Re: New composition -- Invocatio (MIDI) -- more versions

Hello, there, and now that I'm back online after some server problems
at my ISP, I'd like very warmly to thank such people as John, Mary,
Monz, and Jon for their further comments on _Invocatio_.

John, why don't I include a link to your post and music, so that
people can hear your adaptive tuning as well as the other versions you
offer:

/makemicromusic/topicId_62.html#181

Here I'll try to address some questions, and also offer some more
versions based on meantone to illustrate some 16th-century and related
options regarding fifthtones and adaptive JI inflections.

First, John, I'd like to emphasize that your adaptive tunings
represent a distinctively "modern" approach to these adjustments, and
that I consider such new interpretations the highest compliment. The
many medieval and Renaissance pieces representing "rearrangements" or
variations on earlier pieces, not to speak of the variety of
performance practices, provide much precedent for the idea of music as
a shared resource.

Your variable adaptive tuning is a new kind of resource which can
augment the range of performance practices. I find it exciting to have
new and older options for adaptive tuning available side by side, as
it were, so that we can compare, learn, and (especially here)
encourage each other in the creation of more music celebrating the
experience (and possibly representing our spectrum of tastes).

Please let me confirm, in response to an excellent question you raise,
that fifthtone or diesis inflections are not required for Vicentino's
system of adaptive JI, but indeed represent a matter of style,
inspired by the enharmonic genus of ancient Greek music in which a
semitone is divided into two smaller steps.

Here is my original version with both fifthtone inflections and
adaptive JI adjustments; then a version with fifthtones using regular
meantone intervals without adaptive JI; then a version in adaptive JI,
but without fifthtones; and finally a version in basic 12-note
meantone without either the fifthtones or the adaptive adjustments:

original version: <http://value.net/~mschulter/invoc4a.mid>
fifthtones: <http://value.net/~mschulter/invoc4ae.mid>
adaptive JI: <http://value.net/~mschulter/invoc4aa.mid>
12-note meantone: <http://value.net/~mschulter/invoc4am.mid>

What I'd like to emphasize is that the fifthtone steps are described
by Vicentino as a kind of yet more subtle and "gentle" development of
chromaticism, permitting yet more refined shades of expression; they
are definitely meant to be heard, and to stand out. In contrast,
adaptive JI adjustments involve much smaller shifts of 1/4-comma or
~5.38 cents (in a meantone with pure 5:4 major thirds) to obtain pure
consonances such as fifths (3:2) or minor thirds (6:5).

Please let me add that what your adaptive tunings distinctly offer is
the possibility of _dynamically_ adjusting pitches and intervals as a
piece moves along, a special advantage of computer algorithms. In
contrast, my Vicentino-based methods draw on a fixed set of pitches,
albeit a rather large number per octave, using a computer as it were
to model a kind of player harpsichord or organ.

Monz, thank you for your feedback as a composer on the effect of my
diesis shift at measures 20-21: it seemed to me to mark a kind of
change of "color" between two sections, maybe from a more exuberant to
a more reflective mood.

Mary, thank you for sharing your orchestration skills and insights, as
well as the fascinating responses of your friend showing how
performance practices can make a difference in how a piece is
perceived. Before musing a bit philosophical about some implications
for the composer/performer relationship -- or sometimes identity --
please let me share not only my gratitude for your efforts in this
direction, but my warmest encouragement for more experimentation.

Your musicianship and technical acumen are precious gifts, whether
applied to your own music or to the music of others for which you
discover new and often unsuspected possibilities.

Now for the more philosophical question which you raise, Jon -- and
also Dan Stearns, for example. Given that a score or MIDI file is open
to many interpretations and instrumentations, some of which may have
dramatically different effects on listeners, how is the composer to
respond to this situation?

One viewpoint might be that of maximum control, ideally realized when
the composer is also the performer, or possibly the director of a
performing ensemble. Certainly electronic technologies make this
available as an option, and the possibility of a "composer's
performance" recorded in the most precise digital detail is one
valuable 21st-century option.

Another viewpoint, however, is one of a creative partnership between a
composer and a range of performers, and medieval and Renaissance
European music often involves a great scope for discretion not only in
choices of voices and/or instruments for the different parts, but in
decisions about matters such as accidental inflections.

In many ways, I might consider a General MIDI file as somewhat
analogous to a medieval manuscript or a printed collection of the
earlier 16th century: it provides the notes, but leaves lots of room
for interpretations. The MIDI file may actually be more specific,
since it often involves specifying a given intonation -- although as
you've shown, John, such a file can serve as the basis for new
versions with dynamic adaptive tuning, for example.

My own viewpoint is that there doesn't have to be one "definitive"
version of a composition, although a "composer's version" might
sometimes serve as a starting point for other interpretations. Here
I'm addressing a tradition like that of medieval and Renaissance
music, where a range of interpretations is typical.

Having shared some of my own outlook on these things, as someone who
views my music as pretty much fitting the GNU Public License or
copyleft, I'd emphasize that "benchmark performances," so to speak,
can provide an invaluable reference point: an interpretation by the
composer, or using period instruments, at once offers a sonorous
"image" of the piece and a theme for many variations.

Again, thanks to everyone for such generous feedback and musical
creativity, and I regret the technical problems which delayed my
response.

Peace and love,

Margo

Of course, Margo, wonderful to have you back online!

Right, everybody???

I thought so...

But, about the comments on 'orchestration' of music and the like, I just want to clarify my point: for *some* musics and compositions it is paramount in importance, but certainly not *all*. Margo, you are operating in a unique and narrow niche, and your analogy to old manuscripts if very, very apt: there have certainly been many centuries of music that was not tied inextricably to the resources used to make the music. The timbre of voices, and more importantly, the exact instrumentation chosen for many period pieces (I love the seemingly hundreds of takes on Praetorius' Terpsichore dances) are testament to this.

What *you* happen to do is very appropriate for a variety of sound sources at the performance end, and I would never suggest that this kind of composition needs to 'pay more attention' to the scoring of the notes.

Hope that makes it a little less of a "broad brush" type commentary...

Cheers,
Jon