Another Post from Brian McLaren

From: mclaren
Subject: The ignorance and incompetence of
the doyens of modern music theory
--
The most feted names of post-war music theory
are a callow and ignorant lot. They rise to
distinction solely by the magnitude of
their incompetence.
In shocking contrast, the most learned and
profoundly insightful minds of post-war music
theory barely even register on the academic
radar scope: Harry Partch, Ben Johnston,
David Doty, James Tenney, Ivor Darreg,
Easley Blackwood, Rudolf Rasch, Augusto
Novaro, Adriaan Daniel Fokker, Paul
Rapoport, Ivan Wyschnedgradsky.
These are strong claims, demanding strong
proof. So let's examine one of the princes
of post-war music theory, Milton Babbitt,
in his own words.
--
Babbitt writes:
"And still, the structure of the harmonic
series does not supply a basis for the
status of the minor triad in tonal music.
It either dissonantly 'contradicts' it
or requires the invocation of still further
assumptions of intervallic permutation
or numerology." [Babbitt, Milton, "The
Structure and Function of Musical Theory,"
The College Music Symposium, Vol. 5,
Fall 1965]
Let us leave aside the hypocrisy of Mr.
Pitch Class Matrix complaining about
"still further assumptions of intervallic
permutation or numerology." For Milton
Babbitt to gripe about "numerology"
is a like a prostitute complaining about
public immorality.
Instead, let us merely take note of Babbitt's
shocking ignorance--for Hugo Riemann answered
his objection to the harmonic series as basis
for western music in 1906, fully sixty
years before Babbitt's article appeared
in print. Riemann pointed out that the
minor triad is generated by inverting
harmonics 4, 5, 6 to produce
1/4, 1/5, 1/6, which when multiplied by
the lowest common denominator yield
overtone series members 10, 12, 15.
Babbitt's bizarre fixation on the harmonic
*overtone* series to the utter exclusion of
the *subharmonic* series reveals both his
shallowness as a theorist and his pervasive
ignorance. Any second- or third-year
music student should have been exposed
to Riemann. Where was the sainted Milton
Babbitt when he should have been taking
notes as an undergraduate? Is *this*
the low standard to which professors are
held at Princeton?
Milton Babbitt goes on to follow his previous
howler about the harmonic series with an even
more startling display of quackery:
"And yet, the succession of intervals in the
overtone series does not correspond to the
categorization of 'consonant' and 'dissonant,'
even in relative terms, whether one asserts
the independent assumption of adjacency
or of relation to the first partial. Under
the former criterion, the fourth would be
termed more consonant than the major
third; under the latter, the minor seventh
and major second would be termed more
consonant than the major or minor sixth,
or the minor third." [Babbitt, Milton, op cit.,
1965]
This is an astounding display of
circular logic. Because members of the
harmonic series cannot be characterized
according to the limited criteria of 12-tet
tuning, Babbitt concludes that the harmonic
series is neither "consonant" nor "dissonant" and
thus is not musically useful.
Say WHAT?
The harmonic series simply requires
*different* criteria of consonance and
dissonance than 12-tet. But this in no
way renders the harmonic series *useless*
as a source of music. It merely demands that
we toss out our limited 12-tet definitions
of "consonance" and "dissonance" when we
compose with the harmonic series.
Amazingly, Babbitt continues to heap shame
on himself, writing: "The concepts of
consonance and dissonance have induced
centuries of a comedy of methodological
errors, from the rationalistic stage,
through the so-called 'experimental
stage,' without it having been clear or
inquired at any time as to the object of
the rationalizing or the experimentation.
Clearly, this is because consonance and
dissonance are context dependent tonal
concepts; it is impossible to assert that
an interval is consonant aurally, since it
always can be notated as dissonant, and
this notation reflects a possible context."
[Babbitt, Milton, op cit., 1965]
We can only conclude that Babbitt never read
Helmholtz; we know this because he is utterly
UNfamiliar with the elementary and clear-cut
criterion of sensory consonance as defined
by Helmholtz. This criterion allows us to
classify *ANY* vertical structure as
"consonant" or "dissonant" (in purely sensory
terms) contrary to Babbitt's ignorant
and false claim that "it is impossible to
assert that an interval is consonant
aurally." Helmholtz's definition easily
allows us to define which intervals are
"consonant aurally" because Hemlholtz's theory deals
with nearby partials interfering with each other
to cause beats--this same idea was elaborated
by Plomp and Levelt in their classic paper
"Critical Bandwidth and Consonance" published
*the same year* as Milton Babbitt's article.
