PAULE

I (and the Tuning List) are having a hard time making email connections
*out* from mills to PAULE, who must think I am ignoring his pleas for
help. Attempts to communicate with the MCI mail admin have been abortive
(I CAN get through to them).

Could somebody please pass this message on to PAULE? Perhaps some
requests from HIS end to MCI mail admin would be useful. Also, maybe
someone could volunteer to act as a temporary mediator that I could
forward the bounced messages through to him that he could pass to
them.

Thanks,

Dave Madole

Dave Madole
Technical Director, Center for Contemporary Music
Listserv Administrator

Mills College
Oakland, CA 94613
510-430-2336

madole@mills.edu


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Gary Morrison wrote:

> simple whole-number ratios usually predict quite accurately what our ears
> view as significant. They are the navigational bouys in the sea of tuning
> possibilities.
>
> BUuuuut... I don't believe that pitch relationship being significant to
> our ears means that we must ideally use it, any more than we should sail
> into collision course with navigation bouys! For example, intentionally
> missing a 3:2 P5 by about 5 cents produces quarter-comma meantone, which to
> my ears and those of many others, sounds really fantastic! And it sounds
> great not (only) because it hits a 5:4 right on, but even more so because
> of the specific way that it misses 3:2.
>
> Obeying well-known ground rules sows the seeds of expectation in your
> audience's minds, but defying those rules is what makes your audience
> listen! Really brilliant music comes from cleverly and emotionally using
> both expectation and defiance of expectation. Simple whole-number ratios,
> being a pretty good model of what is fundamentally meaningful to our ears,
> are one example of such a means of using and defying expectation. Regular
> structures in a tuning system (like circles of fifths) are another, as are
> consistency of meter and rhythm.

Nice analogy. JI intervals are like guide buoys. They are the way
we find our way around hearing-space. That means we can identify
and enjoy other intervals; the fact that some singers
can sing 12tet proves that. I'm repeating an earlier post, but
I like to describe slightly detuned just intervals as an
example of deviation from a gestalt, which is a basic device
of all arts. People like a little beating and phasing sometimes.
I do think there's a place for music which jumps directly from
buoy to buoy though, especially nowadays when most of the
music you hear is full of near misses.

Matt Nathan

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