Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup mills-tuning-list Lost post from Brian McLaren

From: mclaren
Subject: "experimental" music
--
In sharp contrast with the dismal pseudo-
science and incoherent reasoning employed
by a minority of forum subscribers in a
remarkably feeble effort to "disprove" my
criticism of the misuse of the term "experimental"
in modern music, Steve Curtin made some cogent
points about the term.
"Experimental music" was used according to its
correct dictionary meaning by Lejaren Hiller. If you
read Hiller's 1956 text "Experimental Music,"
you discover that Hiller employed the term
carefully. He called the output of his
stochastic composition programs "Experiment 1,"
"Experiment 2," etc. Notably, Hiller was careful
*not* to call the output of his computer programs
"music."
Rather, he viewed these experiments (which formed
the movements of the Illiac Quartet) as systematic
investigations of mathematical models of human
musical cognition.
I did some research on Markov analysis and it turns
out that it was originally used in chemistry to
measure mean free paths of molecules in chemical
reactions between collisions. Thus it's obvious why
Markov analysis failed miserably as a music
composition tool: a hydrogen atom is a hydrogen
atom no matter where it occurs, but a JI minor third
played in the deep bass is a grinding sensory dissonance
while a JI minor third played in the high treble is
a smooth sensory consonance. Atoms
are interchangeable and identical; musical intervals
are not.
If you read Hiller's 1956 book carefully, you will
realize that Hiller himself understood that his
experiments demonstrated the failure of his
mathematical model of human musical cognition.
Hiller claims that he was not interested in the
aesthetic result of his "experiments," but if you
read between his lines you can detect the clear
disappointment he felt in not producing more
human-sounding music (or, to put it another way,
the ease with which listeners could tell that
the music went nowhere).
Little has been remarked on Hiller's subsequent
efforts in this area; however, HIller's own writings
about his subsquent "Computer Cantata" (and a
listen to the work in question) prove enlightening
even today.
Unlike John Cage, Lejaren Hiller understood and
respected the meaning of the term "experimental."
Unlike John Cage, Hiller recognized that science
demands hard numbers in order for an experiment
to be meaningfully called an experiment. Unlike
John Cage, Lejaren Hiller formulated a mental
model of a physical process (composition as
filtered noise subjected to modus ponens
logic in the form of a rule-set); unlike Cage,
Hiller reduced his mental model to mathematics
(encapsulated in a computer program); unlike
Cage, HIller generated a testable hypothesis
from his mathematical equations (composition
can be generated using such a computer program
which is both statistically and perceptually
indistinguishable from compositions produced
by humans); unlike Cage, Hiller tested his
hypothesis (set up a quartet to perform the
composition, and recorded the reactions of
people who listened to it); unlike Cage, Hiller's
music could therefore be meaningfully called
"experimental."
--
By the way, no doubt some of you will object
to my use of the term "computer composition"
in a recent post critical of that genre.
Many of you will claim that my post denies
the validity of all "computer compositions,"
and since many "computer composers" (Larry
Polansky, Carter Scholz, John Bischoff, etc.)
have produced interesting and worthwhile
music, my post is purportedly incorrect.
In fact this boils down to a controversy over
the meaning of the phrase "computer
composition."
What is a "computer composition"?
Is a string quartet written out by hand and
using a computer only to print the score an
"computer composition"? Since the
composer did not specify the exact number of
1/300ths of an inch border around the staves,
these proportions were generated outside of the
composer's direct control, by means of
algorithms. Is such a quartet score therefore
an example of "computer composition"?
Clearly not.
Let us then consider a rock band whose
manager schedules performances using
a computer (with scheduling algorithms).
Is this "computer composition"?
Clearly not.
How about a keyboardist who performs
from written scores and uses a computer
to load different timbres into hi/r synthesizer
during the performance? Is this an example
of "computer composition"?
Clearly not.
