists
> and leave the others somewhat in the dark with a hypothetical note "sorry, we
> didn't want to show any of these 'losing' songs as affiliated under our label as
> we were afraid it might damage our efforts toward only promoting quality
> music". Not to say it was meant that way...but, in many ways, that's how it's
> coming out....as a great movement, but one with a fair deal of "major label"
> ethics involved.
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 2:00 AM, akjmicro <aaron@...> wrote:
>
> That said, with help, we are willing to implement useful ideas for documentary and educational purposes. We certainly have no problem documenting that so-and-so wrote a piece for this year's competition, and it's available "at so-and-so"...however creating HTML markup for that takes time. Perhaps there is a way to have a free site like archive.org host some data that any contestants would agree to once I need to clear the current crop off the site.

Why not set them all up on a soundcloud or something similar, perhaps
archive.org if that's what you're into? Then you can just put the
embed on the main page and you'll get a flash player with whatever
playlist you want.

> We've even batted around the idea of a "listener's choice award" which would not be a cash prize, but a way for the general public to give their votes and feedback--similar to the "audience choice award" at a film festival. But not all of the contestants may agree to such a process, esp. after the fact. But if anyone can suggest a web architecture that would make such a polling script possible, do suggest. Preferably, such a structure would stay within the untwelve.org domain....

Wordpress makes everything better. Let's talk offlist if you're
interested, I can help set something up for you. Or, at the very
least, I can point you in the right direction, because I am also
pretty busy these days.

-Mike

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "akjmicro" <aaron@...> wrote:

> Certainly, it must be honestly said that certain pieces did spark negative reactions. The judges, coming from different places, often had widely varying opinions.

You seem to be saying that some pieces were disliked by some judges, but not all--at least that is what I get out of "widely varying opinions". But was there any piece that every judge thought was complete crap? Maybe some categories could be defined and submitters could place their work in one of them. If you hated the category, you could skip everything in it when listening to the submissions. I'd be sure to listen to everything in "longhair", but not necessarily in "ambient".

> This was, we think, a good thing. Again, the judging process is subjective. No one is claiming "objectivity".

The way it was described made it sound as if it was supposed to be a measurement.

> Or perhaps, the artists themselves can host their own music, and send us a link (once they agree to have their piece linked from our site).

My fear is that a lot of people won't do that, but would passively accept having their music made available. Apparently music is still hanging around from 2009, so how hard could it be to do the same for 2010?

In any case, Aaron, don't think your hard work isn't appreciated.

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "akjmicro" <aaron@...> wrote:

> Briefly, the purpose of the competition is to promote excellence in microtonal composition, and expose the general public to the highest quality work that comes out of this particular field; also, to interest already skilled, non-microtonally composers to try their hand at something they might not have explored.

Then two things:

(1) You have set yourself an impossible task. If they had had a composition contest 275 years ago and Bach had entered it, he would have lost. Scarlatti likewise.

(2) This is the "Father Knows Best" attitude I was trying to claim you probably didn't hold. No one gets to decide what I think is high quality but me, and it is presumptuous to tell me I don't need to bother to listen to George Secor because some committee has decided his music is of lesser quality, and they know best. I realize the world is awash with prizes, some very prestigious and worth a lot of money, which make these kinds of claims. In the sciences and mathematics such claims even make sense. But no Grawemeyer Prize or the like is going to award only the "best", whatever claims are made to the contrary, and hence such claims are better left unmade.

Why not simply present the truth, which is you got a panel of judges, added up the score, and this was the result?

> We like to think of it as dangling a carrot of cash so people can be motivated not just to write microtonal music, but microtonal music that would be attractive to the broadest cross-section of listeners.

You and Michael Sheiman. Why do you want the broadest spectrum of listeners? Taste is so variable. It would probably make the most sense to let each of N judges pick their top choice, and each time they do that contestent gets another $/N amount of the prize. Averaging scores is averaging apples and oranges. However, it's your contest and you can do what you like, but I am very disappointed it isn't the contest I thought it was, which would be a contest to encourage people to write microtonal music and then present the results, not a lecture on what is "highest quality."

> We are not interested in promoting, per se, the judge's personal visions, although arguably that is what inevitably happens in any competition. Fundamentally, a piece is judged by how much it excites and/or moves the collective ear of the judges.

There is NO COLLECTIVE EAR!

By nature this is subjective, and collectively so. One hopes that by having a responsible panel of judges of varied tastes and positions in the musical field, a reasonable consensus is reached as to a work's merit.

Adding up a bunch of numbers is not a consensus, it's a vote.

> This is why we chose musicians from different disciplines, who are all exceptional in their fields. We also understand that contestants need to feel confident in the judging, and believe that our choice in judges also addresses this concern.

That the judges are so disparate, and the music likewise, is fine for awarding prizes but no one can have any confidence that they've kept the best and tossed the rest from each person's personal perspective. That's preposterous under such circumstances.

> About hosting non-winners: since UnTwelve doesn't own rights to pieces submitted, we'd have to ask the composers to grant their permission. We are learning as we go about what we could have done better, and this is a great example. We should have asked for contenstants' permission up-front to release their work for educational purposes after the event. But we didn't, and we didn't think of everything. So now, we'd have a lot of extra post-contest administration to make that happen. But it's a great idea, and something we will implement moving forward.

Thanks, Aaron! I really appreciate that you are making an effort to respond to carping from the Peanut Gallery on this issue.

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "genewardsmith" <genewardsmith@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "akjmicro" <aaron@> wrote:
>
> > Briefly, the purpose of the competition is to promote excellence in microtonal composition, and expose the general public to the highest quality work that comes out of this particular field; also, to interest already skilled, non-microtonally composers to try their hand at something they might not have explored.
>
> Then two things:
>
> (1) You have set yourself an impossible task. If they had had a
> composition contest 275 years ago and Bach had entered it, he would > have lost. Scarlatti likewise.

None of the entries even comes close, in my estimation, to Bach and Scarlatti. And I don't think it's true or fair to say Bach or Scarlatti wouldn't have won. You're only insulting the judges, really. Your choice!

> (2) This is the "Father Knows Best" attitude I was trying to claim you probably didn't hold. No one gets to decide what I think is high quality but me, and it is presumptuous to tell me I don't need to bother to listen to George Secor because some committee has decided his music is of lesser quality, and they know best. I realize the world is awash with prizes, some very prestigious and worth a lot of money, which make these kinds of claims. In the sciences and mathematics such claims even make sense. But no Grawemeyer Prize or the like is going to award only the "best", whatever claims are made to the contrary, and hence such claims are better left unmade.
>
> Why not simply present the truth, which is you got a panel of >judges, added up the score, and this was the result?

I don't see how we misrepresented anything. It was a contest, and people generally know how that works. Everyone submitted, knowing the rules, knowing the judges, knowing they likely could have lost. They may have even read our mission statement in the past. I'm pretty sure that the winners feel honored to have been picked, for what it's worth.

We are in a constant state of refinement of the process. Everything that is said will be considered. We've listened in the past, and will continue to do so. Remember that last year there was a small admission fee. People made a huff about it. This year, no fee. We evolve.

> > We like to think of it as dangling a carrot of cash so people can be motivated not just to write microtonal music, but microtonal music that would be attractive to the broadest cross-section of listeners.
>
> You and Michael Sheiman. Why do you want the broadest spectrum of listeners? Taste is so variable.

In spite of the variability of taste, survey afer survey of classical music lovers through the ages ends up with names like Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, Chopin, Stravinsky, Haydn, Schubert, Brahms, etc. on the list. The broadest spectrum of listeners tends to, by the law of large numbers, give us the nearly-universally acknowledged masters.
It says something. I love lots of "hidden corner" classical music by so-called "minor composers", in some cases more than some pieces by these masters, but I don't think these masters shouldn't be there on such a list. There's a reason they are there, I think.

> It would probably make the most sense to let each of N judges pick their top choice, and each time they do that contestent gets another $/N amount of the prize. Averaging scores is averaging apples and oranges. However, it's your contest and you can do what you like, but I am very disappointed it isn't the contest I thought it was, which would be a contest to encourage people to write microtonal music and then present the results, not a lecture on what is "highest quality."
>

You know, I thought we had addressed this, and I thought it was now moot, since I mentioned we'd be asking the non-finalist composers to consider letting us link to their pieces. You can't blame us for not wanting to host pieces indefinitely without extra funding....or you can, but it's simply a pragmatic decision, so it's really a waste of argument space unless there is some kind of monetary or labor donation you want to make to have it happen.

No lecture was given. Just an explanation of the motivation. A contest does encourage people to compete; to rise to the top in skill and quality, whatever those are *subjectively* deemed.

We want broad spectrum of listeners because that's our mission. We believe in the propagation of the beauty of microtonal techniques. Since many people around here complain about 12-equal's ubiquity, one would think the same people would be happy to see an organization doing something about it in a small way.

The competition structure you propose, Gene, ($/N) is indeed interesting, novel, and fair. Perhaps we'll consider it. We blindly, I suppose, use classic models, and this seems like implementing your proposal would give the competition a unique edge. Do you know of other competitions that work this way?

> > We are not interested in promoting, per se, the judge's personal visions, although arguably that is what inevitably happens in any competition. Fundamentally, a piece is judged by how much it excites and/or moves the collective ear of the judges.
>
> There is NO COLLECTIVE EAR!

It's a poetic way of saying something about the process.

> By nature this is subjective, and collectively so. One hopes that by having a responsible panel of judges of varied tastes and positions in the musical field, a reasonable consensus is reached as to a work's merit.
>
> Adding up a bunch of numbers is not a consensus, it's a vote.

How ever you want to reword things, the results still stand. Some music was voted, or deemed by a process, to be more attractive than other music, because of a particular score, for this particular event. It says nothing of the ultimate objective worth of the compositions heard (if such a thing is even meaningful as a concept), or the people who composed them, as we have already stated.

> > This is why we chose musicians from different disciplines, who are all exceptional in their fields. We also understand that contestants need to feel confident in the judging, and believe that our choice in judges also addresses this concern.
>
> That the judges are so disparate, and the music likewise, is fine for awarding prizes but no one can have any confidence that they've kept the best and tossed the rest from each person's personal perspective. That's preposterous under such circumstances.
>

One can only do what one can do: pick a variety of judges from different backgrounds to vote blindly. I disagree that whatever winners comes out of the process says nothing about the pieces which won. At the very least, it says: "These pieces survived a process involving these people"....

Think of it another way: can a piece of music be a masterpiece if no one ever wants to hear it? If no one likes it, for all time? What if only one person, the composer, ever likes it? It may be a "masterpiece", but that would be a very private masterpiece. It's hard to always recognize a masterpiece. It can take some years. But a contest is a flash in the pan. Again, we are happy we spurred creativity, period. That's the completion of a mission.

We fully admit that the opposite can be true: a very popular work of mediocrity....but it must be admitted that the entire subject of aesthetics is subjective and subjective again. Who says something is mediocre or great? UnTwelve says: these people won. You are free to disagree! We are most happy, like it was said, about spurring a flood of creative energy, and this was the most important thing about it. Again, we are listening to the critique that such a "flood" should be on full display. We need help, though.

