Re: [MMM] Pengy

The eminence, Dan Stearns wrote:

>But I guess after all these years I'd still have to say that as a general >rule I'm more interested with people who's first inclination is to make >music and second inclination is to make it regardless of the fact that >it's microtonal or that there are microtonalist. Ignorance isn't >necessarily bliss, but it's a good first step!

Beautiful. A good encapsulation of why I have never allowed myself to be considered a microtonalist.

I'm a musician.

Cheers,
Jon

On Friday 06 May 2005 12:38 am, Jon Szanto wrote:
> The eminence, Dan Stearns wrote:
> >But I guess after all these years I'd still have to say that as a general
> >rule I'm more interested with people who's first inclination is to make
> >music and second inclination is to make it regardless of the fact that
> >it's microtonal or that there are microtonalist. Ignorance isn't
> >necessarily bliss, but it's a good first step!
>
> Beautiful. A good encapsulation of why I have never allowed myself to be
> considered a microtonalist.
>
> I'm a musician.

Agreed. That's why I never have jumped on to the 'anything but 12' bandwagon.
There are still some things that are best said in 12-equal....but I can't
agree that one can always assume to know a composer's inner motivation or
intention when they set out to write unless they say it explicitly, so I much
prefer to rephrase what Dan said for myself, and say that I prefer those
musicians/composers whose product is obviously the result of a fertile
imagination and quality workmanship/musicianship; I really don't care about
their fetishes one way or the other with regards to 12 vs. not-12. And I also
prefer infinitely the label "musician" to "microtonalist", but to each his
own, and I don't really think about it all that much, what counts is the
quality of the work in the end. Does it move me, make me smile, laugh out
loud, cry, jump around, daydream, or does it leave me neutral, wanting to hit
fast-forward, or turn me off? That's how I judge.

Having said that, *my* interest in microtonal techniques of various sorts
stems from the fact that it broadens my expressive and emotional palette to
let in new as-yet-unnamed emotions and harmonic colors, etc. I'm often
excited listen back to Divide by Pi's latest improv, and Andy and I laugh out
loud, saying---"that's a great chord, and no-one else probably ever played
that chord". Okay, maybe a small handful of people have. In particular, I'm
thinking of the chords in the middle section of "Schwartzenkurosawa" from
about 2'45" to about 3'40". Most of those precise colors cannot be found in
12-equal by a long shot, and they are very nice colors to hear. But, knowing
where we are here, I'm preaching to the choir. *Everyone here* is here
because they are interested in that expanded palette.

Anyway, Dan, I'm wondering if you have a particular example of a composer(s)
who is(are) writing microtonal music for the sake of writing microtonal music
that spells "less interesting" to you (provided it's safe to do so)?

BTW, 'Pengy' has a really strong "psychedelic otherness" to it. I really
enjoyed it. It was kind of lo-fi and clicky-distorted -- on purpose?

Best,
Aaron.