Natural Phenomena and Microtones

The exchange between Neil Haverstick and Paul Hahn got me thinking. At
first, Paul makes eminent sense about going too far afield looking for
intervallic relevance in seemingly unrelated natural occurrence. And I
don't share Neil's passion for religious connection to art, as did so many
of the Baroque musicians that equated the major triad with the trinity.

However, in practice I have had great success in mapping out diverse
natural phenomena and employed them successfully in my compositions.
Examples include mapping the splittings of cosmic rays (Cosmic Rays String
Quartet), golden mean (in Dune for bassoon), and quadratic primes (in Rama
for trombone).

Using material from other semantic realms seems the very stuff of music
material, certainly in the words we use to describe the nearly ineffable
qualities of music. Iannis Xenakis recently announced in NYC "Sound and
visual things are very close in the mind, but we are not conscious of
that," and he's an accomplished architect.

For weeks I have been teaching my classes at C.W. Post the importance of
the overtone series. I point out repeatedly how the major triad is
outlined by 4:5:6, how the "perfect" intervals are only the first 4 of the
series, how they exist as definitive consonance, how the fundamental gets
the most repeats in the series and is of the highest amplitude, second
only to the "dominant" interval of the 3rd harmonic. I explain that
temperament surgically alters the precise intervals, and there are prescribed
directions for each precise overtone-derived interval. To modulate
between keys is expensive in "notes needed" for sure transition and has
been culturally accepted at 12-per-octave. 12 may have to do with the
shape of our hands, the ability to visually discern "inches" of the
octave, to what seems to me the smallest number visible mathematically by
the most numbers, proportionately.

Ultimately, I come repeatedly to the conclusion that there is no overtone
series, per se. Merely the resonance of the ordering of rational numbers
from 1, onwards. Any thoughts on how the "overtone series" would alter if
on a different celestial object?

Johnny Reinhard
Director
American Festival of Microtonal Music
318 East 70th Street, Suite 5FW
New York, New York 10021 USA
(212)517-3550/fax (212) 517-5495
reinhard@idt.net


p.s. Things are going great for MicroMay '97 (May 16, 21-23) in New
is it. John Schneider, Jon Catler, Wim Hoogewerf, guitar heaven.

p.s.s. Oh, and then there's my polymicrotonal cello concerto Odysseus
played by David Eggar

p.s.s.s. And premieres by Wendy Carlos, Percey Grainger, Mordecai
Sandberg, Ganesh Anandan, and many others

p.s.s.s.s. And Carrillo, Wyschnegradsky, Partch, Gabrieli, Bach

more later


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-------------------- Begin Original Message --------------------

Message text written by Neil H:

"condescension present, in the form of Sagan, which seemed to say,
"there, there, don't take that mystical crap too seriously;" in fact, I
do know Sagan represented a philosophy which I find ludicrous, namely
that there is no ultimate Creator, and those who believe so are a little,
shall we say, "old fashioned", or something to that effect."

-------------------- End Original Message --------------------

That could perhaps be true, but I read Carl Sagan a little differently.


He was outspoken against religious fanaticism, meaning cases where
people hurt others or the environment - in the ecological or social senses
of the word - in the name of a religious belief. He was similarly
outspoken against the nationalistic and technological equivalents of that
sort of fanaticism, including for example wars driven by little more than
national pride, or using superior technology to obliterate a civilization.


As with our friend John C., Sagan was also down on pseudoscience,
meaning cases where people use incompletely or misdirectedly, or give the
impression of using, scientific methodology to advance a cause they are
particularly fond of. A common example is citing evidence in favor of a
conclusion while (whether intentionally or not) ignoring evidence to the
contrary. Also common is citing evidence based upon sample sizes that are
insignificant statistically. Many pseudoscientific cases are also
presented with an attitude suggesting that their conclusion cannot be
refuted.

Carl Sagan's attitude in matters where we just simply have no reliable
objective information about a question, or where the question is clearly
arbitrary from a scientific perspective is a different matter. I
personally never got the impression of a condscending attitude toward those
who take a position such matters based solely upon a personal preference or
intuition of whatever sort. His choices of music and sounds to put onto
his Voyager record, for example, were based upon very open and tolerant
attitudes toward human diversity.

I have long wondered what Sagan would have had to say about
Xenharmonics. I suspect not much really, in the sense that I suspect that
he didn't have much experience with music as a whole.

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Aline Surman wrote:

>All of this relates to music, to me...I cannot separate music from any
>other facet of life, including what we call "science." But, science just
>shows, in mathematical or other terms, what is there in a fashion that
>may or may not explain what's REALLY happening.

For me also, everything is related. But science is not an explanation
it is a model. Any model is most likely not exactly correct but that
does mean that there are some things with which it cannot ever deal.

>Even one of the greatest
>scientists of all time, Newton, was well aware of the limits of science,
>and spent much time exploring other, more important, facets of what makes
>the Universe tick.

I would like to word this differently. I would say the limits of
"science as it is practiced". In principle, science can be applied to
anything. That it is not is only a human shortcoming.

> I myself have experienced many phenomena which are
>well beyond the capacity of any "scientific" explanationm, and which,
>unfortunately, many folks who consider science the be all and end all,
>would probably not believe in, anyway. And my own experiences, personal
>though they may be, are quite valid and illuminating as to the fact that
>there are greater realities out there, which what we call the scientific
>method would be quite helpless at explaining, or understanding.

In recent years I have come to understand through my scientific research
that many matters that are normally considered mystical or religious can
be understood scientifically also if only we have prepared the ground
beforehand. That many scientists and others reject such matters is a
statement about their shortcomings rather than the limits of science.

-- Ray Tomes -- rtomes@kcbbs.gen.nz -- Harmonics Theory --
http://www.kcbbs.gen.nz/users/rtomes/rt-home.htm

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