> > About hosting non-winners: since UnTwelve doesn't own rights to pieces submitted, we'd have to ask the composers to grant their permission. We are learning as we go about what we could have done better, and this is a great example. We should have asked for contenstants' permission up-front to release their work for educational purposes after the event. But we didn't, and we didn't think of everything. So now, we'd have a lot of extra post-contest administration to make that happen. But it's a great idea, and something we will implement moving forward.
>
> Thanks, Aaron! I really appreciate that you are making an effort to respond to carping from the Peanut Gallery on this issue.
>

You bet.

AKJ

Gene>"You seem to be saying that some pieces were disliked by some judges, but
not all--at least that is what I get out of "widely varying opinions". But was
there any piece that every judge thought was complete crap?"

This is really my point IE it seems reducing promotion to only the top 10%
or so of songs was done to "protect" Untwelve from releasing "crap" music...but
what % of the music, roughly, actually was considered bad by most judges? I've
heard music from a host of people in this competition (and not just a few)...IE
Chris, Gene, Cameron, Domina Catrina Lee, Jon and a host of others that were
anywhere from very competent to pretty awesome. So while I believe there were
obviously some songs that receive generally negative comments...I find it very
hard to believe only the top 10% or so of entries were qualified by the judges
as good music, if not mind-blowing good music. =D

>"The way it was described made it sound as if it was supposed to be a
>measurement."

Indeed. Again I'm suggesting why not make the measurement of things like who
gets artist bios on Untwelve and the Untwelve staff's recommendation be all
songs rated as good...rather than the top 10% or so? Again, I understand
artists had to be singled out to fit the limited time slots for the "Dark
Concert"...but don't see the point of that level of selectivity when it comes to
online presentation. I don't see how having all artists who earned a "good"
rating from judges, regardless of placing, would do anything but help to
popularity of microtonal music and encourage more people to compose for your
competition.

Far as conviction, I have nothing against the judges decisions or that they
were operating on personal bias (agreed with Igs, that's how judging has to work
if done well anyhow)...but rather I'm frustrated with the cut-off point for what
gets published/linked-to from Untwelve as "recommended".

>"In any case, Aaron, don't think your hard work isn't appreciated."

Agreed. At the very worst...I can point share Igs's work with people (which
I've enjoyed thoroughly far before it placed in your contest) and have a better
chance of keeping their attention, and possibly getting them into microtonality,
because it won your Untwelve contest (fact is, I haven't heard any music from
any other artists in the Untwelve top 10 'or so' list). That...and it seems
fair to say some of the coolest musical releases I've heard all year were
spurred by your competition.

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

Mike

Soundcloud has a nice interface, and a Flash player embed would be cool, however--they limit bandwidth to 128kbps and space is limited to a certain point, after which it a paid storage scheme like anything else...so it's not a viable long term solution.

Archive.org would work, provided the composers agree to a Creative Commons licensing scheme, which may not be the case for every composer.

But this is all moot--because we're simply going to do this: We're going to tell every non-finalist that we're happy to document their participation in the event by sharing a link to their work, which they send to us, from the competition page. How motivated they are to make this happen will be their problem, not ours. We will also not have to sit around constantly trying to chase down 30 or so people who may or may not be responsive to email queries about whether we have their permission. If we have their permission, they'll send us a link. This will lighten our workload, and also save us storage space.

AKJ

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 2:00 AM, akjmicro <aaron@...> wrote:
> >
> > That said, with help, we are willing to implement useful ideas for documentary and educational purposes. We certainly have no problem documenting that so-and-so wrote a piece for this year's competition, and it's available "at so-and-so"...however creating HTML markup for that takes time. Perhaps there is a way to have a free site like archive.org host some data that any contestants would agree to once I need to clear the current crop off the site.
>
> Why not set them all up on a soundcloud or something similar, perhaps
> archive.org if that's what you're into? Then you can just put the
> embed on the main page and you'll get a flash player with whatever
> playlist you want.
>
> > We've even batted around the idea of a "listener's choice award" which would not be a cash prize, but a way for the general public to give their votes and feedback--similar to the "audience choice award" at a film festival. But not all of the contestants may agree to such a process, esp. after the fact. But if anyone can suggest a web architecture that would make such a polling script possible, do suggest. Preferably, such a structure would stay within the untwelve.org domain....
>
> Wordpress makes everything better. Let's talk offlist if you're
> interested, I can help set something up for you. Or, at the very
> least, I can point you in the right direction, because I am also
> pretty busy these days.
>
> -Mike
>

I can host the entries from composer who give rights to do so - no problem,
I have unlimited bandwidth.

Chris

On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 10:54 AM, akjmicro <aaron@...> wrote:

>
>
>
> Mike
>
> Soundcloud has a nice interface, and a Flash player embed would be cool,
> however--they limit bandwidth to 128kbps and space is limited to a certain
> point, after which it a paid storage scheme like anything else...so it's not
> a viable long term solution.
>
> Archive.org would work, provided the composers agree to a Creative Commons
> licensing scheme, which may not be the case for every composer.
>
> But this is all moot--because we're simply going to do this: We're going to
> tell every non-finalist that we're happy to document their participation in
> the event by sharing a link to their work, which they send to us, from the
> competition page. How motivated they are to make this happen will be their
> problem, not ours. We will also not have to sit around constantly trying to
> chase down 30 or so people who may or may not be responsive to email queries
> about whether we have their permission. If we have their permission, they'll
> send us a link. This will lighten our workload, and also save us storage
> space.
>
> AKJ
>
> --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com <MakeMicroMusic%40yahoogroups.com>,
> Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> >
> > On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 2:00 AM, akjmicro <aaron@...> wrote:
> > >
> > > That said, with help, we are willing to implement useful ideas for
> documentary and educational purposes. We certainly have no problem
> documenting that so-and-so wrote a piece for this year's competition, and
> it's available "at so-and-so"...however creating HTML markup for that takes
> time. Perhaps there is a way to have a free site like archive.org host
> some data that any contestants would agree to once I need to clear the
> current crop off the site.
> >
> > Why not set them all up on a soundcloud or something similar, perhaps
> > archive.org if that's what you're into? Then you can just put the
> > embed on the main page and you'll get a flash player with whatever
> > playlist you want.
> >
> > > We've even batted around the idea of a "listener's choice award" which
> would not be a cash prize, but a way for the general public to give their
> votes and feedback--similar to the "audience choice award" at a film
> festival. But not all of the contestants may agree to such a process, esp.
> after the fact. But if anyone can suggest a web architecture that would make
> such a polling script possible, do suggest. Preferably, such a structure
> would stay within the untwelve.org domain....
> >
> > Wordpress makes everything better. Let's talk offlist if you're
> > interested, I can help set something up for you. Or, at the very
> > least, I can point you in the right direction, because I am also
> > pretty busy these days.
> >
> > -Mike
> >
>
>
>

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

On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 10:42 AM, akjmicro <aaron@...> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> We fully admit that the opposite can be true: a very popular work of
> mediocrity....but it must be admitted that the entire subject of aesthetics
> is subjective and subjective again. Who says something is mediocre or great?
> UnTwelve says: these people won. You are free to disagree! We are most
> happy, like it was said, about spurring a flood of creative energy, and this
> was the most important thing about it. Again, we are listening to the
> critique that such a "flood" should be on full display. We need help,
> though.
>
>
> You bet.
>
> AKJ
>
>
>

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

Hi Michael,

Thanks for the comments.

The interface we are setting up is not about making "yelp style" or "amazon.com" recommendations. We want to share the winners with the internet. And, I'm going to give up repeating myself here after a while: we still plan on sharing the non-finalists who agree to send us a link. There will be no promotion, though...those were the rules at the outset, and we're not changing them this year. Perhaps next year.

This is what the website untwleve.org has always said, and it hasn't changed since I wrote it:

"First prize is $500.00 (USD). We will also recognize 2nd prize ($250) and 3rd prize ($150) finalists. Also to note--There will be a "dark concert" presentation on Saturday, January 29th, 2011 in Evanston, IL of the highest-rated hour of music from the submissions. In addition, your music will be promoted from our website in the form of artist interviews of the top 3 finalists, and a downloadable audio tracks consisting of the finalist's pieces. All contestants who enter will at the very least have a mention of their participation, which can include, should they choose, a link to their music or site from untwelve.org"

Everyone who entered should have read these rules. No one complained about them until after the results were posted.

Best,
AKJ

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Michael <djtrancendance@...> wrote:
>
> Gene>"You seem to be saying that some pieces were disliked by some judges, but
> not all--at least that is what I get out of "widely varying opinions". But was
> there any piece that every judge thought was complete crap?"
>
> This is really my point IE it seems reducing promotion to only the top 10%
> or so of songs was done to "protect" Untwelve from releasing "crap" music...but
> what % of the music, roughly, actually was considered bad by most judges? I've
> heard music from a host of people in this competition (and not just a few)...IE
> Chris, Gene, Cameron, Domina Catrina Lee, Jon and a host of others that were
> anywhere from very competent to pretty awesome. So while I believe there were
> obviously some songs that receive generally negative comments...I find it very
> hard to believe only the top 10% or so of entries were qualified by the judges
> as good music, if not mind-blowing good music. =D
>
>
>
> >"The way it was described made it sound as if it was supposed to be a
> >measurement."
>
> Indeed. Again I'm suggesting why not make the measurement of things like who
> gets artist bios on Untwelve and the Untwelve staff's recommendation be all
> songs rated as good...rather than the top 10% or so? Again, I understand
> artists had to be singled out to fit the limited time slots for the "Dark
> Concert"...but don't see the point of that level of selectivity when it comes to
> online presentation. I don't see how having all artists who earned a "good"
> rating from judges, regardless of placing, would do anything but help to
> popularity of microtonal music and encourage more people to compose for your
> competition.
>
> Far as conviction, I have nothing against the judges decisions or that they
> were operating on personal bias (agreed with Igs, that's how judging has to work
> if done well anyhow)...but rather I'm frustrated with the cut-off point for what
> gets published/linked-to from Untwelve as "recommended".
>
>
> >"In any case, Aaron, don't think your hard work isn't appreciated."
>
> Agreed. At the very worst...I can point share Igs's work with people (which
> I've enjoyed thoroughly far before it placed in your contest) and have a better
> chance of keeping their attention, and possibly getting them into microtonality,
> because it won your Untwelve contest (fact is, I haven't heard any music from
> any other artists in the Untwelve top 10 'or so' list). That...and it seems
> fair to say some of the coolest musical releases I've heard all year were
> spurred by your competition.
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

Aaron>"So, to reiterate, we're open to what you're all saying. We can say that
it's probably not realistic to ask the judges who already gave hours of free
time to give a paragraph of feedback to 40+ contestants. This becomes much less
realistic as the contest grows every year as we want it to."

Agreed...it would take a long time for this compo and probably much "worse"
for next year's compo. Perhaps more along the lines of what I was saying is to
have a list of songs that includes everything the judges, on the whole,
recommended...even if that means just a simple star rating and recommendation
graphic (if the song, say, gets over 7 stars or so) and nothing else.

