"Yardstick" of Music

It is crucial to any discussion to define the terms being discussed. To
that end I wrote a paper titled _Phenomenology and Its Application to
Microtonality_ while a graduate student in ethnomusicolgoy.

The results of 3 years working phenomenologically, in a Husserlian model,
was that when aproaching the sound continuum intersylistically, no single
cultural model is to be considered any more "natural" than another. (This
includes 12ET.)

Phenomenology as a methodology distinguishes between essences and
accidents. Just Intonation, as well as equal divisions of the octave, and
cyclings of particlur intervals are all "essential" microtonal
relationships.

Meanings of words evolve. The word "enharmonic" for example has evolved
from 1. an ancient Greek genus that utilized a tetrachord made up of a 5/4
just major third and 2 "quartertones" (which themselves were unequal to
each other in size). 2. in the baroque era an enharmonic interval was
produced between the meantone F# and Gb, a syntonic comma. 3. Enharmonic
is now an identity as it appears on the standard bearer piano (F# is Gb).

"Microtone" by itself may not have any utility. It is vague and signifies
insignificance by itself. IMHO.

A discipline of Microtonality, which I adhere to, would include the
commonality of all musics from the perspecitive of pitch and their
intervallic relationships. It is to this end that Alexander J. Ellis
invented "cents" which divides the octave logarithmically into 1200
cents. This is the "yardstick" to measure all music microtonally.
1200 is a convenient number at the very threshold of pitch
differentiation.

When the Harvard Dictionary of Music pulished its early 20th century
definition of a _microtone_ as "smaller" than a quartertone, it was
also describing _just intonation_ as mere theory with no evidence of
historical useage and as virtually impossible to negotiate in practice.
Both definitions needed to be updated. If Egyptian music is considered
microtonal (which it has), and there is no interval smaller than a
semitone in the Maqam system, what does that say about the word microtone?

By Mr. Wolf's definition, and that of the early 20th Century Harvard
Dictionary of Music, Egyptian music is not microtonal. And the flute is a
woodwind made exclusively with metal.

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
http://www.echonyc.com/~jhhl/AFMM


SMTPOriginator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
From: "kris peck"
Subject: how about 22et vs 19et ?
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