So not only was Babbitt unaware of Helmholtz's
work, he was *also* utterly ignorant of *modern*
acoustics and psychoacoustics.
This is typical of the worst traditions of
modern "scholarship:" read nothing outside
your tiny subspeciality. Ignore the real
world. Write only book about books
about books.
Even so, it's astounding and mind-boggling
that someone could graduate with a PhD in
music--much less rise to the position
of professor at Princeton--without ever
reading Helmholtz's Tonempfindungen or
leafing through a copy of the Journal of
the Acoustical Society of America.
But we've still not plumbed the full depths
of Milton Babbitt's ignorance.
In a stunning display of slovenly logic,
Babbitt confuses willy-nilly the *radically*
different concepts of musical consonance,
sensory consonance, and musical discordance.
You don't need to be a scientist to understand
the musical importance of making a sharp
distinction between these different ideas. Norman
Cazden was no scientist, yet he wrote with deep
insight about these issues in his 1959 article
"Musical Intervals and Simple Number Ratios,"
Journal of Research in Music Education, Vol. 7,
1959, pp. 197-220.
Easley Blackwood is no scientist, but *he*
understood the musical importance of these
ideas: Blackwood makes an exquisitely precise
distinction between musical consonance and
musical discordance in his article "Modes
and Chord Progressions in the Equal Temperaments,"
Perspectives of New Music, Vol. 29, No. 2, 1992,
pp.
These two far less famous music theorists
understood quite well this distinction...yet
Milton Babbitt didn't understand it at all.
Amazing.
Just amazing.
Having demonstrated his ignorance of acoustics
and psychoacoustics, Milton Babbitt damages his
reputation even further by writing:
"One can continue with the overtone follies,
with what having the overtone series commits
one to eat [!], but perhaps it is necessary only to
point out that a theory...of representative
works of the 18th and 19th centuries undoubtedly
would include the concepts of the major and
minor triad as definitional... These concepts hardly
suggest the postulation of an overtone series as
a master concept entailing them." [Babbitt, Milton,
op cit, 1965]
This is one of the most astounding displays of
fractured logic in post-war music theory.
After all, once you climb the overtone series you
have by definition exited western music...so why
must you retain such western concepts as "major"
and "minor"?
Babbitt never bothers to address this issue. It's
obvious that he didn't even understand it--the
concept that "major" and "minor" might be
artifacts of 12-tet simply lay beyond his grasp.
He was too ignorant or too incompetent even to
realize that it *was* an issue.
Second:
Can a professor of music at Princeton actually
have failed to recognize that the subharmonic
series can be viewed as nothing more than the
application of an elementary linear function
to the harmonic series?
Take the inverse of the harmonic series. You
get the subharmonic series.
This is nothing more than a composition of
functions.
It's simple.
It's obvious.
For heaven's sake, both Hugo Riemann and Max
Meyer both pointed this out in classic music
theory texts, and Henry Cowell strongly hinted
at building chords out of subahrmonics in his
1930 text. All three of these well-known western
music theorists used a transformation of the overtone
series to explain the minor mode in western
music.
And yet these basic well-worn classic texts of music
theory are unknown to Milton Babbitt...
How can this be?
At this point we must ask: How did this man get
a doctorate in music?
How in God's name did Milton Babbitt pass his
doctoral oral examination? Why wasn't he flunked
out?
It's unbelievable.
Untaught, untutored, unschooled, unlettered,
unedified, unenlightened, unread: these are the
words which describe Milton Babbitt.
Remember those 7-Up commercials for "The
UnCola"?
Milton Babbitt is the "UnScholar."
--
Hear the Word, ladies and gentlemen.
The Prophet has Spoken.
William Alves and Denny Genovese, you've
received the Law From Princeton. You must
burn all your music. Milton Babbitt has
come down off Mount Sinai and He Has
Spoken: you must give up your "overtone
follies."
Jonathan Szanto, you'd better dismantle
and burn Harry Partch's instruments.
Partch committed "the overtone follies."
David Doty and David Canright, throw
your synthesizers in the trash can--
the High Mikado of Princeton has uttered
his edict. You are engaging in "the
overtone follies." Marion McCoskey,
sledgehammer your sound card and erase
all your tapes of just intonation music. You're
perpetrating "the overtone follies."
Ye gods.
And you folks *still* wonder why I hold up
Milton Babbitt as an object of endless
ridicule and contempt...?
Get a clue, people. Babbitt was a pig-ignorant
dunce. End of story.
--mclaren


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