Far as listener choice...I was thinking maybe a second star rating and a
second recommendation graphic IE "listener's choice recommended" for those over
a certain rating.

Aaron>"Quick thought--maybe there might be a way for contestants in the future
to get a password to access judges (brief) notes after a competition, should
they want it, built into the submission engine (which, I hand coded myself in
Python, BTW!). However, this has its own dangers, so the contestant would have
to agree that UnTwelve would not be held liable to any ego-bruising which
resulted from their curiosity! :)"

Exactly, I think it could really help, especially if judges were not listed
by name to preserve any chance of an artist getting angry and trying to chase a
judge down. I don't know about the rest of the artists...but I pretty much come
in making every new song realizing someone will hate it...I mean, making it too
soft ticks of those who like aggressive music, putting in tons of variation of
ticks of those who like hummable motifs.

In the end of the day, the only thing I let "bother" me is if someone says my
song sounds like the opposite of what I was going for IE say I made a song
focused on complex rhythm and got a bunch of notes back saying "the rhythm
really needs more complexity". In which case I'll usually just ask other
people and try to get more perspective on how my song failed to meet my intended
goal. True story...people say the strongest part of my songs now are often the
beats...and a lot of that is due to effort trying to prove one guy who thought
my beats were not complex enough wrong...he pretty much saved my life there. :-D

Sometimes I'll even laugh if someone says "well this song is way too
aggressive and repetitive with a 4-on-the-floor beat, annoying like a hard dance
song with a single melody that gets forced in my head" if I was actually going
for that kind of feel...just thinking in my mind "well...may not be your style
but...that was actually my point for this song". :-D

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

Aaron>"In addition, your music will be promoted from our website in the form of
artist interviews of the top 3 finalists, and a downloadable audio tracks
consisting of the finalist's pieces. All contestants who enter will at the very
least have a mention of their participation, which can include, should they
choose, a link to their music or site from untwelve.org"

Right, I have read that and am not saying you in any way fell short of what
you said you would do....I haven't heard anyone else accuse Untwelve of
"changing terms" either.

>"Everyone who entered should have read these rules. No one complained about them
>until after the results were posted."

And again, I think....most everyone did read them.

My hunch: it comes down to the fact the field is so much larger this year.
As I recall last year had more like 30 competitors...and the top 10 would mean
the top 30% or so...a fairly decent proportion IMVHO....this year we "just"
found out we had 100+ entries , which means that figure accepted becomes more
like 10% or less...big difference. And the end result seems to be that a lot of
very strong entries are not getting featured in any form that assures the
listeners they have any sort of confirmed quality. Not only for myself...but
it becomes hard when I want to point a friend to, say, listen to Chris's entry
on the site and they refuse saying "why should I take the time when it doesn't
even have a rating...it could be just some random amateur's music...there's no
confirmation of quality".

You could say that's probably why a good few of us seem interested (yes,
maybe for next year if impossible for this year) of broadening who get any sort
of promotion (even if that promotion is as simple as a "judge recommended"
graphic to some songs beyond the top 10 or so).

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

To be clear...I have never been anything less than promoting use of my music
as "open source"...so Chris and anyone else who is game is more than free to
host it. :-)

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

Aaron> > We like to think of it as dangling a carrot of cash so people can be
motivated not just to write microtonal music, but microtonal music that would
be attractive to the broadest cross-section of listeners.

>
Gene> You and Michael Sheiman. Why do you want the broadest spectrum of
listeners? Taste is so variable.

Agreed, Aaron and I have been trying to do the same thing (lol), although
trying to get there in slightly different ways. My take (in defense of
Aaron)...is that getting the broadest spectrum of listeners (and composers!)
into microtonality means more attention, better availability of music and
instruments...for everyone on the scene. I have no doubt however frustrated I
am that some of my favorite artists in the competition aren't getting
"recommended" my Untwelve...that the attention to and resources toward the art
are going to be vastly improved due to Aaron and the judge's efforts regardless!
:-)

>"Think of it another way: can a piece of music be a masterpiece if no one ever
>wants to hear it? If no one likes it, for all time? What if only one person,
>the composer, ever likes it? It may be a "masterpiece", but that would be a
>very private masterpiece."

Right...that's the other extreme IE how are we helping reign in interest to
the art of microtonality if, say, only one judge loves a song but nearly
everyone else hates it? Probably very very little..."even" if said favoring
listeners and composer are both PHDs highly respected for their theories: even
the "strongest" or technically correct judge or composer can't force the public
opinion to turn around toward it with respect. Hence my gravitating toward the
"weird" concept of "broadest spectrum of listeners" along with Aaron....

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

Mike,

You've had a stand invitation for hosting your songs on my server. Even if
we don't see eye to eye at times - that hasn't changed.
I'll be glad to give you a folder on micro.soonlabel.com - email me anything
you want in the folder.

Chris

On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 11:22 AM, Michael <djtrancendance@...> wrote:

>
>
> To be clear...I have never been anything less than promoting use of my
> music
> as "open source"...so Chris and anyone else who is game is more than free
> to
> host it. :-)
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>

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

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "akjmicro" <aaron@...> wrote:

> > > Briefly, the purpose of the competition is to promote excellence in microtonal composition, and expose the general public to the highest quality work that comes out of this particular field; also, to interest already skilled, non-microtonally composers to try their hand at something they might not have explored.
> >
> > Then two things:
> >
> > (1) You have set yourself an impossible task. If they had had a
> > composition contest 275 years ago and Bach had entered it, he would > have lost. Scarlatti likewise.
>
> None of the entries even comes close, in my estimation, to Bach and Scarlatti. And I don't think it's true or fair to say Bach or Scarlatti wouldn't have won. You're only insulting the judges, really. Your choice!

I am NOT insulting the judges. You, however, are indulging in the fantasy that adding a bunch of numbers from different points of view about different kinds of music results in a number which is a measurement, and to add insult (see, I can use the word too) to injury, claim that not regarding it as a measurement and objecting on principle and as a mathematician to the idea, which you appear to hold, that it is is "insulting the judges".

Bach was highly esteemed in his day as a performer with a legendary ability at extemporization, but as a composer he was considered old-fashioned, and to music critics that tends to be deadly. The 1952 Grove's Dictionary of Music dismissed Rachmaninoff as a hack whose work will be forgotten, because it was written in a style which was out of fashion. Would it be insulting to the judges to claim that if he had entered a music competition in 1940 judged by those sort of music critics he would have lost?

> I don't see how we misrepresented anything.

You are still claiming, implicitly, to be doing a measurement.

> In spite of the variability of taste, survey afer survey of classical music lovers through the ages ends up with names like Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, Chopin, Stravinsky, Haydn, Schubert, Brahms, etc. on the list.

Well, no. Those lists keep changing.

> The broadest spectrum of listeners tends to, by the law of large numbers, give us the nearly-universally acknowledged masters.

No, the broadest spectrum of listeners gives us Justin Bieber; someone who doesn't much bother anyone and some people go for. You need time for the kind of judgment you want anyway. When Mendelssohn performed Bach's Saint Matthew's Passion in 1829, Bach had been dead for 79 years; he was little-known, and the piece in question unknown. When Vivaldi was revived, he was unknown, and etc. The whole Renaissance was terra incognita at one time, not to mention the Middle Ages. We owe much to the work of musicologists.

>> I am very disappointed it isn't the contest I thought it was, which would be a contest to encourage people to write microtonal music and then present the results, not a lecture on what is "highest quality."

> You know, I thought we had addressed this, and I thought it was now moot, since I mentioned we'd be asking the non-finalist composers to consider letting us link to their pieces.

You are making the natural but false assumption that Yahoo posts appear in the order in which they were written. This one is from before all that appeared.

> The competition structure you propose, Gene, ($/N) is indeed interesting, novel, and fair. Perhaps we'll consider it. We blindly, I suppose, use classic models, and this seems like implementing your proposal would give the competition a unique edge. Do you know of other competitions that work this way?

Nope, but don't let that stop you from giving it a try.

Gene>"No, the broadest spectrum of listeners gives us Justin Bieber; someone who
doesn't much bother anyone and some people go for."

Let's play Devil's Advocate. Assume the world had the equivalent of a
microtonal Justin Bieber (I'll call him "Mieber") I'd (crazy as it may sound)
actually welcome it! :-D Granted I'd hate the music from the actual
artist...but the influx on attention to the microtonal scene would be well worth
it. I mean...after the fad faded, chances are a good few musicians who didn't
like "Mieber" but liked his tunings (in the same way I hate Christina Aguliera
and Madonna's music but love the production work on it) would pick it up and
evolve it into the kind of stuff I enjoy, microtonal instruments would become
more readily available and cheaply priced, etc.

I view it like electronic musician BT came eventually to the invitation to
co-produce Nsync's song "pop". At first, he actually said "now why on earth
would I want to make boy band music...that's completely against my evolutionary
musical attitude"...but then he noted eventually...what would be more 'punk rock
ethic'/evolutionary than making a boy band sound cool for once? And after that,
guess what...a whole lot of interest drummed up for putting that level of
amusing production into even the most otherwise dreary "sugar pop" songs.

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

Chris,

I recall you sent me an FTP link (username password) a year or so ago...but,
honestly, I admit to losing it. :-P If you could send my the login info again,
I would be happy to start uploading a fair deal of microtonal tracks up
there...and I realize you've always kept the door open to artists to use Soon to
store and promote their music...I would never say otherwise. :-)

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

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...> wrote:
>
> Mike,
>
> You've had a stand invitation for hosting your songs on my server. Even if
> we don't see eye to eye at times - that hasn't changed.

Could you and Aaron get together on making this proposal to the contstants? Something along the lines of "if you like, you can have your piece hosted here". Then Aaron could give you ftp access to a directory with the pieces of those who agreed in it, and we would be good to go. Aaron would not need to write html or do much of the work.

Last year, we had 10 registrants who competed.

The competition was much stiffer this year: we had 42 or so. 100+ registrants, the majority of whom weren't even legal, and didn't read any rules (e.g. posting links to 12 minute non-microtonal works). Usually, these entries where from a former soviet country. Must be a language barrier.

