TUNING digest 891

To my last posting, let me add one more reference, which Partch may or may
not have seen (in any case, a copy was surely placed in the California
State Library), the _Harmonic Structure and Elementary Composition_ of
Charles Seeger and Edward Stricklin, written for instruction at UCB in
1916, and probably familiar to Seeger*s student, Cowell. In chapter five of
this work, minor is derived from _undertones_, which are physically derived
by lengthening a string. I think this reference is useful to illustrate
that the essential ideas were _in the air_ at the time, and a
scholar-composer like Seeger, who was familar with the German scholarship
available during his years in Koeln as assistant conductor in the Opera
House, was a leeding intellectual figure in the bay area. Likewise, the
school of music at USC, which Partch attended for a while, had a real
German (and Riemannian) bias. It is interesting to note that the Swiss
speculative theorist Hans Kayser was only 10 years Partch�s senior, and
their harmonic structures are quite similar in construction.

Daniel Wolf

Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl
with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Mon, 11 Nov 1996 18:29 +0100
Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA04384; Mon, 11 Nov 1996 18:30:43 +0100
Received: from eartha.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA04365
Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI)
for id JAA13108; Mon, 11 Nov 1996 09:30:40 -0800
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 1996 09:30:40 -0800
Message-Id: <009AB386547CDDE0.198F@vbv40.ezh.nl>
Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu
Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu