xentonal ice cream truck/'brokeness' as an aesthetic

Hey all,

I had a profound experience today. I heard a Good Humor ice-cream truck
approach with a fantastically warped/broken sounding set of ice-cream chimes.

I wish I had a sample of it to share with you. But it basically sounded
magical in it's severe out-of-tuneness. It sounded like we were all in an
Yves Tanguy painting, buying ice cream from some kind of Willa Wonka type
person. Or that gumby himself was going to serve us up some soft serve.

It made me think: I like things that sound like they are 'broken'. Like that
ice cream trucks chimes. Like electronic circuits that are chaotically wired.
Like the 'wrong note' aesthetic of Prokofieff, Stravinsky, Honegger, Milhaud.
I also imagined a sort of never before heard insect like music that had a
mechanical clarity, but then the 'brokeness' came from someone stepping on
that insect...

But I have to tell you, the ice cream truck beat 'em all. It's something I'll
never forget in my life. I swear it could inspire a whole movement in music
towards the sweetly macabre xentonal !!!!

Best,
--
Aaron Krister Johnson
http://www.dividebypi.com
http://www.akjmusic.com

hi Aaron,

i've been enjoying the microtonality of ice-cream truck
tunes for years.

a long time ago, when i lived in Philly and was playing
in a band, i learned the Mister Softee theme
(in the key of B-major: F# G# F# D# C# B | C# B G# B |
A# B C# F# G# A# | D# B etc.).

when we were in between songs on gigs, deciding what
to play next in the absence of a set-list, i used
to keep the audience amused by playing this, deliberately
choosing a tuning on my Yamaha TG-77 such as F-major JI
which would make it sound horribly out-of-tune, just like
it does on the ice-cream truck sound system.

as Paul Erlich just wrote recently on one of the lists,
microtonality truly is all around us every day.

-monz
always looking for a way to "bend the ears" of the
general public

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "Aaron K. Johnson" <akjmicro@c...>
wrote:
>
> Hey all,
>
> I had a profound experience today. I heard a Good Humor
> ice-cream truck approach with a fantastically warped/broken
> sounding set of ice-cream chimes.
>
> I wish I had a sample of it to share with you. But it
> basically sounded magical in it's severe out-of-tuneness.
> It sounded like we were all in an Yves Tanguy painting,
> buying ice cream from some kind of Willa Wonka type
> person. Or that gumby himself was going to serve us up
> some soft serve.
>
> It made me think: I like things that sound like they are
> 'broken'. Like that ice cream trucks chimes. Like electronic
> circuits that are chaotically wired. Like the 'wrong note'
> aesthetic of Prokofieff, Stravinsky, Honegger, Milhaud.
> I also imagined a sort of never before heard insect like
> music that had a mechanical clarity, but then the 'brokeness'
> came from someone stepping on that insect...
>
> But I have to tell you, the ice cream truck beat 'em all.
> It's something I'll never forget in my life. I swear it
> could inspire a whole movement in music towards the
> sweetly macabre xentonal !!!!
>
> Best,
> --
> Aaron Krister Johnson
> http://www.dividebypi.com
> http://www.akjmusic.com

In a message dated 6/14/2004 3:42:22 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
monz@... writes:

> as Paul Erlich just wrote recently on one of the lists,
> microtonality truly is all around us every day.
>
>
>

I agree. It is small mindedness that reduces the plethora of microtonal
intervals around us to a few systems.

best, Johnny

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

hi Johnny,

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, Afmmjr@a... wrote:
> In a message dated 6/14/2004 3:42:22 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
> monz@a... writes:
>
>
> > as Paul Erlich just wrote recently on one of the lists,
> > microtonality truly is all around us every day.
> >
> >
> >
>
> I agree. It is small mindedness that reduces the
> plethora of microtonal intervals around us to a few systems.
>
> best, Johnny

oh, i'll agree that small-mindedness is *one* cause
whose effect "reduces the plethora of microtonal intervals
around us to a few systems", but it's not the only one.

there is a natural human tendency to want to find and
classify patterns of relationship in all aspects of
our universe, and tuning systems are no exception.
that's precisely *why* we tuning theorists find the
study so fascinating.

as we learn more and better ways of recognizing
patterns and classifying them, we recognize and
incorporate more and more of that already-existing
"plethora of microtonal intervals around us"
into our systems, and the few grow to be many.