AKJ

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Michael <djtrancendance@...> wrote:
>
> Aaron>"In addition, your music will be promoted from our website in the form of
> artist interviews of the top 3 finalists, and a downloadable audio tracks
> consisting of the finalist's pieces. All contestants who enter will at the very
> least have a mention of their participation, which can include, should they
> choose, a link to their music or site from untwelve.org"
>
> Right, I have read that and am not saying you in any way fell short of what
> you said you would do....I haven't heard anyone else accuse Untwelve of
> "changing terms" either.
>
>
> >"Everyone who entered should have read these rules. No one complained about them
> >until after the results were posted."
>
> And again, I think....most everyone did read them.
>
> My hunch: it comes down to the fact the field is so much larger this year.
> As I recall last year had more like 30 competitors...and the top 10 would mean
> the top 30% or so...a fairly decent proportion IMVHO....this year we "just"
> found out we had 100+ entries , which means that figure accepted becomes more
> like 10% or less...big difference. And the end result seems to be that a lot of
> very strong entries are not getting featured in any form that assures the
> listeners they have any sort of confirmed quality. Not only for myself...but
> it becomes hard when I want to point a friend to, say, listen to Chris's entry
> on the site and they refuse saying "why should I take the time when it doesn't
> even have a rating...it could be just some random amateur's music...there's no
> confirmation of quality".
>
> You could say that's probably why a good few of us seem interested (yes,
> maybe for next year if impossible for this year) of broadening who get any sort
> of promotion (even if that promotion is as simple as a "judge recommended"
> graphic to some songs beyond the top 10 or so).
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

Aaron>"The competition was much stiffer this year: we had 42 or so. 100+
registrants, the majority of whom weren't even legal"

Ah ok, that explains the discrepancy (IE before I thought there were 100
legal ones). 42...wow...so I'm guessing those people from this list generally
were not even in the top 25%,,, Either the competition was really of high
competitive level, or most of us really...weren't when it came to our efforts
(doh).

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

Case in point re:"former soviet", but since this appeared minutes after posting my commet here, I suspect it smells of MMM wiseass.

hmmm...I wonder who that could be.....

AKJ

"Vsevolod Pushkaryov" <Pushkaryov.Vsevolod@yandex.ru> wrote:

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How do you do! I Write Genius Music! ... I from Russia. And I do not know the English language and in effect what can not understand with documentation. Help me to participate in Contest! .. I am a True Music Genius!.

I Vsevolod Pushkaryov. I 22. Live in Omske. contact telephone +79609910159

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "akjmicro" <aaron@...> wrote:
>
>
> Last year, we had 10 registrants who competed.
>
> The competition was much stiffer this year: we had 42 or so. 100+ registrants, the majority of whom weren't even legal, and didn't read any rules (e.g. posting links to 12 minute non-microtonal works). Usually, these entries where from a former soviet country. Must be a language barrier.
>
> AKJ
>
>
> --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Michael <djtrancendance@> wrote:
> >
> > Aaron>"In addition, your music will be promoted from our website in the form of
> > artist interviews of the top 3 finalists, and a downloadable audio tracks
> > consisting of the finalist's pieces. All contestants who enter will at the very
> > least have a mention of their participation, which can include, should they
> > choose, a link to their music or site from untwelve.org"
> >
> > Right, I have read that and am not saying you in any way fell short of what
> > you said you would do....I haven't heard anyone else accuse Untwelve of
> > "changing terms" either.
> >
> >
> > >"Everyone who entered should have read these rules. No one complained about them
> > >until after the results were posted."
> >
> > And again, I think....most everyone did read them.
> >
> > My hunch: it comes down to the fact the field is so much larger this year.
> > As I recall last year had more like 30 competitors...and the top 10 would mean
> > the top 30% or so...a fairly decent proportion IMVHO....this year we "just"
> > found out we had 100+ entries , which means that figure accepted becomes more
> > like 10% or less...big difference. And the end result seems to be that a lot of
> > very strong entries are not getting featured in any form that assures the
> > listeners they have any sort of confirmed quality. Not only for myself...but
> > it becomes hard when I want to point a friend to, say, listen to Chris's entry
> > on the site and they refuse saying "why should I take the time when it doesn't
> > even have a rating...it could be just some random amateur's music...there's no
> > confirmation of quality".
> >
> > You could say that's probably why a good few of us seem interested (yes,
> > maybe for next year if impossible for this year) of broadening who get any sort
> > of promotion (even if that promotion is as simple as a "judge recommended"
> > graphic to some songs beyond the top 10 or so).
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
>

It would be a real mistake to think that the entirety of the microtonal practitioners are on these lists....in fact I'd say the vast majority of the people out there already doing significant professional work in this arena were doing it well before this list even existed, and still are not on the lists, or if they ever were on them, have left them for myriads of reasons.

AKJ

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Michael <djtrancendance@...> wrote:
>
> Aaron>"The competition was much stiffer this year: we had 42 or so. 100+
> registrants, the majority of whom weren't even legal"
>
> Ah ok, that explains the discrepancy (IE before I thought there were 100
> legal ones). 42...wow...so I'm guessing those people from this list generally
> were not even in the top 25%,,, Either the competition was really of high
> competitive level, or most of us really...weren't when it came to our efforts
> (doh).
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

I can think of a few names responsible for their surmised departure! :)

Oz.

✩ ✩ ✩
www.ozanyarman.com

On Jan 24, 2011, at 9:26 PM, akjmicro wrote:

> It would be a real mistake to think that the entirety of the microtonal practitioners are on these lists....in fact I'd say the vast majority of the people out there already doing significant professional work in this arena were doing it well before this list even existed, and still are not on the lists, or if they ever were on them, have left them for myriads of reasons.
>
> AKJ
>
> --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Michael <djtrancendance@...> wrote:
>>
>> Aaron>"The competition was much stiffer this year: we had 42 or so. 100+
>> registrants, the majority of whom weren't even legal"
>>
>> Ah ok, that explains the discrepancy (IE before I thought there were 100
>> legal ones). 42...wow...so I'm guessing those people from this list generally
>> were not even in the top 25%,,, Either the competition was really of high
>> competitive level, or most of us really...weren't when it came to our efforts
>> (doh).
>>
>> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>>
>

Aaron>"Case in point re:"former soviet", but since this appeared minutes after
posting my commet here, I suspect it smells of MMM wiseass.
hmmm...I wonder who that could be....."

Someone with way too much spare time on their hands or deliberately trying
to get your goat. Whoever it is...I'll give him a 1 for originality and humor
of his sarcastic "prank"...and I'm pretty sure his music quality (if he even
writes music) probably tops his humor in terms of lousiness. Like I've been
saying, giving ratings across the board (even to the bad apples) can be very
useful (lol). :-D

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

Have any of you used this chord or have any ideas using it...or do you
think is represents about how clustered a chord can get before it starts
sounding "noisy"?

I've been messing around with it (yes, composing with it) and must say...I
really like it as a clustered triad...though extending it to a 7:8:9:10 tetrad
sounds a bit too tense for my ears. Sound examples of this chord in use will
soon follow...

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

Ozan>"I can think of a few names responsible for their surmised departure! :)"

Well, I can name one person famous for starting flames...and, well, you just
revealed the evidence for that! Please Ozan, take your trolling elsewhere...

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

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Michael <djtrancendance@...> wrote:
Like I've been
> saying, giving ratings across the board (even to the bad apples) can be very
> useful (lol). :-D

I'll repeat my suggestion that for next year, a set of tags be concocted and the entrants are to pick whichever one they think comes the closest to defining their style.

I believe he is a former student of Ivan Kutyerkokoff.

On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 2:22 PM, akjmicro <aaron@...> wrote:

>
>
> Case in point re:"former soviet", but since this appeared minutes after
> posting my commet here, I suspect it smells of MMM wiseass.
>
> hmmm...I wonder who that could be.....
>
> AKJ
>
> "Vsevolod Pushkaryov" <Pushkaryov.Vsevolod@...<Pushkaryov.Vsevolod%40yandex.ru>>
> wrote:
>
> PP4QP0P2Q
QP2QP9QP5!
> P/ PP8QQ
> PP5P=P8P0P;Q&#1085;QQ
> PQP7QP:Q! ... k1; P8P7
> P P>Q
Q
P8P8. P
071; P=P5
> P7P=P0Q
> PP=P3&#1083;P8P9Q
P:P8P9
> QP7Q
082; P8 P2
> Q
P;P5P4Q
QP2
080;P5
> QP5P3P> P=P5 P<P>
075;Q
> QP0P7P>P1QP0Qn0;Q
Q
> Q

> P4P>P:QP<P5
85;QP0QP8P5P9.
> PP>P<l6;P3P8QP5
> P<P=P5
> QQ
72;Q
QP2P>P2P0QQ
> P2 i0;P>P=P:QQQ
P5! .. P/
> P&#1089;QP8P=P=QP9
> PQP7
99;P:P0P;QP=QP9
> PP5P=;P8P9!.
>
> How do you do! I Write Genius Music! ... I from Russia. And I do not know
> the English language and in effect what can not understand with
> documentation. Help me to participate in Contest! .. I am a True Music
> Genius!.
>
> I Vsevolod Pushkaryov. I 22. Live in Omske. contact telephone +79609910159
>
>
> --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com <MakeMicroMusic%40yahoogroups.com>,
> "akjmicro" <aaron@...> wrote:
> >
> >
> > Last year, we had 10 registrants who competed.
> >
> > The competition was much stiffer this year: we had 42 or so. 100+
> registrants, the majority of whom weren't even legal, and didn't read any
> rules (e.g. posting links to 12 minute non-microtonal works). Usually, these
> entries where from a former soviet country. Must be a language barrier.
> >
> > AKJ
> >
> >
> > --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com <MakeMicroMusic%40yahoogroups.com>,
> Michael <djtrancendance@> wrote:
> > >
> > > Aaron>"In addition, your music will be promoted from our website in the
> form of
> > > artist interviews of the top 3 finalists, and a downloadable audio
> tracks
> > > consisting of the finalist's pieces. All contestants who enter will at
> the very
> > > least have a mention of their participation, which can include, should
> they
> > > choose, a link to their music or site from untwelve.org"
> > >
> > > Right, I have read that and am not saying you in any way fell short of
> what
> > > you said you would do....I haven't heard anyone else accuse Untwelve of
>
> > > "changing terms" either.
> > >
> > >
> > > >"Everyone who entered should have read these rules. No one complained
> about them
> > > >until after the results were posted."
> > >
> > > And again, I think....most everyone did read them.
> > >
> > > My hunch: it comes down to the fact the field is so much larger this
> year.
> > > As I recall last year had more like 30 competitors...and the top 10
> would mean
> > > the top 30% or so...a fairly decent proportion IMVHO....this year we
> "just"
> > > found out we had 100+ entries , which means that figure accepted
> becomes more
> > > like 10% or less...big difference. And the end result seems to be that
> a lot of
> > > very strong entries are not getting featured in any form that assures
> the
> > > listeners they have any sort of confirmed quality. Not only for
> myself...but
> > > it becomes hard when I want to point a friend to, say, listen to
> Chris's entry
> > > on the site and they refuse saying "why should I take the time when it
> doesn't
> > > even have a rating...it could be just some random amateur's
> music...there's no
> > > confirmation of quality".
> > >
> > > You could say that's probably why a good few of us seem interested
> (yes,
> > > maybe for next year if impossible for this year) of broadening who get
> any sort
> > > of promotion (even if that promotion is as simple as a "judge
> recommended"
> > > graphic to some songs beyond the top 10 or so).
> > >
> > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> > >
> >
>
>
>

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

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Michael <djtrancendance@...> wrote:
>
> Aaron>"Case in point re:"former soviet", but since this appeared minutes after
> posting my commet here, I suspect it smells of MMM wiseass.
> hmmm...I wonder who that could be....."
>
> Someone with way too much spare time on their hands or deliberately trying
> to get your goat. Whoever it is...I'll give him a 1 for originality and humor
> of his sarcastic "prank"...and I'm pretty sure his music quality (if he even
> writes music) probably tops his humor in terms of lousiness.

