Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup makemicromusic Asking questions, getting help, seeking direction...

Hi Everyone!

Yes, it's ListMom, long absent from the fray. I've just started a few weeks of much less work than usual, and want to - if for just a short time - be a little more involved than in the last few months. Jim Nagy's recent adventures have me thinking in two paths...

#1. Effectively Seeking Help

This isn't just Jim, it occurs in a lot of situations: just how *does* one ask for help? In our situation, there are so very many variables that it is imperative to narrow the focus of the questions as much as possible. Jim, though you are well along the road, even if gropingly!, I think it would be helpful to both you and any respondents if you can frame a question or two and let it go at that. A message or posting that contains many questions can be both difficult to give an answer to, as well as the answer ending up confusing.

One thing you might find helpful is to go in just one direction, say: I want to use a notation program and hear the results microtonally, and these are the applications I use. Or, I want to play real-time on a keyboard and I want to hear microtonal pitches, either through the keyboard or through a sound device in the computer. Once you decide - even if it doesn't end up the route you eventually use all the time - it gives the community a task that can be tackled in a methodical manner, and much more likely to end up giving you as succinct and accurate an answer as possible. If you start with a scenario involving Scala, then shift to unzipping files, move on to notation programs, speak to the use of not only your keyboard for sounds *and* computer generated sounds - well, all these avenues will have likely solutions, but there is so much going on that it will be hard to narrow it down. The more narrow the focus of the goal/question, the faster we can fix your situation.

(Bear in mind this is all a general principle, and not directed *at* you - MMM can be really helpful, but the helpers sometimes need help!)

[Last little bit, everyone: if you end up asking questions regarding a computer setup, give as much info as possible - platform (Mac OS, Win, Linux, etc), software, soundcard, etc. Sussing out computer setups without proper info is nasty stuff...]

#2. Real World Scenarios

I've long wanted to have a page somewhere (for instance, at www.microtonal.org) that lists a number of case studies that give actual documentation of people who actually make, successfully, microtonal music with the various resources we discuss. If someone uses this app, that soundcard, and another keyboard, and it all works and we can give a step-by-step telling of it, we'll go a long way to having a place to point newcomers to. We'll be able to say "Here are four proven methods to make microtonal music, from easy to complex, that work well and allow you to explore".

I can think of a couple of people on the list already that would be able to supply such scenarios (I could probably put together Rick McG's dossier just from list postings!), so I'd like each of you to think about whether you could, in a couple of paragraphs or less, put together a clear and concise description of the way you work, and maybe in a week or two we can start a thread that features a number of ways to go. If someone could duplicate someone's way of working and only, say, the soundcard was different, you could zero in on the soundcard for changes to make it all work.

(And I don't want to leave out real-world stories of those who have gone the physical-sound route, such as building their own instruments and such. Framed a little differently, perhaps, but maybe of use in some form...)

As always, your (group) thoughts on this are not only beneficial but crucial. Sorry for the length of this posting - consider that I've made 2 sentence posts over the last couple of months...

Cheers,
Jon

`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`
Real Life: Orchestral Percussionist
Web Life: "Corporeal Meadows" - about Harry Partch
http://www.corporeal.com/
NOTE:
If your reply bounces, try --> jonszanto@...

🔗judithconrad@...

🔗Jonathan M. Szanto <JSZANTO@...>

Judy,

{you wrote...}
>There's me! Please don't leave out me!

Never!

>I actually know how to TUNE! yeah, like take two notes and listen to them and
>tell whether they are in tune with each other without doing an electronic >spectral analysis....

OK! Since I already knew this, and members who've been around for a while do also, maybe you might someday write up a little 'essay' on how a musician, utilizing purely acoustic instruments (period or not) goes about setting up a particular tuning, and what methods, tools, etc. are (or have been) of value to them. Besides their ears, of course... :)

>Sorry, didn't mean to sound peevish.... But there is more to life than >electronics.

Absolutely, and we wouldn't want to give the wrong impression. For anyone who has made it as far as finding MMM also means they have done it with a computer, and that means that with nothing *else* at their disposal they can start to experience non-12tet. It may be this particular 'common denominator' that makes the focus seem to be so much on electronics.

But there is you, there is Ed Foote tuning pianos, Alison Monteith with her new ensemble, Kraig Grady, David Beardsley and the other guitarists... lot's o' non-synth/electronic folk out there.