Let us then move on to consider a composer who
uses elaborate mathematics to generate timbres
and chords during the course of a composition.
Over his shoulder, the composer has an idiot
savant watching who observes which notes
the composer plays and calculates rapidly in
hi/r head the resulting notes and timbres
according to the composer's mathematical
procedures. (One such prodigy, Johan Zacharias
Dase, boasted such astounding powers of
mental calculation that he calculated pi in
his head to 400 decimal places over the course
of 2 months. Thus it is humanly possible, while
rare, to perform such elaborate mental
calculations.)
Is this an "algorithmic computer composition"?
I would say not, since it can be performed by
a human. To think of it another way, the elaborate
mathematics of the composer can surely be
boiled down to a set of charts and tables which
can be memorized. Now if we observe that the
elaborate mathematics of which I speak might
well be figured bass notation of the Baroque
period (which, if reduced to a computer program,
would require a great deal of calculation to
interpret correctly in any key signature as the
music modulates), we realize that this
is a pretty standard human musical operation
couched in deliberately arcane terminology.
Obviously, it's not "computer composition"
if humans were performing it in the 18th century
as a matter of routine musical practice.
Now suppose we have a computer program like
Lejaren Hiller's which performs many millions
of calculations to obtain each note. The mathematics
recirculate, requiring some of the output to feed
back into the input. Many millions of numbers must
be multiplied by weights, sieved with thousands
of rules, and random numbers must be generated
by multiple 32-bit numbers by one another to
obtain overflow and then shifting them right or
left by some larger number of bits.
This seems a clear case of "computer
composition" because the process is too elaborate
to be performed by any conceivable human in any
reasonable amount of time.
--
What do all these cases have in common?
Clearly, we make distinctions here depending
on the proportion of the computer's input to
the process of composition.
If the proportion is very high, we can speak
meaningfully of "computer
composition." If the proportion of computer
input is low, clearly we are talking
only about computer-aided composition.
Thus, true "computer composition" occurs only
when the process of composition *demands*
a computer and *exclusively* a computer. If a
human can perform the same operations, this
is not "algorithmic computer composition," it's
merely ordinary composition *aided by computer.*
This leads us to a clear distinction between
*computer-aided composition* and *algorithmic
computer composition.*
"Algorithmic computer composition" only occurs
when the overwhelming bulk of the compositional
process takes place in the computer.
If most of the compositional process is human,
and the computer is used merely to keep track
of vectors in ratio space, or display morphological
shapes, etc., then we are clearly speaking of
"computer-aided composition."
My comments in my recent post referred *only* to
computer composition--that is, to composition in
which the composer sets up a computer program,
lets it go, and walks away.
Computer-aided composition is a whole different
kettle of fish, since it is de facto human composition
in which the computer is used as a convenient aid.
The line between the two is of course blurry; as
the proportion of human effort to computer
interpretation approaches 1:1, it becomes hard
to say whether the computer or the human is
composing.
My earlier comments should therefore not
be taken as an argument against the validity of
all composition involving computers, but rather
against the validity of compositions produced mainly
by unaided computer operations. To put it bluntly,
winding up a computer and letting it spit out music
on its own didn't work in 1956 and has failed miserably
to produce any interesting musical results in the
ensuing 40 years. Changing the number of tones per
octave does not promise to improve that track record.
However, computer-aided microtonal composition is
a wide-open field, and promises many fascinating
and aesthetically worthwhile results as new
approaches are tried and new algorithms developed.
In particular, computer *aided* composition might
prove very helpful in harmonizing a melody line in
an exotic microtonal intonation with too many notes
per octave for humans to navigate easily.
--mclaren

