Thoughts on Brian's posts

Several months ago I began to write this post and finally have
taken a few minutes to make some limited sense of my thoughts
and at least complete them to this point--I hope this is not
too untimely.


Brian's recent posts on n-j n-e-t scales and previous
excellent survey of psychoacoustic research have stimulated
many thoughts. The fact that his ideas are presented with such
erudite precision makes it perhaps difficult to question such
scholarly thinking--in fact they are a marvel to read and
stimulating to the intellect. We are fortunate that Brian
graces this forum with his thoughts. Non the less, I am
concerned with the thrust of his argument.

Perhaps I'm a bit "old fashioned", but I have always
been under the impression that this whole tuning business came
about with the effort to seek perfection or at least that which
is more perfect in an imperfect world--or, perhaps create order
out of chaos, or meaning and understanding out of the apparent
random senslessness of events in our lives and the inevitable
death of all that lives. Put another way, we seem to be drawn
to attempt to link our experience with something beyond the
immediate--whether this be to establish a calender to predict
the seasons and reassure ourselves of better times during long
winter nights or laws and courts to better control or predict
relationships with the neighbors, or musical scales, to better
harmonize with the eternal. Of course there are a great many
opinions as to what that perfection is, or perhaps more
accurately, what the best approximation of that perfection is
in this imperfect world. Obviously we may never find
perfection here, or the Good, or Platonic forms or the
Archetypes of which this imperfect temporal world (Plato's
cave) in which we find ourselves is but a shadowy reflection.
But an element of the human spirit, or psyche if you will,
resides in this world and seeks to commune with the eternal. I
believe that music is one of the main potential avenues of
expression of this Soul. Music in its most sublime expression
is always a search for or expression of transcendance. That
which does not is an intellectual or emotional masturbation.

Can it be that that we have come to the brink of
nihilism with regards to tuning? Is it possible for me to walk
around my room striking random objects to create bongs and
thugs and dinks with which I can then, with tremendous
mathematical insight, create some sort of algorithmic
justification for unifying this cacophany of tones into a
"musical" scale? What possible value can be derived from such
an exercise? Or is it more appropriate to generate a scale
from some imaginary number series? irrational or
transcendental numbers? Aren't we here, like Toad, "just
messing about in boats"?

Non the less, I believe Brian's scholarship can be
interpreted at least 2 ways. First, and perhaps expressing the
apparent thrust of Brian's own argument, that scientific
experimentation reveals that simple principles of acoustics
that seem to have been perhaps unconsciously taken for granted
for such a long time and formed the driving force behind 12 ET
do not adequately describe the phenomenon of hearing--that
hearing itself is an extremely complex process and that no
current model adequately describes all of the observable facts
of its processes. And because of this there is no
justification for accepting one particular tuning system over
another--in fact many mathematical models exist for basing
tuning schemes. Actually an almost infinite variety of tuning
schemes are available based upon concrete mathematical models.
The impression left is that vast new worlds of exploration are
available for dabbling for the pioneering spirit. But to what
end? I must ask myself. Is there not some higher vision, other
than that it is new or different, that directs this thrust?

I believe that it can be equally interpretted that the
scientific evidence merely demonstrates the imperfection of
this world and the imperfection of scientific measuring
devices, mental models, etc. Is it a wonder that vibrating
strings or columns of air do not describe mathematically
"perfect" features, given molecular constraints, gravity,
friction, etc.? It is equally unsurprising that the hearing
process in all its complexities does not hold to a simple model
due to the imperfection of its function. This in no way,
though, proves that simple mathematical models are not the
templates which this "real world" imperfectly reflects. Why
should not musical scale attempt to reflect how sound itself is
generated--not the imperfection as it manifests in the world
around us, but as it is described by a so called perfectly
vibrating body. Could this somehow lead that part of the human
psyche which can respond to things perfect and eternal towards
a meaning beyond the apparent meaningless chaos that so often
confronts us here?


Bruce Kanzelmeyer



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