>Giving two concerts at the Boston Early Music Festival nest month, by the >way, on different fretted clavichords, one in strict quarter-comma >meantone, one in sixth comma.

Give a shout with times, dates, etc. so we can let people know.

Cheers,
Jon

🔗wallyesterpaulrus <wallyesterpaulrus@...>

🔗judithconrad@...

Listmom wonders

> maybe you might someday write up a little 'essay' on how a
> musician, utilizing purely acoustic instruments (period or not)
> goes about setting up a particular tuning, and what methods,
> tools, etc. are (or have been) of value to them. Besides their
> ears, of course... :)

It seems to me that when delving into microtonality for the purpose
of modern composition, a 'perticular tuning' isn't necessarily what
you are looking for. What you would want to do is look for sounds you
like, no? I suppose the exception to that would be if you had been
listening to the electronically produced ,usic on 23-equal or
whatever and wanted to do exactly htat, except acoustically.... It
would be hard. But in general any acoustic instrument except the
piano and the accordion is pretty easy to play around with tunings
on.

I did a little recording session this afternoon as an early wind
player. Some people were putting on a sort-of-a play at the local
Jewish Temple, which was going to include a 'Biblical Fashion Show' --
Joseph in his coat of many colors, Esther, whoever, and they wanted
runway music that sounded ancient. Director's son pulled some 'Acient
Hebrew Music' off the internet, god knows where, and they handed it
to me. It dodn't actually sound very authentic to me, played on
piano, and alas it came with guitar chords. But I made do. I handed
the directors a tambourine and a doumbek and got out my Renaissance
Soprano Recorder and my Cornetto and started playing with the notes
and the tuning. I did not use the same fingerings I use on those
instruments to get quarter-comma meantone, I took a sharp to meanthe
the pitch was somewhat higher and a flat to mean it was probably
somewhat lower. By the time I finished I think we were in 582 B. C.,
give or take a period ornament or two. Given the usual problems of
playing either instrtument 'in tune', it was a heady experience,
quite liberating. One section I played on all 'white notes', I
suppose I could have tried for 7-Equal, but the truth is it didn't
occur to me. It seemed to be a badge of primitivism to throw in some
vaguely augmented 2nds, some neutral thirds, some Pythagorean ones; a
smack-dab on perfect fifth every now and then seemed called for; when
I overlaid a second track. Otherwise it just sort of wailed. Had
there been snakes nesting under the room foundations, I firmly
believe they would have come out. That would have been the real test.

Historical tunings are a different matter, of course. There's a
pretty strict discipline to them, involving a lot of ear training in
pure intervals. There's math involved, but the test is still what it
sounds like.

Judy
--
http://home.mindspring.com/~judithconrad/index.html

🔗judithconrad@...

Wally... asked, to my

> > Giving two concerts at the Boston Early Music Festival nest
> month, by > the way, on different fretted clavichords, one in
> strict quarter- > comma meantone, one in sixth comma.

> be sure to announce the details so i can stroll over and check it out!

Glad to oblige, they are Friday June 13 at 5 PM and Saturday June 14
at 10 AM

---------
Daly in Bohemia

Judith Conrad, Clavichordist

Friday, June 13, 5:00 P. M.
Park Plaza Hotel Whittier Room

free with Festival Pass

Bohemian Clavichord Music

performed on a 5-octave fretted instrument
after one by Manoel do Carmo of Oporto Portugal 1796
built by Owen Daly of Salem Oregon 2001
tuned in sixth-comma meantone

Program:

Passacaglia in d Johann Kaspar Kerll
Preludium in F Frantisek Xaver Brixi
Sonata IV in F Ji í Antonín Benda
Fugue in C Jan K titel Va hal
Sonata VI in a Jan Ladislav Dussek
Fugue on a theme of Frescobaldi opus 36 no. 14 Antonín Rejcha
Waltz in A, opus 54 no. 1 Antonin Dvorak

Bohemia is a country that was in some ways the heart of Europe in the
Renaissance and Early Baroque. But in the 17th century the eastern
trade routes were cut off by the growing Turkish presence, and the
various wars of religion (the Thirty Years' War was triggered by the
Defenestration of Prague', right in Bohemia's capital) disrupted and
devastated the region. By the 18th century economic opportunities
were so bad for the ambitious musician in Bohemia that most of their
best composers left their homeland, bringing the Bohemian musical
tradition with them far and wide to the rest of the Western World
Benda to the court of Frederick the Great, Dussek to England, France
and Germany, Reicha to Paris. Later Dvorak got as far as New York
City. But the style that these exiles brought with them caused
Bohemia' to stand for something else in western Europe a state of
mind where misfits spend their lives outside society, choosing joy,
dancing, penury, squalor and above all freedom over property and
convention. The life, more or less, of the early musician or early
instrument builder in modern America, I may perhaps dare to say.

