pure just, or just pure

On Tue, 31 Dec 1996, Daniel Wolf wrote:

> ''Just'' could not have been defined by anyone in the sixteenth century
> with reference to an overtone series, as that concept had yet to be
> developed. One of the now obsolete meanings for ''Just'' is ''exact'', and
> it used in this sense to distinguish Just intervals from tempered, which
> were used as approximations.

Exact might still mean honest. If one wants to deny connection to nature,
I think it not very useful.

> I find it not very useful to define Just with any appeal to nature, as
> real, existing nature is frustratingly free of exact overtone series as
> anyone who has ever tuned a stretched string or a metal bar or played a
> brass instrument (I'm a trombonist by training) has experienced. It is
> safer to define Just intonation in terms of whole number ratios, and then

Performing Moreley's vocal music in just intonation leaves no doubt as to
its naturalness in its harmony. The human voice, for which Morely wrote
practically all of his wonderful music, resonates in tone through the
amplitude of its rich harmonic content. Training in overtone singing
brings the natural connection home. Inharmonic instruments seem to be the
exception to JI in timbre. To deny the ability to hear and sing just
intervals is to deny 12ET accuracy (as had La Monte Young) and this loss
of self-esteem will derail your confidence in your abilities to master the
material.

> The Morley text (1596) - excellent for rhythmic modes and diminution but
> decidedly deficient for intonation - is the first of what kind? An earlier
> (if inferior) treastise was published in English in 1584, and Morley's debt
> to previous non-English publications is everywhere in evidence (e.g. the

A Plaine and Easie Introduction to practicall Musicke (1596) is described
in Bakers by Slonimsky (1971) as the first regular treatise on music
published in England. Who was the author of the earlier English
treatise? BTW, I have heard just thirds described as "sweet thirds,"
"English thirds," and "dull thirds" due to their lack of beating.

Tinctoris was describing the admittedly new consonances in Europe still as
"ditones" which is a bit twisted. The words for 5/4 weren't yet in the
European vocabulary. I suspect Dutch masters in music kept knowledge of
these cononances close to the vest, to help insure that they would
continue to have jobs. This would help explain why so few ethnic
Italians, French, Spanish, etc. composers became prominent before the
succession from Willaert to Zarlino, just at the time that keyboard driven
temperament was taking off.

Even as an Englishman of great musical ability should choose to use the
term "just" to describe consonant thirds, a later Englishman (Ll. S.
Lloyd) wrote in this century of "Just Temperament." But hey, the British
put their punctuation outside the quotation mark anyway.

Johnny Reinhard
Director
American Festival of Microtonal Music
reinhard@ios.com


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