Comments on "On a couple of subjects..."

Jonathan M. Szanto writes:
> And does anyone, even Neil, think that by refretting guitars and switching
> intonations he is going to draw crowds the way KISS did last year? Are the
> audiences driven by a popular format ready, willing, *capable* of
> acknowledging any 'superior' intonation? Do they want the 'new'? Do they
> want the 'experimental'? More to the point: do the record companies (the
> bastards!)?

Well, if you believe NPR, what `they' want now, or will want soon
enough, is dance music.

Everybody do the Microtonal Bop!


Seriously, I don't think most folks listen to what tuning a piece
of music is in, they listen, on whatever level, to the music, and
that should come first. If it piques them somehow, they'll buy it.
If what piques them is something that can't be reproduced in 12,
*then* you might have a "convert".

As a wannabe musician, I've been finding myself spending a lot of
money on recordings and live performances lately, just to hear other
musicians. Now, by no means do I aspire to play everything I hear,
but hearing Neil's tape did take part in changing my interest in
alternate tunings from an academic one to an `I've got to do this'
persuit. Were it not for that tape, I might still have 19 pigeon-holed
in the "fifths too flat" catagory that Ellis placed it in, simply
because I (and presumably Ellis?) never actually *heard* music
played in 19.

My point is that regardless of box-office success, or lack thereof,
making it possible for others to be exposed to music, of all types, in
all tunings can't help but succeed in some fashion. Having a bunch of
kids in the garage (or in my case the 30-somethings in the basement :)
banging away in brave new tunings because they heard something you did
may not be making it as a star, but I'm willing to bet that it will do
worlds of good toward spreading the word.

Hey, it worked on me, and now the drummer is asking me what this Just
Intonation Primer thing is all about. :-)


> Or maybe we enter the age (or re-enter) of the amateur, in the truest and
> most wonderful sense, where the only reason is to make *music* - not
> converts, not money, not careers, not ?

Not that a body count of one constitutes a social movement, but I
place myself firmly in this camp. (Good thing, too. I wouldn't last
five minutes if I had to depend on my music for my livelyhood :).

> Make music.

What more can be said?

Steve


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