I think this assessment surely nails it. With no further clues, at the very least, the "way too much spare time on their hands" and "deliberately trying to get your goat" parts are pretty spot on.

I feel sorry for whoever this is...and I have _absolutely no idea_ who it could be. Man, this is a *tough* one.

AKJ

No, you mean "Ivana Kutyerkokoff"...who herself was a student of "Yurilli Anashol Duyonodat Cherkoff"

AKJ

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Dante Rosati <danterosati@...> wrote:
>
> I believe he is a former student of Ivan Kutyerkokoff.
>
> On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 2:22 PM, akjmicro <aaron@...> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > Case in point re:"former soviet", but since this appeared minutes after
> > posting my commet here, I suspect it smells of MMM wiseass.
> >
> > hmmm...I wonder who that could be.....
> >
> > AKJ
> >
> > "Vsevolod Pushkaryov" <Pushkaryov.Vsevolod@...<Pushkaryov.Vsevolod%40yandex.ru>>
> > wrote:
> >
> > PP4QP0P2Q
m0;P2QP9QP5!
> > P/ PP8Q
091;
> > PP5P=P8P0P;QP=Q
102;
> > PQP7QP:Q! ... P/ P8
079;
> > P P>Q
Q
P8P8. P P/ P=;P5
> > P7P=P0Q
> > PP=P3P;&#1080;P9Q
P:P8P9
> > QP7QP: P8 P2
> > Q
P;P5P4Q
QP2P8;P5
> > QP5P3P> P=P5 P<P>
75;Q
> > QP0P7P>P1QP0Q00;Q
Q
> > Q

> > P4P>P:QP<P5;P=QP0QP8P5P9.
> > PP>l4;P>P3P8QP5
> > P<P=P5
> > QQP0Q
QP2P>P2P0QQ
> > P2 PP>P=P:QQQ
P5! .. P/;
> > PQ
QP8P=P=QP9
> > P&#1091;P7QP:P0P;QP=QP9
> > &#1043;P5P=P8P9!.
> >
> > How do you do! I Write Genius Music! ... I from Russia. And I do not know
> > the English language and in effect what can not understand with
> > documentation. Help me to participate in Contest! .. I am a True Music
> > Genius!.
> >
> > I Vsevolod Pushkaryov. I 22. Live in Omske. contact telephone +79609910159
> >
> >
> > --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com <MakeMicroMusic%40yahoogroups.com>,
> > "akjmicro" <aaron@> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > Last year, we had 10 registrants who competed.
> > >
> > > The competition was much stiffer this year: we had 42 or so. 100+
> > registrants, the majority of whom weren't even legal, and didn't read any
> > rules (e.g. posting links to 12 minute non-microtonal works). Usually, these
> > entries where from a former soviet country. Must be a language barrier.
> > >
> > > AKJ
> > >
> > >
> > > --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com <MakeMicroMusic%40yahoogroups.com>,
> > Michael <djtrancendance@> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Aaron>"In addition, your music will be promoted from our website in the
> > form of
> > > > artist interviews of the top 3 finalists, and a downloadable audio
> > tracks
> > > > consisting of the finalist's pieces. All contestants who enter will at
> > the very
> > > > least have a mention of their participation, which can include, should
> > they
> > > > choose, a link to their music or site from untwelve.org"
> > > >
> > > > Right, I have read that and am not saying you in any way fell short of
> > what
> > > > you said you would do....I haven't heard anyone else accuse Untwelve of
> >
> > > > "changing terms" either.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > >"Everyone who entered should have read these rules. No one complained
> > about them
> > > > >until after the results were posted."
> > > >
> > > > And again, I think....most everyone did read them.
> > > >
> > > > My hunch: it comes down to the fact the field is so much larger this
> > year.
> > > > As I recall last year had more like 30 competitors...and the top 10
> > would mean
> > > > the top 30% or so...a fairly decent proportion IMVHO....this year we
> > "just"
> > > > found out we had 100+ entries , which means that figure accepted
> > becomes more
> > > > like 10% or less...big difference. And the end result seems to be that
> > a lot of
> > > > very strong entries are not getting featured in any form that assures
> > the
> > > > listeners they have any sort of confirmed quality. Not only for
> > myself...but
> > > > it becomes hard when I want to point a friend to, say, listen to
> > Chris's entry
> > > > on the site and they refuse saying "why should I take the time when it
> > doesn't
> > > > even have a rating...it could be just some random amateur's
> > music...there's no
> > > > confirmation of quality".
> > > >
> > > > You could say that's probably why a good few of us seem interested
> > (yes,
> > > > maybe for next year if impossible for this year) of broadening who get
> > any sort
> > > > of promotion (even if that promotion is as simple as a "judge
> > recommended"
> > > > graphic to some songs beyond the top 10 or so).
> > > >
> > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> > > >
> > >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

Aaron wrote:

>I feel sorry for whoever this is...and I have _absolutely no idea_ who
>it could be. Man, this is a *tough* one.

Doesn't it have an IP address in the headers? -Carl

Michael, don't you have any sense of humour? Take a deep breath and count to 30. While you are at it, make a new scale and compose something with it for us to hear.

Oz.

✩ ✩ ✩
www.ozanyarman.com

On Jan 24, 2011, at 10:22 PM, Michael wrote:

> Ozan>"I can think of a few names responsible for their surmised departure! :)"
>
> Well, I can name one person famous for starting flames...and, well, you just
> revealed the evidence for that! Please Ozan, take your trolling elsewhere...
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

Indeed, Jacob Barton and his "school" out there in Urbana Illinios being one
- and where ever Denny (last name escapes me) happens to be for one - both
being essentially vaopr on this list but *xtremely* active elsewhere.

On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 2:26 PM, akjmicro <aaron@...> wrote:

>
>
> It would be a real mistake to think that the entirety of the microtonal
> practitioners are on these lists....in fact I'd say the vast majority of the
> people out there already doing significant professional work in this arena
> were doing it well before this list even existed, and still are not on the
> lists, or if they ever were on them, have left them for myriads of reasons.
>
>
> AKJ
>
> -
>

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

It was written from my cgi-email interface, so the headers come from my own site. But I could trace the time of the writing to when I received it in my server logs. It would narrow down the traffic window to a few suspects at least.

AKJ

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Carl Lumma <carl@...> wrote:
>
> Aaron wrote:
>
> >I feel sorry for whoever this is...and I have _absolutely no idea_ who
> >it could be. Man, this is a *tough* one.
>
> Doesn't it have an IP address in the headers? -Carl
>

Ozan>"Michael, don't you have any sense of humour?"

For sure...its just that jokes that revolve around "x people are ruining the
community" don't exactly strike me as clever, no matter who they are/aren't
about. I liked the Kutyetkokoff joke, though, very...Austin Powers. :-D

>"While you are at it, make a new scale and compose something with it for us to
>hear."

Work in progress, my friend...I've been messing around with a 6-tone scale
based on several tempered 7:8:9 triad. Since the triad itself sounds
distinctively like something from kind of funky/jazzy chord themes in deep-house
music...I'm making a funky deep house song with it. :-D

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

You can log the IP with your form if you're not doing so - their
browser will hand it to you. -Carl

At 12:54 PM 1/24/2011, you wrote:
>It was written from my cgi-email interface, so the headers come from
>my own site. But I could trace the time of the writing to when I
>received it in my server logs. It would narrow down the traffic window
>to a few suspects at least.
>
>AKJ
>
>--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Carl Lumma <carl@...> wrote:
>>
>> Aaron wrote:
>>
>> >I feel sorry for whoever this is...and I have _absolutely no idea_ who
>> >it could be. Man, this is a *tough* one.
>>
>> Doesn't it have an IP address in the headers? -Carl
>>
>
>
>
>

Chris>"Indeed, Jacob Barton and his "school" out there in Urbana Illinios being
one- and where ever Denny (last name escapes me) happens to be for one -
bothbeing essentially vaopr on this list but *xtremely* active elsewhere."

Man I swear....we need to help develop an index to help locate such other
microtonal artists and/or institutions. I found some of Jacob's old microtonal
concert excerpts from Rice University...but lost track of where he's gone far as
microtonal publicity from there (with the exception of the occasional song promo
using his "Udderbot" home-made instrument).

It's sad how hard it is to find them sometimes IE if it weren't for Carl, I
would have never been able to find Marcus Satellite's music and if it weren't
for the Xenharmonic Ning group, I would have never known who Sevish is. If it
weren't for Sevish's Split Notes label and compilation...I'd never know who
Jacky Ligon is... If it weren't for this list, I'd have no clue who Easley
Blackwood, Erv Wilson, Paul Erlich, Knowsur...are/were. Honestly the only
microtonalists I knew of/found on my own were Sethares, Harry Partch, and Wendy
Carlos...and that was mostly by chance that I'm heavily into synthesizer tuning
and DSP (I actually found Sethares when looking for DSP code regarding
consonance). And many of even said-above musicians aren't currently very
active...

Searching for current microtonal music sometimes...is like searching for
white-label vinyl records in odd genres like Goa, Ambient drum and bass, and IDM
(which I do all the time)...only much trickier (even).

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

And, as was mentioned, the bulk of entrants who knew about UnTwelve who either are just lurkers on the lists, or just netizens elsewhere.
I also think many of the composers may have spilled over from the collaboration with 60x60 on the Untwelve Mix, which already had a huge pool of composers. The ICMC in 2010 had ~660 entries, and this year, Vox Novus counted ~750 entries for all the 60x60 projects.

Sometime, most likely/perhaps in the upcoming year, there will be another UnTwelve Mix.

Denny Genovese is who you must be talking about, Chris. There are also plenty of folks who do real-world microtonality profeessionally or semi-professionally that were pushed away or turned off by the relentless negativity and one-upsmanship that often surfaces here. Too bad it has to always happen. There were some amazing folks around here when I first joined. Most of them have expressed privately to me their impatience and frustration with the general bickering, name-calling, an impatience I certainly share.

The epicenter of the community that just wants to create stuff does what it will in such situations--it moves elsewhere, away from the poison; or it just stays in the real world where things like concerts of music, and playing and sharing with common decency, politeness and mutual respect really count. I was in San Diego over the holidays where I met with Joe Monzo, who took me to meet Jonathan Glasier at Sonic Arts, as well as Bill Wesley, who creates his own amazing mbiras and electronic instruments. A true genius, and he has nothing but contempt for the state of online discussions of music and microtonality in general.

I still lurk out of habit; I used to be addicted when I first started, and my interest waxes and wanes. I'm interested in some of the pieces that get posted, really. I wish that there were a way for me to get an alert to those and ignore everything else, especially the content-less back and forth eye-poking. Really, it gets old. The Ning site had a nice energy, too bad they started to charge money and nothing really replaced its energy...