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🔗Gary Morrison <71670.2576@...>

🔗randy@tcm.mit.edu

As Johnny Reinhard and Gary Morrison have both extended this
invitation and since I have been feeling somewhat lurkish lately,
here's my introduction.

I've been following the tuning list since sometime in 1994. I've been
interested in non-12tET tunings for about 10 years. Discussions on
this list got me interested in non-12 ETs and non-octave tunings. I
have recorded several hours of improvisations in various tunings on my
cranky old synth. Whenever I read something about a new tuning that
strikes my interest, such as Mayumi Reinhard's Harmonic 13, I just
have to try it out to see what I can do with it.

I read Hindemith's "Craft of Musical Compositition" in the late 70s,
and it made a lot of sense to me at the time, but the discrepancy
between the harmonic series and its 12tET representation didn't hit me
until I tuned up some actual pitches on a synth in 1985. I recorded
some pieces with harmonic series pitches and JI tunings around that
time.

I had heard some microtonal music during my college studies (in the
mid-70s; some Partch and Stockhausen and a few others) and some
"non-Western" musics (Gamelan, etc.), but I had always brushed it off
as being part of a fringe that didn't interest me much at the time. I
even performed in a wind ensemble that tackeled a piece full of big
harsh quarter tone clusters. So, some academics cover the topic even
if they aren't overly enthusiastic about it. Enthusiasm (or lack of)
communicates a lot about the importance of a subject.

A couple of years ago, Brian McLaren sent me a copy of Ivor Darreg's
"Beyond the Xenharmonic Frontier." My first listening to this music
drastically altered my musical perceptions - probably the single most
influential musical event for me in 10 years. Since then I've been
playing with ETs, JIs and non-octave tunings on a regular basis.

Just because I don't post often, please don't get the wrong
impression. I read every tuning digest, follow the discussions, and
try out many of the ideas presented. If I don't participate in the
theoretical discussions, it's because I'm not so inclined to do the
scholarly research necessary to follow up on some of the ideas
presented and I find that I'm often lacking a means to communicate my
non-verbal ideas about them anyway. One of the biggest limitations of
this forum is that ASCII is the only means available to represent
ideas. It'll be a different world once we're able to include sounds
as fluently as we now use text.

Randy
************************************************************************
* Randy Winchester * randy@mit.edu * PO Box 1074, Cambridge, MA 02142 *
* (617) 253-7431 * http://web.mit.edu/randy/www *
************************************************************************

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🔗Steven Rezsutek <steve@...>

Johnny Reinhard writes:
> This is an open invitation for all those lurkers out there to step
> forward and introduce yourself. I hope - and expect - that there will be
> tolerance and understanding by the regulars.

OK, I'll bite (but excuse me for a moment while I take my foot out of
my mouth first :-)...

Where to begin?

My instrument of choice is bass, currently the electric bass guitar,
though I am slowly making progress on my true love, the Double Bass.
In addition to the requisite [7+5] keyboard, and pair of bongos, I
also have a couple of other instruments which I've collected over the
years, those being a hammered dulcimer and a shakuhachi.

I play none of these with any expertise, but then again I only made my
"serious" attempt to really learn music slightly less than a year ago!
Prior to that, I made several attempts, on all sorts of instruments,
but after a bit of noodling, usually became discouraged. Finding my
"voice" in the bass was the missing element that kept me going this
time, I think.

I won't attempt to catagorize which musics I "like", as I seem to be
always finding new ones, but if I had the chops (I don't -- yet :) I
would most like to be able to play bebop and other inprovised musics
which from my perspective seem to be something of a "game" for the
musicians to enjoy as much, if not more than, the audience. For the
time being, I do my best at holding down the bottom in a basement jam
group, where we play mostly blues based rock, the occational
"straight" blues piece, and a bit improvised "groove" music.

I've been familiar, at least in concept, with microtonal music since
college (early 80s), where I was first exposed to music by people
such as Harry Partch and Pandit Pran Nath. From that time, until
discovering this list earlier this year, the extent of my references
were _Genesis_, _On the Sensations of Tone_, and _Lutes, Viols, and
Temperament_. Needless to say, this list has been a gold mine!

BTW, I say "in concept" above, because it is only in the past six
months or so, thanks to acquiring a tuneable synth, that I've actually
been able to touch, hear, noodle, taste and experience it, beyond the
few recordings I have, or the odd experiments I've subjected some of my
instruments to at one time or another.

There probably isn't much I can offer into the dialog here for the
moment, given my beginner status, but I hope that by "beginning" with
more than one tuning, I can somehow carry a bit of what I learn here,
not only into "my" music, but to some other folks who don't really
have the inclination to get into all the technical stuff, but just
want to play. [I know if we had the instruments, we'd probably be
attempting to cover at least one of Neil's 19TET pieces.]

Hope this wasn't too long...

I am glad to be in your company,

Steve

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Lost post from Brian McLaren

🔗John Chalmers <non12@...>

🔗Gary Morrison <71670.2576@...>

🔗randy@tcm.mit.edu

🔗Steven Rezsutek <steve@...>