notation again

Re-entering the notation fray from a slightly different perspective, I
will claim the following. Indicating pitches in cents or by their
frequencies is inadequate because neither shows relationships among notes.
They belong to a simple scale which requires users to interpret them in a
non-simple, ratio-deriving way. It makes much more sense to use signs
which show the ratios implicitly or explicitly, and thereby the
relationships among the notes, which are not present using cents or
frequencies.

It is arguable that you have to teach musicians more at the outset if you
use signs, but the result is an understanding of what they are doing which
again is not available to them the other way unless they convert what
they see to something more meaningful--in their heads, perhaps, but still
requiring an extra step away from an artificial series of numbers which
is unrelated to the basic notation they have already learned.

To put it another way, cents and frequencies achieve a level of
descriptive adequacy, but signs showing tuning in pitches/intervals
achieve a higher level, namely explanatory adequacy. I am misusing old
terms from syntactic theory slightly but not heinously, I think.

Johnny's use of emic and etic I found interesting. The distinction of
within and outside a culture is not exactly where these terms came
from--they came from the linguistic phonemic and phonetic, which involve
more complicated concepts of signification and communication. I won't say
any more, as these have developed in linguistic theory to points far
beyond where they were when the terms were adopted by (ethno-)musicology.

Paul Rapoport


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Subject: H�ndels (G.F.Handel) extended meantone organ
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There is discussion of Handel's split black key organ (14 per octave) in
Robert Holford MacDowell Bosanquet's _An Elementary Treatise on Musical
Intervals and Temperament_ (London, Macmillan 1876).

Bosanquet claims that upon inspection of the organ, the shadows of the
pulled "alternate" chromatics were yet visible to the eye.

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


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From: Johnny Reinhard
Subject: Re: notation again
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