AKJ

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...> wrote:
>
> Indeed, Jacob Barton and his "school" out there in Urbana Illinios being one
> - and where ever Denny (last name escapes me) happens to be for one - both
> being essentially vaopr on this list but *xtremely* active elsewhere.
>
> On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 2:26 PM, akjmicro <aaron@...> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > It would be a real mistake to think that the entirety of the microtonal
> > practitioners are on these lists....in fact I'd say the vast majority of the
> > people out there already doing significant professional work in this arena
> > were doing it well before this list even existed, and still are not on the
> > lists, or if they ever were on them, have left them for myriads of reasons.
> >
> >
> > AKJ
> >
> > -
> >
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

Personally,

Not worth the effort. Causing you trouble would the the main reason to send
in the fake entry - so don't take the bait.

I strongly suggest putting a rider on the next entry form (if it was not
there already) all entries must be in human readable English syntax or will
be rejected. At least until the Chinese makes their presence known in a big
way English still is the language of the internet - and air traffic
controllers - so its a totally reasonable condition.

Chris

On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 3:54 PM, akjmicro <aaron@...> wrote:

>
>
> It was written from my cgi-email interface, so the headers come from my own
> site. But I could trace the time of the writing to when I received it in my
> server logs. It would narrow down the traffic window to a few suspects at
> least.
>
> AKJ
>
>
> --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com <MakeMicroMusic%40yahoogroups.com>,
> Carl Lumma <carl@...> wrote:
> >
> > Aaron wrote:
> >
> > >I feel sorry for whoever this is...and I have _absolutely no idea_ who
> > >it could be. Man, this is a *tough* one.
> >
> > Doesn't it have an IP address in the headers? -Carl
> >
>
>
>

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

Yep - that is the Denny I met.

Well, along these lines of real world participation I'm seriously
considering making a microtonal community here in the great Indianapolis
area since I can't find an existing one - this is inspired by Jacob Barton
and Andrew Heathwaite. I've found that the local library will rent good size
rooms to special interest groups for next to nothing and the rooms are great
- come with audio-visual equipment etc. If you are in the area and would
like to consider being involved please email me off list. "A splendid time
is guaranteed for all!"

Chris

On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 4:18 PM, akjmicro <aaron@...> wrote:

>
>
> And, as was mentioned, the bulk of entrants who knew about UnTwelve who
> either are just lurkers on the lists, or just netizens elsewhere.
> I also think many of the composers may have spilled over from the
> collaboration with 60x60 on the Untwelve Mix, which already had a huge pool
> of composers. The ICMC in 2010 had ~660 entries, and this year, Vox Novus
> counted ~750 entries for all the 60x60 projects.
>
> Sometime, most likely/perhaps in the upcoming year, there will be another
> UnTwelve Mix.
>
> Denny Genovese is who you must be talking about, Chris. There are also
> plenty of folks who do real-world microtonality profeessionally or
> semi-professionally that were pushed away or turned off by the relentless
> negativity and one-upsmanship that often surfaces here. Too bad it has to
> always happen. There were some amazing folks around here when I first
> joined. Most of them have expressed privately to me their impatience and
> frustration with the general bickering, name-calling, an impatience I
> certainly share.
>
>

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

>"I strongly suggest putting a rider on the next entry form (if it was not
there already) all entries must be in human readable English syntax or will
be rejected."

Additionally for competitions, perhaps require the people entering submit a
sentence or two about what microtonal music is under the Untwelve guidelines in
their own words...and a formal agreement that their music fits the description.

An example good answer could be "Microtonal music is music using values
larger or smaller than the 12TET/chromatic-scale/diatonic-scale semitone that
does not sound like 12TET music. My submitted music is microtonal." A bad
answers could be "Microtonal music is music that is dissonant" or "Microtonal
music is weird ambient music" or "IKOMIT D SUOYCIDE TUDISTUNS" or "I
KUTYERKOKOFF" (IE anything understandably not in clear English)

And...perhaps...if they fail the description test...block their IP...thus
making it harder for them to attack the Untwelve site in any way, shape, or
form.

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

Aaron>"The ICMC in 2010 had ~660 entries, and this year, Vox Novus counted ~750
entries for all the 60x60 projects."

WOW now that is awesome! It just shows how much your efforts have brought
the community together.
Is there some sort of incentive to prevent you from releasing info on where
to find music from these artists? Personally I'd love to hear at least a few
pieces from each of them...shifting through their songs like I do white label
vinyls...

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

Aaron, hello!

In my torpid condition that has been going on for some time, I notice I neglected, among many things, to congratulate you for hosting yet another successful UnTwelve competion on microtonal/xentonal musics! Hopefully, we will get to hear the prize winners in a short while. At the same time, let me also congratulate those unnamed entrepreneurs who made available their pieces that I could listen to in the brief window of neglect for the much discussed competition policy.

Do not forget that 10 finalists get a free copy of Mus2, the awesome stand-alone microtonal score editor that packs quite a punch! (www.mus2.com.tr)

I've been reading about the reactions to the competition, as is generally always the case when people are competing whilst brandishing principles and/or standards all their own. More importantly, my eyes caught this critical bit of information by you which I very much agree with:

"There are also plenty of folks who do real-world microtonality professionally or semi-professionally that were pushed away or turned off by the relentless negativity and one-upsmanship that often surfaces here."

Drawing upon myself all the liability that is my share in the past "flame-wars" (for I too can growl with impatience when my competence in my field of profession is blatantly & nitpickingly questioned), let me share an observation of mine that might lead to a possible solution for gathering up the "lost souls"...

1. It appears that apples and oranges don't mix. Certain people coming together spark the wrong kind of vibe even though they be musicians, composers, tunaniks of equal calibre.

2. As my father says time and again: "Every person is worthy by the token of their honest accumulations". I believe even those "stick-out guys" whose tone I very much execrate are worthy in the field of tuning, theory and composition. They deserve to contribute in equal measure with the rest.

So, here is a thought on a new kind of organization. Let us suppose enclosed discussion rooms (workgroups) under a single list are created. Let us further suppose that these rooms are marked by grade of their discussion intensity and vibe. Let us further suppose that we can assure people having the potential to set off a "thermonuclear reaction" (based on their past activity) can be sealed away from interacting with their antagonists, except in designated discussion rooms strictly moderated by impartial parties. Finally, let all the "lurkers" subscribe to any of the rooms (workgroups) of their choosing. This way, flame-wars could be perhaps avoided and maximum productivity reached. As a bonus, a network of lists on microtonality can be linked together in this fashion in a pyramid-hierarchy.

If that works, I shall contend with sealing myself under concrete, away from my antagonists whom I truly believe chunk out loads of balderdash for about 90 percent of what they do or say in these lists.

Cordially,
Oz.

✩ ✩ ✩
www.ozanyarman.com

On Jan 24, 2011, at 11:18 PM, akjmicro wrote:

> And, as was mentioned, the bulk of entrants who knew about UnTwelve who either are just lurkers on the lists, or just netizens elsewhere.
> I also think many of the composers may have spilled over from the collaboration with 60x60 on the Untwelve Mix, which already had a huge pool of composers. The ICMC in 2010 had ~660 entries, and this year, Vox Novus counted ~750 entries for all the 60x60 projects.
>
> Sometime, most likely/perhaps in the upcoming year, there will be another UnTwelve Mix.
>
> Denny Genovese is who you must be talking about, Chris. There are also plenty of folks who do real-world microtonality profeessionally or semi-professionally that were pushed away or turned off by the relentless negativity and one-upsmanship that often surfaces here. Too bad it has to always happen. There were some amazing folks around here when I first joined. Most of them have expressed privately to me their impatience and frustration with the general bickering, name-calling, an impatience I certainly share.
>
> The epicenter of the community that just wants to create stuff does what it will in such situations--it moves elsewhere, away from the poison; or it just stays in the real world where things like concerts of music, and playing and sharing with common decency, politeness and mutual respect really count. I was in San Diego over the holidays where I met with Joe Monzo, who took me to meet Jonathan Glasier at Sonic Arts, as well as Bill Wesley, who creates his own amazing mbiras and electronic instruments. A true genius, and he has nothing but contempt for the state of online discussions of music and microtonality in general.
>
> I still lurk out of habit; I used to be addicted when I first started, and my interest waxes and wanes. I'm interested in some of the pieces that get posted, really. I wish that there were a way for me to get an alert to those and ignore everything else, especially the content-less back and forth eye-poking. Really, it gets old. The Ning site had a nice energy, too bad they started to charge money and nothing really replaced its energy...
>
> AKJ
>
> --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...> wrote:
>>
>> Indeed, Jacob Barton and his "school" out there in Urbana Illinios being one
>> - and where ever Denny (last name escapes me) happens to be for one - both
>> being essentially vaopr on this list but *xtremely* active elsewhere.
>>
>> On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 2:26 PM, akjmicro <aaron@...> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> It would be a real mistake to think that the entirety of the microtonal
>>> practitioners are on these lists....in fact I'd say the vast majority of the
>>> people out there already doing significant professional work in this arena
>>> were doing it well before this list even existed, and still are not on the
>>> lists, or if they ever were on them, have left them for myriads of reasons.
>>>
>>>
>>> AKJ
>>>
>>> -
>>>
>>
>>
>> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>

Ozan>"So, here is a thought on a new kind of organization. Let us suppose
enclosed discussion rooms (workgroups) under a single list are created. Let us
further suppose that these rooms are marked by grade of their discussion
intensity and vibe. Let us further suppose that we can assure people having the
potential to set off a "thermonuclear reaction" (based on their past activity)
can be sealed away from interacting with their antagonists, except in
designated discussion rooms strictly moderated by impartial parties."

Which seems akin to putting people you don't like in a psych ward for no
other reason than the you don't like them. Then we'd likely end up voting for
structure based on what's wrong with our community rather than what's right with
it. There are plenty of people I don't like or even who flat out lie about my
involvement (IE post wrong versions of my scales, deny music I composed and
displayed on list was mine, etc.)...but I'd never say "so...get off the list!"
to them because I'm stronger than that and realize bickering back does nothing
for the greater art of microtonality.

So instead of trying to spend mass efforts to "censor out the bad"...why not
simply make it more convenient to find what many of us agree is good? And that
means more compositions on list, more competitions to encourage more
compositions, more discussion on what can work in composition rather than
bashing each other about what some of us think can't.... And you know
what...if we do that people will begin to have more influence based on what they
do musically vs. how well they argue/backstab/etc.

Let's make this a "can do" community, not a George Orwell 1984-style one
where the "police"/moderators can in every few minutes to beat down everyone who
doesn't meet some unavoidably somewhat subjective "standard of excellence".

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

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "akjmicro" <aaron@...> wrote:

> A true genius, and he has nothing but contempt for the state of online discussions of music and microtonality in general.

Having contempt for online discussions makes sense only if you are not interested in microtonal theory and its products. And given that Joe Monzo does the tuning encyclopedia, and given what I know of Jonathan Glaiser, they do not have contempt for the results of these online discussions. I haven't met Bill Wesley, but I rather suspect you are conflating what he said about the tone of some discussions on Yahoo with the value of the results they produce. And you yourself write things for Barton's Xenwiki.

