88CET Ear-Training CDs, Part 1

OK folks, as I warned you a few days ago I would, here's the first in a
series on my 88CET Ear-Training CDs, as an example for your own similar
projects.

I'll keep the installments fairly small so that no one of them bogs you
folks down in your undoubtedly hectic Email-reading schedule.


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Microtonal, and 88CET, Ear Training: Why?
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Ear training is, I think, all too often forgotten in the exploration of
unusual musical tunings. What could be more important than having the
firmest possible intuitive grasp of how a new tuning sounds?

Well OK, I don't want to sound fanatical of course; performance
fluidity and a firm grasp of theoretical underpinnings are certainly
important as well. And comparative studies of one tuning to another can
provide valuable "cross-fertilization" of ideas. These are certainly
worthy pursuits. But being able to anticipate the sound of the notes, and
the notes for the sound, before they are actually played is absolutely
critical to composition and improvisation. And that's equally critical
whether the notes are on the composer's score or on the improvisor's
instrument.

Ear training, I believe, is all the more critical in the realm of the
more nontraditional tunings - tunings such as 88CET that are based upon
historically rare pitch relationships, like 9:7 or 11:6. And it's more
vital still for nontraditional tunings - also like 88CET - where those rare
pitch relationships are organized into structures unrelated to traditional
diatonic scales. That as opposed to, for example, tunings like 31TET or
41TET that offer traditional diatonic structures with nontraditional
pitches as available alternatives.

This nontraditional-structuring situation, despite opening all kinds of
exciting new avenues in music, means that you have to learn more than pure
ear training.



But Wait! There's More!
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When you have these sorts of nontraditional structures, this skill of
knowing what something sounds like before you play it also requires another
kind of learning. In 88CET, we have to replace the knowledge we learned as
kids that, for example, A-major scale is spelled A B C# D E F# G# A, with
some new information. We have to do that for two very important reasons:
1. Major scale? What major scale?! There is no major scale in 88CET.
2. There are other scale and pitch relationships patterns that are
interesting, but none of them are spelled A B C# D E F# G# A.

So having a firm grasp of, for example, what an A ascending to the
next-higher D will sound like in 88CET depends not only on the purely
ear-training task of knowing what a 9:7 supramajor third sounds like, but
also upon the strictly intellectual task of memorizing that A up to D is a
supramajor third.

But this task of learning an alternative set of pitch nomenclature and
pitch relationships is not as big a problem as it might seem. First of
all, I doubt if any of you will start confusing the two systems. Once you
learn that the pitch a perfect fifth above C in 88CET is A, I really don't
think that you'll suddenly start getting confused about what interval C up
to G is in traditional tunings. After all, it's not like you're suddenly
going to forget the English word for that thing you drive to work everyday
just because you've now learned the Spanish word "coche"!

Secondly, as with practicing an instrument or so many other things in
life, whether learning a new system of pitch relationships proves tedious
or fun depends a lot on your attitude. I personally find it intriguing to
learn an all new way of thinking. That in itself is fun in its own way.

So there's more to this task than strictly pure ear training, but the
goal is ultimately the same: Again, to know what the notes (be they on the
page, in the mind, or on an instrument of improvisation) sound like before
you play them. I'll never put this entire task under the broad heading of
ear training, since that is the ultimate goal, despite the additional
learning tasks.