th. vs. pr.

>>In other words, tuning systems aren't "good" or "bad" for the most
>>part.

>Theory! It seems to me the hamsters-and-duct tape claim is presented
>as an article of faith. Why should I believe it? Of course, given
>enough notes to the octave you can do pretty much anything no matter
>how they are organized.

I believe because I have seen, again and again and again that
"pre-compositional ideas" of any sort, from ideas on form,
instrumentation, tuning, whatever, do not usually tell you anything
useful about the "quality-level" or whether a piece is going to "work",
etc. of a piece of music that hasn't been written yet.

As a teacher of composition, if a student comes to me and says, "these are
my ideas for a piece. ____________________. do you think it'll be cool?"
well the best I Can do is say something like, "well, it CAN work or it CAn
be effective if _____________". But I have learned that you can never
truthfully say "this is gonna rock" or "Don't use this instrumentation,
it's gonna stink", etc. Music's effects and affects are so dependent on
the details, with all of their interdependency and non-linearity, it's
just impossible to make such predictions.

It's not theory at all. Just empiricism based on my experiences.

I have no beef, however, with looking at what harmonic resources a scale
has available in it. It's just important to keep in mind that harmonic
resources are not the most important thing, in all types of music.

And even if you find just one measly little cool sound/chord/melodic-
figure in a scale/tuning/whatever, that can be enough to write a great
piece around. Maybe even a bunch of great pieces.