Introductions

Johnny's request of several months ago for "lurkers" to give an
accounting of themselves has prompted me to think back to some of the
influences that have motivated me to pursue alternative tunings. Perhaps
sharing my "hit" on this pursuit will stimulate a little discussion on
areas of alternative tunings which I find particularly fascinating. I
began musical training with piano lessons at age 8 and 2 years later took
up the french horn in 5th grade band program which I pursued through
college and beyond a little, gaining enough proficiency to sub a couple
of times with the Pittsburgh Symphony, a summer with the Colorado
Philharmonic and the a season with the Albuqurque Symphony ('72-'73) and
the following year a season down in Mexico. However I becam e discouraged
with the professional classical music scene with all of the politics, etc.
so I gave it up, gave my horn to my brother and went to work for Austin
Organ Co. in Hartford, CT. I learned cabinetmaking from a couple of
German master cabinetmake rs, an art which seems virtually nonexistent in
this country, and after about 4 years went to work in a small organ shop
which specialized in restoring tracker organs; the owner was also German
trained. He also had a tuning business and I ended up holdin g keys for
many hours. At this time I did extensive reading on temperments on
historical instruments through organ periodicals, etc. But the pressures
of raising a family forced me into the plastics manufacturing business in
which I have been engaged for the past 20 odd years. Picked up the horn
again a few years ago and currently play with the Reno Philharmonic, opera
orch, ballet orch, etc. for the fun of musicmaking which it has become
again! Now to the things of interest--

During college I ran across several fascinating passages in Gurdjieff's
writings--specifically in "Meetings with Remarkable Men", pub. E. P.
Dutton & Co., Triangle Edition (1974), pp. 128-133. I'll quote several
passages (p 128)

"...Vitvitskaia finally replied that the cause of her state was, as she
expressed it, the 'damned music,' and she asked me if I remembered the
music of the night before last. I did indeed remember how all of us,
sitting in some corner of the monastery, had almost sobbed, listening to
the monotonous music performed by the brethren during one of their
ceremonies. And although we had talked about it afterwards for a long
time, none of us could explain the reason for it." And later (p 132)
"...I later, on my return to Russia, resumed my experiments on people. I
found, as the brothers had advised, the absolute "la" according to the
atmospheric pressure of the place where the experiment was to be carried
out, and tuned the piano correspondingly, taking into consideration also
the dimensions of the room. Besides this, I chose for the experiment
people who already had in themselves the repeated impressions of certain
chords; and I also took into consideration the character of the place and
the race of each on e present. Yet I could not obtain identical results,
that is to say, I was not able by one and the same melody to evoke
identical experiences in everyone....But here, the day before yesterday,
this music almost without melody evoked the same state in all
of us--people not only of different race and nationality, but even quite
unlike in character, type, habits and temperment. To explain this by the
feeling of human 'herdness' was out of the question..." Also in
Gurdjieff's "Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson" there is a whole section,
pp 847-870, E. P. Dutton & Co. (1964) in which he outlines a sophisticated
scale of 7 tones/octave, 5 'half tones' and 14 'quarter tones' over a 7
octave range which represents in sound vibration what the 7 colors of the
sp ectrum represents to light. This tuning system apparently offers
insight into cosmic law. The reading is relatively difficult but it
spurred my imagination into realms of the possibility of music beyond mere
entertainment--I was a biochemistry and philosophy major in college at
the time.

A few years later I read another passage which also reinforced my
curiosity of alternative tunings and dissappointment with the direction
that 12TET music was taking. This is a passage in The Urantia Book
(1955), Urantia Foundation, Chicago, IL. "The best music of Urantia
(earth) is just a fleeting echo of the magnificent strains heard by the
celestial associates of your musicians, who left but snatches of these
harmonies of morontia forces on record as the musical melodies of sound
harmonics. Spirit -morontia music not infrequently employs all seven
modes of expression and reproduction, so that the human mind is
tremendously handicapped in any attempt to reduce these melodies of the
higher spheres to mere notes of music sound. Such an effort would b e
like endeavoring to reproduce the strains of a great orchestra by means of
a single musical instrument.

"....Be not discouraged; some day a real musician may appear on Urantia,
and whole peoples will be enthralled by the magnificent strains of his
melodies. One such human being could forever change the course of a whole
nation, even the entire civilized wo rld. It is literally true, 'melody
has power a whole world to transform.' Forever, music will remain the
universal language of men, angels, and spirits. Harmony is the speech of
Havona."(p 500)

I suppose more than other writings, these passages have motivated my
thoughts and search for things metamusical. My work in this area has been
only theoretical to date and I hesitate to share these thoughts without
some real music to illustrate the ideas . I have recently acquired an old
EPS with which I hope to work with some of my experimental tunings, so
I'll keep you all posted. The constraints of survival in this society and
raising a family of course have limited this pursuit, but it has been a pl
easure to listen in on others who also are expanding and extending our
musical spheres and I look forward to continued discussion and
experimentation. Thank you.

Bruce Kanzelmeyer


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