Harrison Lucy

David Doty wrote:

This is none other than the tuning that Charles Lucy has attached his name
to and has been trying to sell as a musical panacea for the past several
years.

Comment:

Erv Wilson has pointed out that the reason tunings like these (Harrison,
Lucy) are so pleasant despite the poor fifths is that the triads produce
first order difference tones that are scale members. In doing so, I think
Wilson has provided the generalization for which the Harrison scale is one
possible example. Wilson has also generated some pelog- and slendro-type
scales based upon series of difference tones (as it is easier to imagine a
metallophone being tuned by difference tones of fundamentals than by beats
between irregular spectra, this is at least a plausible idea for Indonesian
tunings).

>From what I have read, Lucy's own descriptions of ''his scale'' are
deficient in many points, both mathematical and musical. His insistance
that his scale has something to do with _pi_ is almost as perplexing as his
failure to recognize that it has a lot to do with _phi_, and his inability
to give a significant musical justification - outside of a footnote in Erv
Wilson's direction - is curious. I think that David Doty's review in _1/1_
is a completely reasonable attempt to read Lucy.

Further, there is the whole packaging as a copywritten (or is it even
patented?) ''system'' with expensive documentation and seminars and
products that gives the whole Lucy Industry a cult-corporate image unusual
in the tuning community. I have always assumed that tunings were raw
material and were in the public domain (while actual compositions and
instrument designs were respectively copyright- or patentable); I do
realize that sampling has created some legal changes in terms of what
constitutes public domain material, but has the situation for tunings been
changed as well?

I think that a reasonable ethic for the tuning community would be to reject
ownership of tunings as intellectual property except as aspects of musical
scores or of instrumental designs (i.e. keyboards), while at the same time
attempting to be as honorable as possible with regards to attributing
origins of tunings used in compositions or instrumental designs. For
example, it should be reasonable to expect Karlheinz Stockhausen to
attribute the tuning of _Sternklang_ to Harry Partch, although Partch
himself never sought a copyright on any version of the Diamond tuning.

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Regarding Neil's comment about rhythm, if I recall correctly, the
"tuning interactions with rhythm and counterpoint" entry on the XH Alliance
survey, was one of the most commonly checked as "interesting", but one of
the least commonly checked for "experience".

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