One thing I learned about you Michael, is that you just can't resist arguing all the while warping the clearly spelled out intents.

I was addressing Aaron and other good folk who don't have the knack of distorting my content like you do. Your own saying goes more for you hence: "Please take your trolling elsewhere."

Oz.

✩ ✩ ✩
www.ozanyarman.com

On Jan 25, 2011, at 12:24 AM, Michael wrote:

> Ozan>"So, here is a thought on a new kind of organization. Let us suppose
> enclosed discussion rooms (workgroups) under a single list are created. Let us
> further suppose that these rooms are marked by grade of their discussion
> intensity and vibe. Let us further suppose that we can assure people having the
> potential to set off a "thermonuclear reaction" (based on their past activity)
> can be sealed away from interacting with their antagonists, except in
> designated discussion rooms strictly moderated by impartial parties."
>
> Which seems akin to putting people you don't like in a psych ward for no
> other reason than the you don't like them. Then we'd likely end up voting for
> structure based on what's wrong with our community rather than what's right with
> it. There are plenty of people I don't like or even who flat out lie about my
> involvement (IE post wrong versions of my scales, deny music I composed and
> displayed on list was mine, etc.)...but I'd never say "so...get off the list!"
> to them because I'm stronger than that and realize bickering back does nothing
> for the greater art of microtonality.
>
>
>
> So instead of trying to spend mass efforts to "censor out the bad"...why not
> simply make it more convenient to find what many of us agree is good? And that
> means more compositions on list, more competitions to encourage more
> compositions, more discussion on what can work in composition rather than
> bashing each other about what some of us think can't.... And you know
> what...if we do that people will begin to have more influence based on what they
> do musically vs. how well they argue/backstab/etc.
>
>
> Let's make this a "can do" community, not a George Orwell 1984-style one
> where the "police"/moderators can in every few minutes to beat down everyone who
> doesn't meet some unavoidably somewhat subjective "standard of excellence".
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "akjmicro" <aaron@...> wrote:

> None of the entries even comes close, in my estimation, to Bach and >Scarlatti.

This is absurd. Bach and Scarlatti were born into long deep traditions and their music was further evolution of and within those traditions- which also came packed with pre-fab "lego block" building components. Inheritance, immersion, personal imprint. And not a little plain old assembly of known attractive bits.

This is radically and fundamentally different from working in unexplored tunings.

-Cameron Bobro

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "cameron" <misterbobro@...> wrote:
>
> > None of the entries even comes close, in my estimation, to Bach and >Scarlatti.
>
> This is absurd. Bach and Scarlatti were born into long deep traditions and their music was further evolution of and within those traditions- which also came packed with pre-fab "lego block" building components. Inheritance, immersion, personal imprint. And not a little plain old assembly of known attractive bits.
>
> This is radically and fundamentally different from working in unexplored tunings.

Even if you ignore tuning, the range of musical styles being employed today is vastly greater than that of 18th century Europe.

Gene wrote:

>This, it seems, is wrong. Wesley is an anti-mathematics crank,

Sadly. It may have something to do with his close proximity
to McLaren.

>By the way, was Wesley supplied to us as an example of the kind of
>civility we should be promoting? If so, bad move.

Aaron himself, along with Ozan, displayed bad faith by mentioning
'certain individuals' in the same breath as condemning the tone here.

-Carl

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "genewardsmith" <genewardsmith@...> wrote:

Sorry, my bad! I clicked on a link saying Bill Wesley and got a McLaren rant.

At 03:39 PM 1/24/2011, you wrote:
>
>Sorry, my bad! I clicked on a link saying Bill Wesley and got a McLaren rant.
>

I've heard Bill say the same kinds of things, though not nearly
as severe, so it's good to know that wasn't him. -Carl

You can google him, he's on Facebook, YouTube, MySpace and all possible Russian pages... Young Russian from Omsk, Siberia.
As he said about himself, genius composer :-) Maybe the main reason for this is he uses opus numbers. The highest one is 6. Vsego xoroshego, Vsevolod. Molodyec.

Daniel Forro

(if necessary I can help with Russian language)

On 25 Jan 2011, at 4:22 AM, akjmicro wrote:

> Case in point re:"former soviet", but since this appeared minutes > after posting my commet here, I suspect it smells of MMM wiseass.
>
> hmmm...I wonder who that could be.....
>
> AKJ
>
> "Vsevolod Pushkaryov" <Pushkaryov.Vsevolod@...> wrote:
>
> Здравствуй> те! Я Пишу > Гениальную> Музыку! ... Я > из России. И > Я не знаю > Английский> язык и в > следствие > чего не > могу > разобратьс> я с > документац> ией. > Помогите > мне > участвоват> ь в > Конкурсе! .. > Я Истинный > Музыкальны> й Гений!.
>
> How do you do! I Write Genius Music! ... I from Russia. And I do > not know the English language and in effect what can not understand > with documentation. Help me to participate in Contest! .. I am a > True Music Genius!.
>
> I Vsevolod Pushkaryov. I 22. Live in Omske. contact telephone > +79609910159

Sounds like an impersonator among our very own!

(Not me, though I am a musical/literary genius I'll have you know. :>)

Oz.

✩ ✩ ✩
www.ozanyarman.com

On Jan 25, 2011, at 3:01 AM, Daniel Forró wrote:

> You can google him, he's on Facebook, YouTube, MySpace and all
> possible Russian pages... Young Russian from Omsk, Siberia.
> As he said about himself, genius composer :-) Maybe the main reason
> for this is he uses opus numbers. The highest one is 6. Vsego
> xoroshego, Vsevolod. Molodyec.
>
> Daniel Forro
>
> (if necessary I can help with Russian language)
>
>
> On 25 Jan 2011, at 4:22 AM, akjmicro wrote:
>
>> Case in point re:"former soviet", but since this appeared minutes
>> after posting my commet here, I suspect it smells of MMM wiseass.
>>
>> hmmm...I wonder who that could be.....
>>
>> AKJ
>>
>> "Vsevolod Pushkaryov" <Pushkaryov.Vsevolod@...> wrote:
>>
>> PP4QP0P2Q

090;P2QP9
>> QP5! P/ PP8Q;Q
>> PP5P=P8P0P;QP=m1;Q
>> PQP7QP:Q! ... P/
>> P8P7 P P>Q
Q
P8P8. P
>>
071; P=P5 P7P=P0Q
>> PP=P3P;P8P9Q
P:P8P9
>> QP7QP: P8 P2
>> Q
P;P5P4Q
Q
74;P8P5
>> QP5P3P> P=P5
>>
084;P>P3Q
>> QP0P7P>P1Q&#1072;QQQ

>> Q Q

>> P4P>P:&#1091;P<P5P=QP0Q
>> P8P5P9.
>> PP>P<P>P3P8QP5
>> l4;P=P5
>> QQP0Q
QP2P>
74;P0Q
>> Q P2
>> PP>P=P:
91;QQ
P5! ..
>> P/ PQ
QP8l5;P=QP9
>> PQP7QP:P0
83;QP=Q
>> P9 PP5P=P8P9!.
>>
>> How do you do! I Write Genius Music! ... I from Russia. And I do
>> not know the English language and in effect what can not understand
>> with documentation. Help me to participate in Contest! .. I am a
>> True Music Genius!.
>>
>> I Vsevolod Pushkaryov. I 22. Live in Omske. contact telephone
>> +79609910159
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>

Michael>"One thing I learned about you Michael, is that you just can't resist
arguing all the while warping the clearly spelled out intents."

My intent is the same as so many people's: to stop the ongoing negative
attitude that seems to say people on this list are inherently evil. There's
nothing hidden about that intent...I want to keep the list positive...the only
people I'm negative about is those who run around saying everything and everyone
here stinks. No shame in stating my game...against that.

>"I was addressing Aaron and other good folk who don't have the knack of
>distorting my content like you do."

In that case, the clarity of your ability to make statements in the last case
really may need some work. Look at Carl's statement below:

Carl said>"Aaron himself, along with Ozan, displayed bad faith by mentioning
'certain individuals' in the same breath as condemning the tone here."

Ozan, you are clearly (not just by my words, but other people's) condemning
people here, left and right, plain and simple, and you had better believe that's
grounds for trolling. You have spent so long trying to get me to "shoot myself
in the foot" it's not even funny...and I've come to the honest conclusion you're
rather crazy paranoid and basing your damnations of other people to "what you
think is wrong with their intentions" without direct quotes or evidence. It's
just a huge drag on the community and, perhaps more relevant to your "mission",
you're most likely going to be dead before your attitude of trying to get people
to do what you want by insulting them incessantly as a "motivational tool" gets
you anywhere. After all, you are dealing with fully grown, quite intelligent,
and hard working adults here, not spoiled 5 year olds...think about it.

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

On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 10:39 PM, Michael <djtrancendance@...> wrote:
>
> Michael>"One thing I learned about you Michael, is that you just can't resist
>
> arguing all the while warping the clearly spelled out intents."
>
> My intent is the same as so many people's: to stop the ongoing negative
> attitude that seems to say people on this list are inherently evil. There's
> nothing hidden about that intent...I want to keep the list positive...the only
> people I'm negative about is those who run around saying everything and everyone
> here stinks. No shame in stating my game...against that.

Mike, as a rule, why not just let Oz say whatever he wants and ignore
when he goes on rants like this? He gets a kick out of trying to rile
people up, and you take the bait every time.

-Mike

Case in point, as usual... Putting words in my mouth... Making straw-man arguments... Starting a flame-war and blaming me for it. The ongoing attitude is so despicable. Yet I condemn you not. Your presence is valuable to the community. But if you persist, what option do you leave me than to filter the slanderous garbage that keeps assaulting my vision?

Sorry Michael, I have tried to tolerate your ambivalent mannerisms and emotional upheavels, but this is the final straw. I have no time to engage you in your hide-and-seek games. Don't bother replying, because I shan't be reading any of your tirades from this point forth.

Cordially,
Oz.

