First Published Treatise in English

Thurstan Dart, in his introduction to the Norton edition of the Morley,
identifies the 1584 primer on the rudiments of music as ''written by an
enthusiastic young Irishman with unorthodox views on the teaching of
singing''.

There were of course earlier manuscript treatises, both in Latin and
English, and also the introductions to musical collections printed during
the 21 years of the Tallis/Byrd monopoly on music publishing contain
valuable information.

I would agree heartily that the Morley is the first _complete_ treatise on
music, but it does remain sadly deficient on tuning containing not a single
ratio, and the entire section on Hexachord singing ia already at least 20
years away from practice - and more if the tuning is to allow for the
syntonic comma (although the hexachord could still be used to determine
ficta, which are invariant between 3 and 5 limit tunings). But, as I have
said before, the treatments of rhythmic modes and diminution are excellent.

As to the exactitude of the harmonic series in the human voice - this would
require a vocal chord with no imperfections. Of course, I am setting a high
standard for precision, but I think it is useful to be precise and say that
the harmonics _tend_ to approximate the harmonic series, or deviate from
the series by a tolerable amount, or the integration into a single complex
sound is so good that we accept the deviations as harmonic. But the simple
equation of actual vocal sounds with the harmonic series does no service to
either.

One phenomenon that I recall from trombone playing was the constant
correction of pitch (by lip and slide) so that the deficient harmonic
series of the tube would sound better. This may be taking place in vocal
performance as well. When ''overtone singing'' had its heydey, I recall
being disturbed by how unstable the fundamental was, and the constant
intrusion of beats, perhaps resulting from attempts to tune the harmonics
at the expense of the fundamentals.

I think that Johnny misrepresents La Monte's position altogether. La Monte
contends that one can sing Just intervals only through elimination of
beating and that ET intervals are - because they require the perception and
stable production of more complex beating practically impossible to produce
accurately. As I understand Johnny's approach to pitch, it has more to do
with pitch memory (so-callled absolute pitch) than with elimination of
beats between pitches (and La Monte's approach is more like relative
pitch). (It is not surprising that Johnny named his journal ''Pitch''
instead of continuing ''Interval'').

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