Some scholars refer to 18th century Bohemia dismissively as in the
German sphere of influence' but musically the influence seems to
have flowed mainly in the other direction, with great Bohemians
taking on prestigious positions at German courts. Frederick the Great
paid Benda more than he paid CPE Bach. And for training the Bohemian
composers looked not to Germany but to Italy, the Italy from which
came perhaps the ultimate Baroque Bohemian, a certain Giacomo
Casanova, who spent the last 13 years of his life at the Bohemian
castle Dux as librarian to Count Waldstein. Still bowing
extravagantly as he entered and left a room, still dancing the
minuet, not the waltz, and consumed with regret, not so much for his
life of folly but for his inability to commit folly any longer.
---------------

Clavichord of Death

Judith Conrad, clavichordist
Emanuel Church Library, 15 Newbury Street
Saturday, June 14, 10 AM
admission is by donation to the American Friends Service Committee
work with refugees

Domestic Keyboard Music of Johannes Pachelbel
including
The Musikalisches Sterbensgedanken of Johannes Pachelbel (1653-1706)
published 1683. It consisted of 4 works but no printing of it has
come down to us, and we are not absolutely sure which 4 works were in
it, There are seven that have been suggested as likely, of which I
will play five including what I think is the correct sequence of
four. I will also play a selection of the domestic keyboard music of
Pachelbel from other sources.

Fantasia in d
Wenn Gott zu haus nicht gibt den Gunst
Werde Munter, mein Gemuete (Choral mit 4 Variationen)
Suite in e

Christus der ist mein Leben -- Chorale und 12 Partiten
Alle Menschen müssen sterben --Choral und 8 Partiten
Herzlich tut mich verlangen nach einem selgen End -- Choral und 7
Partiten
Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan -- Choral und 9 Partiten :

Chaconne in d

The clavichord used today is a newly made instrument by Andreas
Hermert of Berlin which is a copy of a triple-fretted highly ornate
instrument built by Jerzy Wojcek in 1688 for Pfalzgraf Johann Adolph
of the Castle Stegeborg in Sweden. Wojcek, also known as Georg
Woytzig, was born in Legnica, Silesia, in present day Poland, and was
organ-builder to the kings of Sweden, working on the organs in the
cathedrals of Stockholm and Uppsala. Based on the largest triple-
fretted instrument extant, it is four octaves with short octave in
the bass, and split keys for D/F# and E/G#. This is its debut
performance.

In 1682 and 1683 the plague ravaged Erfurt, where Pachelbel was
organist at the Predigerkirche, the Municipal Church. It killed his
wife, who was the daughter of the Stadt-Major, it killed his infant
son; it killed over 9,000 people, in a city with a total population
in 1682 of somewhere around 18,000. As a way to deal spiritually and
emotionally with this tragedy he wrote what became his first
published work, the Musikalisches Sterbensgedanken', or musical
meditations on death, a collection of sets of variations on hymns
concerned with the topic of death. It was a subject on the minds of
many in the 17th century, and it became a runaway best-seller; it
went into several reprintings. Not a single original has survived;
perhaps they were all played by continually- grieving people until
they fell apart. We do know that it contained four works. Seven
variation sets by Pachelbel on hymn tunes have survived that have
been suggested as likely to have been in this work. These four,
listed above, were found in a manuscript together; they show a
certain unity of compositional technique, and are all eminently
playable on the domestic instruments of the day, including the small
triple-fretted clavichord in meantone tuning. They are currently
considered to have probably constituted this work ( though the
variations on Werde munter mein Gemüte' are also wonderfully written
for the clavichord, and the variations on Freu dich sehr, o meine
Seele', more organistic in style, are a masterpiece of the period).

I will add that in this time of terror and tragedy and fear and
destruction, this work connects in a very direct way with very
diverse audiences, even ones with no special interest in the
seventeenth century. It is, one might say, relevant.

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http://home.mindspring.com/~judithconrad/index.html