-monz

In a message dated 6/14/2004 9:42:49 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
monz@... writes:

> oh, i'll agree that small-mindedness is *one* cause
> whose effect "reduces the plethora of microtonal intervals
> around us to a few systems", but it's not the only one.
>

Here, I must disagree.

> there is a natural human tendency to want to find and
> classify patterns of relationship in all aspects of
> our universe, and tuning systems are no exception.
> that's precisely *why* we tuning theorists find the
> study so fascinating.
>

The natural tendency you speak of in "childish" in a sense. I mean this in a
very specific sense. As a child develops, it gets to extend past greater and
greater barriers. Systems are great when they are mutually understood
patterns for success. But when they are blinders to what is actually going on in
our realities, they are inhibitors. Lou Harrison told me that the word "system"
was a failure for every microtonal class he taught at Mills, until he stopped
using the word.

> as we learn more and better ways of recognizing
> patterns and classifying them, we recognize and
> incorporate more and more of that already-existing
> "plethora of microtonal intervals around us"
> into our systems, and the few grow to be many.
>
> -monz

I believe you are speaking more from your point of view that with an empathy
of how others percieve things. Monz, you are more unusual, after all, than
most.

best, Johnny

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

This is a crazy coincidence. One of the first things I played when I
got my 22-equal guitar was the "mister softee theme" in
superpythagorean (basically the same tuning that Aaron calls (36/7)^
(1/4)) way up on the highest frets on the axe -- using my fingernails
like on a sarod.

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "monz" <monz@a...> wrote:
> hi Aaron,
>
>
> i've been enjoying the microtonality of ice-cream truck
> tunes for years.
>
> a long time ago, when i lived in Philly and was playing
> in a band, i learned the Mister Softee theme
> (in the key of B-major: F# G# F# D# C# B | C# B G# B |
> A# B C# F# G# A# | D# B etc.).
>
>
> when we were in between songs on gigs, deciding what
> to play next in the absence of a set-list, i used
> to keep the audience amused by playing this, deliberately
> choosing a tuning on my Yamaha TG-77 such as F-major JI
> which would make it sound horribly out-of-tune, just like
> it does on the ice-cream truck sound system.
>
> as Paul Erlich just wrote recently on one of the lists,
> microtonality truly is all around us every day.
>
>
>
> -monz
> always looking for a way to "bend the ears" of the
> general public
>
>
> --- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "Aaron K. Johnson"
<akjmicro@c...>
> wrote:
> >
> > Hey all,
> >
> > I had a profound experience today. I heard a Good Humor
> > ice-cream truck approach with a fantastically warped/broken
> > sounding set of ice-cream chimes.
> >
> > I wish I had a sample of it to share with you. But it
> > basically sounded magical in it's severe out-of-tuneness.
> > It sounded like we were all in an Yves Tanguy painting,
> > buying ice cream from some kind of Willa Wonka type
> > person. Or that gumby himself was going to serve us up
> > some soft serve.
> >
> > It made me think: I like things that sound like they are
> > 'broken'. Like that ice cream trucks chimes. Like electronic
> > circuits that are chaotically wired. Like the 'wrong note'
> > aesthetic of Prokofieff, Stravinsky, Honegger, Milhaud.
> > I also imagined a sort of never before heard insect like
> > music that had a mechanical clarity, but then the 'brokeness'
> > came from someone stepping on that insect...
> >
> > But I have to tell you, the ice cream truck beat 'em all.
> > It's something I'll never forget in my life. I swear it
> > could inspire a whole movement in music towards the
> > sweetly macabre xentonal !!!!
> >
> > Best,
> > --
> > Aaron Krister Johnson
> > http://www.dividebypi.com
> > http://www.akjmusic.com