✩ ✩ ✩
www.ozanyarman.com

On Jan 25, 2011, at 5:39 AM, Michael wrote:

> Michael>"One thing I learned about you Michael, is that you just can't resist
> arguing all the while warping the clearly spelled out intents."
>
> My intent is the same as so many people's: to stop the ongoing negative
> attitude that seems to say people on this list are inherently evil. There's
> nothing hidden about that intent...I want to keep the list positive...the only
> people I'm negative about is those who run around saying everything and everyone
> here stinks. No shame in stating my game...against that.
>
>> "I was addressing Aaron and other good folk who don't have the knack of
>> distorting my content like you do."
>
> In that case, the clarity of your ability to make statements in the last case
> really may need some work. Look at Carl's statement below:
>
> Carl said>"Aaron himself, along with Ozan, displayed bad faith by mentioning
> 'certain individuals' in the same breath as condemning the tone here."
>
> Ozan, you are clearly (not just by my words, but other people's) condemning
> people here, left and right, plain and simple, and you had better believe that's
> grounds for trolling. You have spent so long trying to get me to "shoot myself
> in the foot" it's not even funny...and I've come to the honest conclusion you're
> rather crazy paranoid and basing your damnations of other people to "what you
> think is wrong with their intentions" without direct quotes or evidence. It's
> just a huge drag on the community and, perhaps more relevant to your "mission",
> you're most likely going to be dead before your attitude of trying to get people
> to do what you want by insulting them incessantly as a "motivational tool" gets
> you anywhere. After all, you are dealing with fully grown, quite intelligent,
> and hard working adults here, not spoiled 5 year olds...think about it.
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>

On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 11:05 PM, Ozan Yarman <ozanyarman@...> wrote:
>
> Case in point, as usual... Putting words in my mouth... Making straw-man arguments... Starting a flame-war and blaming me for it. The ongoing attitude is so despicable. Yet I condemn you not. Your presence is valuable to the community. But if you persist, what option do you leave me than to filter the slanderous garbage that keeps assaulting my vision?
>
> Sorry Michael, I have tried to tolerate your ambivalent mannerisms and emotional upheavels, but this is the final straw. I have no time to engage you in your hide-and-seek games. Don't bother replying, because I shan't be reading any of your tirades from this point forth.
>
> Cordially,
> Oz.

So Mike: this, for example, would be a good post to ignore. Feel free
to not take the bait and respond with a huge tirade yourself.

-Mike

Hi Michael,

I don't manage these artists! I just helped Rob Voisey by coding his submission engine, which was based on the one I already coded for UnTwelve....

If you goto voxnovus.com, you can see who contributed to various 60x60 mixes, and I'm sure you can google further to find the artist's music that they want the world to see...

AKJ

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Michael <djtrancendance@...> wrote:
>
> Aaron>"The ICMC in 2010 had ~660 entries, and this year, Vox Novus counted ~750
> entries for all the 60x60 projects."
>
> WOW now that is awesome! It just shows how much your efforts have brought
> the community together.
> Is there some sort of incentive to prevent you from releasing info on where
> to find music from these artists? Personally I'd love to hear at least a few
> pieces from each of them...shifting through their songs like I do white label
> vinyls...
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Carl Lumma <carl@...> wrote:
>
> Gene wrote:
>
> >This, it seems, is wrong. Wesley is an anti-mathematics crank,
>
> Sadly. It may have something to do with his close proximity
> to McLaren.

I met him only but briefly. This wasn't my impression. He was reading about Plato...if anything, perhaps he's got a little of the West Coast flavor, but I'd hardly call him a crank.

> >By the way, was Wesley supplied to us as an example of the kind of
> >civility we should be promoting? If so, bad move.
>
> Aaron himself, along with Ozan, displayed bad faith by mentioning
> 'certain individuals' in the same breath as condemning the tone here.

Point taken. But perhaps if the vagueness of 'certain individuals' starts to make anyone think about how they conduct things in a public forum that tends to turn people off in large numbers, and as a result think about changing such behavior towards the more courteous, it can't be a bad thing in the long run.

AKJ

Michael,

You make excellent suggestions. I like the idea of the brief description as a contract that they are clear what we mean.

AKJ

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Michael <djtrancendance@...> wrote:
>
> >"I strongly suggest putting a rider on the next entry form (if it was not
> there already) all entries must be in human readable English syntax or will
> be rejected."
>
> Additionally for competitions, perhaps require the people entering submit a
> sentence or two about what microtonal music is under the Untwelve guidelines in
> their own words...and a formal agreement that their music fits the description.
>
>
> An example good answer could be "Microtonal music is music using values
> larger or smaller than the 12TET/chromatic-scale/diatonic-scale semitone that
> does not sound like 12TET music. My submitted music is microtonal." A bad
> answers could be "Microtonal music is music that is dissonant" or "Microtonal
> music is weird ambient music" or "IKOMIT D SUOYCIDE TUDISTUNS" or "I
> KUTYERKOKOFF" (IE anything understandably not in clear English)
>
> And...perhaps...if they fail the description test...block their IP...thus
> making it harder for them to attack the Untwelve site in any way, shape, or
> form.
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

Aaron>"Point taken. But perhaps if the vagueness of 'certain individuals'
starts to make anyone think about how they conduct things in a public forum
that tends to turn people off in large numbers, and as a result think about
changing such behavior towards the more courteous, it can't be a bad thing in
the long run."

The tricky part is that much of the behavior by "certain individuals"
revolved just as much around blaming people for being trolls who are not by
trolls...as it does actual trolling. Past efforts to stop this have involved
things like shouting contests and name calling...the idea perhaps being if you
make someone frustrated or pissed off enough they'll leave (when in reality,
it's often just throwing more fuel into the fire).

This is why I believe instead of "attacking the bad" (noting the "bad" often
make a point of playing games with trying to make positive people look like
trolls as part of their act)...we should simply promote good things and watch
the more positive people gravitate toward them, indirectly leaving "bad" people
not wanting to keep up.

Some ideas
A) A competition using a fixed sample/instrument-set and tuning...where all
composers are put on equal ground to show their skills (ALA the Mod scene and
via Chris's suggestion)
B) Polls to list and rank actual music released on this list
C) A cumulative list of tunings and scales by members here...with a firm
agreement to only let the person who made the scale post it (thus eliminating
the chance of fights over someone incorrectly posting someone else's scale)
D) A cumulative list of theories proposed on the list...and perhaps a way for
members to rate/rank the theories. Hence it should be open to everyone to post
ideas without being harassed but, as a reality check, ideas that find little
practical use or are viewed by many as incorrect are likely to get lower
ratings.

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

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Michael <djtrancendance@...> wrote:

> Some ideas
> A) A competition using a fixed sample/instrument-set and tuning...where all
> composers are put on equal ground to show their skills (ALA the Mod scene and
> via Chris's suggestion)

This is a great idea!

Another idea would be a fixed genre with fixed samples and instruments, and maybe even a fixed form (rondo, virelai, sonata, groundbass, etc.)...there can be several divisions of one competition, as mentioned, too. Like a division for electronic dance, and another for neo-classical, another for ethnic/world inspired. It might be too much, so I'm inclined to get excited about different approaches.

I have a bunch of idea for various UnTwelve competitions with 'themes' in the spirit of what you mention here. One example is to have a set of variations on a given theme; each variation is a single submission by a composer, and the final composition could be a performance of the variations. This would be especially nice if they were for an acoustic instrument, or maybe two pianos tuned in 19 or 17 or 22 equal. Then a live concert date, or several, could be arranged.

> B) Polls to list and rank actual music released on this list
> C) A cumulative list of tunings and scales by members here...with a firm
> agreement to only let the person who made the scale post it (thus eliminating
> the chance of fights over someone incorrectly posting someone else's scale)
> D) A cumulative list of theories proposed on the list...and perhaps a way for
> members to rate/rank the theories. Hence it should be open to everyone to post
> ideas without being harassed but, as a reality check, ideas that find little
> practical use or are viewed by many as incorrect are likely to get lower
> ratings.
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

"akjmicro" <aaron@...> wrote:

> The epicenter of the community that just wants to create
> stuff does what it will in such situations--it moves
> elsewhere, away from the poison; or it just stays in the
> real world where things like concerts of music, and
> playing and sharing with common decency, politeness and
> mutual respect really count. I was in San Diego over the
> holidays where I met with Joe Monzo, who took me to meet
> Jonathan Glasier at Sonic Arts, as well as Bill Wesley,
> who creates his own amazing mbiras and electronic
> instruments. A true genius, and he has nothing but
> contempt for the state of online discussions of music and
> microtonality in general.

What kind of doublethink is this? Common decency really
counts, but you praise somebody with nothing but contempt.
Well, fine, if the epicenter has contempt for me I'll stay
on the fringe, where we really do share the music,
generally are polite, and really do have respect, not only
for each other but this "real world" that has such contempt
for us.

Graham

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Graham Breed <gbreed@...> wrote:
>
> "akjmicro" <aaron@...> wrote:
>
> > The epicenter of the community that just wants to create
> > stuff does what it will in such situations--it moves
> > elsewhere, away from the poison; or it just stays in the
> > real world where things like concerts of music, and
> > playing and sharing with common decency, politeness and
> > mutual respect really count. I was in San Diego over the
> > holidays where I met with Joe Monzo, who took me to meet
> > Jonathan Glasier at Sonic Arts, as well as Bill Wesley,
> > who creates his own amazing mbiras and electronic
> > instruments. A true genius, and he has nothing but
> > contempt for the state of online discussions of music and
> > microtonality in general.
>
> What kind of doublethink is this? Common decency really
> counts, but you praise somebody with nothing but contempt.
> Well, fine, if the epicenter has contempt for me I'll stay
> on the fringe, where we really do share the music,
> generally are polite, and really do have respect, not only
> for each other but this "real world" that has such contempt
> for us.

There are several around here who would disagree with the point-of-view that these forums in general uphold "politeness", and I know first hand several people who have been driven away by the general "politeness" around here. If I'm engaging in "doublethink", it's clear that there's more than enough to go around.

AKJ

"akjmicro" <aaron@...> wrote:

> There are several around here who would disagree with the
> point-of-view that these forums in general uphold
> "politeness", and I know first hand several people who
> have been driven away by the general "politeness" around
> here. If I'm engaging in "doublethink", it's clear that
> there's more than enough to go around.

These forums are polite. They've been so, largely, for the
decade or so I've been on them. If people disagree, maybe
they can provide links to impolite messages so that we can
assess them.

Graham

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Graham Breed <gbreed@...> wrote:
>
> "akjmicro" <aaron@...> wrote:
>
> > There are several around here who would disagree with the
> > point-of-view that these forums in general uphold
> > "politeness", and I know first hand several people who
> > have been driven away by the general "politeness" around
> > here. If I'm engaging in "doublethink", it's clear that
> > there's more than enough to go around.
>
> These forums are polite. They've been so, largely, for the
> decade or so I've been on them. If people disagree, maybe
> they can provide links to impolite messages so that we can
> assess them.

Right. So you can say "you were offended by that? You're just sensitive."

Not interested in such an "exercise".

These forums are less polite than some others I've been
involved with. But this is an esoteric and sometimes ill-defined
topic. There is little in the real world to guide us.
A forum for fans of a cartoon or for gigging keyboard players
has a much simpler mission statement. Everyone already agrees
the cartoon is cool or that the latest kit is lust-worthy.

That said I think we do pretty well. If you do look at the
impolite messages, you'll find those who have left in disgust
are usually the same folks who posted them.

-Carl

At 06:03 AM 1/28/2011, you wrote:
>"akjmicro" <aaron@...> wrote:
>
>> There are several around here who would disagree with the
>> point-of-view that these forums in general uphold
>> "politeness", and I know first hand several people who
>> have been driven away by the general "politeness" around
>> here. If I'm engaging in "doublethink", it's clear that
>> there's more than enough to go around.
>
>These forums are polite. They've been so, largely, for the
>decade or so I've been on them. If people disagree, maybe
>they can provide links to impolite messages so that we can
>assess them.
>
>
> Graham