context, conditioning, and Universities

(a) Phrases like **one cannot hear (x)** and **difference (y) is not
perceptible** or **(z) is a horrible dissonance** turn up with great
frequency in the Tuning list discussions. It is unfortunate that such
phrases are used without making the necessary qualifications as to context
and conditioning that would make such statements true. For example,
classifying the interval 7/4 as **dissonant** or even **mildly dissonant**
should be qualified by register, duration, timbre, and musical context,
locally and globally. I can imagine this claim being true in many musical
settings I am familiar with but it is certainly not true for Javanese vocal
music or for the music of La Monte Young. (It is astonishing how
eurocentric music-acoustical research can be!)

(b) As long as the academic study of music is focused upon existing musics,
the subject of tuning will be a relatively modest enterprise. While it is
true that tuning has been given shortshrift even in this regard, and should
be strengthened to offer a more complete view of repertoire (and this is
necessary to deal with the expanded repertoire - including early European
and world musics - under academic consideration), I cannot find a
convincing argument to make for basing the curriculum on anything other
than historical repertoire. The bulk of music students are _repertoire
bearing_ (music educators, performing musicians, and musicologists), and I
cannot see/hear that composers or speculative theorists are hurt by a
sophisticated encounter with good music from the past or from another part
of the planet. Perhaps someone on the list who has studied or taught in a
College/University setting with a more experimental curriculum (UCSC,
CalArts, York, Mills?) might want to comment on the success/failure of such
an enterprise.


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