Septimal Dorian

Here is a piece for pan pipes and acoustic guitar
in the Septimal Dorian scale of Al Farabi

http://www.robertinventor.com/septimal_dorian.mid

Scale:
8/7 7/6 4/3 3/2 12/7 7/4 2/1

The scale has two slendro diesis scale
steps of 49/48, one of which is prominent
in the very first phrase you hear, so it
fits in with my recent explorations
of scales with tiny scale steps.

On the theory / practice thing, one thought
I have - often you put quite a lot of work into
a piece, as I did with this one, well
it was a lot for me as I don't normally spend
so much time on compositions - they tend to
be rather spontaneous and often only take
say half an hour to complete. This one took
me a number of hours to write (I know that
isn't a long time as composition goes generally,
but it is long for me personally).

But then after putting all that work into a piece, maybe
later you find you make another one quite
spontaneously and quickly, so there is a lot
of interplay between the two approaches.

Or you improvise a piece, which may involve
very little in the way of planning, things
just falling together under your hands
as you play. I think there is nothing
wrong with theory, but it can be
helpful to forget about it sometimes too,
if one is able to do so.

It is rather easier to forget the theory
if you never learnt it in the first place.
I think one of the things in microtonal
music is that we have such a body of theory
based on twelve equal. So musically trained newbies to microtonal
music and even long term microtonal composers
seem often to focus on looking for new tunings for
chords and chord sequences they already know
in the twelve tone context.

But maybe in other tunings other rules and ways of thinking
about things may be useful and helpful.
Discovering those approaches may sometimes
involve unlearning theory based on 12 tone
ideas - which is perhaps easier for those
who never trained in it in the first place
:-).

There, one approach is to take a scale
that can't be easily explored in
a twelve tone way and these
recent explorations of 5-et
are a good example. Then to try to explore
it fresh which isn't so hard to do
as there is so little left of the
twelve tone language to use..

I'll have to have a go at writing such a piece myself
and see if I can do it - quite a challenge
I expect. never written anything in 5-et
myself yet.

Robert

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "Robert Walker"
<robertwalker@n...> wrote:

> Here is a piece for pan pipes and acoustic guitar
> in the Septimal Dorian scale of Al Farabi
>
> http://www.robertinventor.com/septimal_dorian.mid
>
> Scale:
> 8/7 7/6 4/3 3/2 12/7 7/4 2/1

These septimal scales with a small number of intervals seem to produce
nice results. I thought Andrew Heathwaite's PintaPenta sounded pretty
good in just 5 notes of a septimal scale: 8/7 4/3 3/2 7/4 2

> But then after putting all that work into a piece, maybe
> later you find you make another one quite
> spontaneously and quickly, so there is a lot
> of interplay between the two approaches.

What I would like to see is acceptance of giving thought and using
theory as a valid compositional method. I thought the comparison of
Milton Babbitt to Josef Mengele was positively creepy, and I think the
whole idea of telling people who use theory while actually composing
that they are going about composition in the wrong way is not a good
thing. Is it anyone's business? If Paul finds he can jam better by
taking the theory out of his brain whilst jamming, is that a reason to
tell *me*, a person not attempting spontaneous music making, that I
should do the same? Again, whose business is it other than mine?

Can we *please* start the new administration out in a better way than
by citing with approval articles which compare music theorists to Nazi
butchers and claims that you cannot, no, no, not ever and please don't
try, conpose and practice theory at the same time? I used to dread
coming on this group because of the hostility to theory, and thought
things would be better. I certainly do not think that Prent, a nice
guy who uses a lot of theory, or Paul, the theorist extraordinaire,
really intend to make theorists who compose feel unwelcome. But that
is what the words seem to be saying. Compose and let compose, please!

Hi Gene,

Sorry if my post was seen as critical in some way.
It wasn't meant to be at all, not even slightly
- but quite probably I may have expressed
what I was trying to say in a clumsy way.

I'm not trying to change the way you compose,
or the way Paul improvises. Maybe with your
approach, that spontanious composition that
happens when one forgets about theory
and just places notes never happens at
all - I can imagine that might happen
if the theory is so clear in ones
mind that it is impossible to forget
it.

Surely there must be spontenaity at
some point, but then perhaps it happens
at another level somehow. After all
there is a place for spontenaity and
surprising turns and development in maths
so maybe that can be another way it
enters in if one always has a very clear
picture of the theoretical structure
of the piece.

With me I have to work hard at keeping
the structure of the scale in mind
and then the spontaniety happens because
I just get tired of that and put a whole
lot of notes into the score any old how
because I can't be bothered to keep working
out where they should go - and somehow
it works. That happened in a few places
even in this piece. Since I've had no
formal training in composition and
never studied music even at secondary
school (apart from one year or so
best forgotten), and came to it late only
at university. that happens for me even
when writing pieces in twelve equal - I soon get tired
of trying to keep the various chords
and things in mind in a piece even
in twelve equal.

What I can't figure out theoretically,
somehow happens by instinct instead.

My approach is quite eccentric
actually, and not a model for anyone else
to follow.

Actually even in maths I also find that
the samething happens. I'm not really
a very quick thinker mathematically,
and it takes ages to figure things out
sometimes, but then often when
one gets tired of it all and write
down something nonsensical,it is
a clue to the way to solve
the problem.

Often I would get solutions
to maths problems in my sleep
when working on it - well at least
don't know when the solution is but
I often would wake up with
a solution to a tough problem. That's
commone with mathematicians. That's
really the same thing that I was talking
about here- the same thing happens with
composition, that you struggle at
a composition and it isn't clear how
to proceed, then at some off guard
moment it suddenly becomes very easy
and you see how to do it. Surely
everyone experiences this somehow in some
way or another if not quit in the same
way of course as we all have our own
unique approaches to composition.

Robert

HI Gene,

> Milton Babbitt to Josef Mengele

This must be someone else's post.

I don't even know who either of those people are.

Robert

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "Robert Walker"
<robertwalker@n...> wrote:

> Sorry if my post was seen as critical in some way.
> It wasn't meant to be at all, not even slightly
> - but quite probably I may have expressed
> what I was trying to say in a clumsy way.

Sorry myself, I was not directing my comments your way. I was trying
to say, probably not very well, that criticizing people who use theory
when composing is not a good idea. In fact, I think we should try to
get away from these kinds of blanket judgments, whether of tuning,
style, or method, and concentrate on saying something someone could
actually use to compose music. I would like a composition-positive
atmosphere to be established here, where no one is criticized simply
for trying to compose.

> I'm not trying to change the way you compose,
> or the way Paul improvises. Maybe with your
> approach, that spontanious composition that
> happens when one forgets about theory
> and just places notes never happens at
> all - I can imagine that might happen
> if the theory is so clear in ones
> mind that it is impossible to forget
> it.

It doesn't happen with me very readily because I lack the manual
dexterity to noodle around on the keyboard very easily. Anyway, I
don't have a musical keyboard, I have a QUERTY keyboard. It's not
really designed for music-making. This is why I'd like a generalized
for-idiots program, where you could program chord buttons. Noodling
around with a mouse using 5-equal and Scala or FTS is about my speed,
though.

> Surely there must be spontenaity at
> some point, but then perhaps it happens
> at another level somehow.

Well, ideas must come from somewhere, if that is what you mean.

> Often I would get solutions
> to maths problems in my sleep
> when working on it - well at least
> don't know when the solution is but
> I often would wake up with
> a solution to a tough problem.

It's a good way to solve problems, but also a good way not to get any
sleep.