Xenharmonic Praxis Summer Camp 2011

Just posted this to 4 fundamental places (nonoctave.com, tuning, MMM, oddmusic), about to put out to more widely-read new-music haunts. Here is perhaps a place to reflect on a more meta level.

In this I'm trying to make a format for MMM'ing with people at least once a year for the rest of my life. The camp could be in different places, with different emphases, for different groups of people, but I started it in a place and framework with which I am pretty comfortable.

The plan is pretty utopian, but then, I'm pretty utopian. It's also maybe presumptuous, because we have no elder teachers on board & it's going to be awkward to invite them to come for $800. The budget is solely funded by tuition, which puts us in a funny spot (appearing elitist but actually desparate). The more paying people who commit, the more people can be invited as guests. This time Toby Twining is our number one.

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OddMusic Urbana-Champaign is now accepting applications to its first annual XENHARMONIC PRAXIS SUMMER CAMP, a time and place for musicians to compose, practice, and perform new and oddly-tuned musics together.

Through a series of historical accidents, Western society's music—instruments, history, theory, practice, pedagogy, consciousness—has come to be dominated by a single tuning system, often called "twelve tone equal temperament." This dominance is so pervasive that it is often completely invisible. Students of music who wonder "Why these notes on the piano, and not some others?" are all too often answered with "Those are the only correct notes—anything else is out of tune!"

A world of more satisfying answers to this question unfolds to those looking for it: millennia-old traditions of music tuned differently; surprising inquiries & insights into how we hear; proposals for new systems yet untried. This camp is for those who want to dream up and realize new, thoughtfully-tuned music and contexts which support it.

We use the term 'xenharmonic' after microtonal pioneer Ivor Darreg, to refer to these unfamiliar-yet-hospitable musical terrains. We use the term 'praxis' after radical educator Paolo Freire, to refer to an ongoing dialectic between theory and practice, between action and reflection, each process informing and completing the other.

We envision a Xenharmonic Praxis Summer Camp where musicians from a variety of backgrounds converge and suspend the need for "one true answer" for long enough to get deep into a new, unpopular proposal; where distinct roles of audience, composer, theorist, performer, designer are inhabited temporarily, not reserved for experts or assumed as an identity.

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WHEN: July 25-August 5, 2011
WHERE: The Gesundheit! Institute, Hillsboro, West Virginia
WHO CAN COME: All self-described musicians with an interest in alternative tuning systems are encouraged to attend, from curious beginners to seasoned veterans.
HOW MUCH: $800
HOW TO APPLY: Web form at http://goo.gl/qGpIg
WHO STARTED IT: Presented by Oddmusic-UC in partnership with UnTwelve & School for Designing a Society
CONTACT: Jacob A. Barton, udderbot@...

More details available at http://goo.gl/qGpIg