microtonality in popular music

Stephen James Taylor interjects just intonated passages into Disney's Timon
and Pumbaa cartoon show. Now that's starting them young! I have heard
microtonal passages on some recent commercials as well.

John Loffink
jloffink@pdq.net

> From: mr88cet@texas.net (Gary Morrison)
>
> As something of an aside to this discussion, I have long thought that
> movie music is be a great avenue for microtonal composers to get their
> ideas to the proverbial masses.
>
> ------------------------------

> > A casual listen to the things being released today show (to me anyway)a
> > rising desperation.The
> > 'Jungle/Drum&Bass' scene seems to me to be a natural result of the
> > impossibility of writing a 'new'
> > song in 12 TET.

Lenny Bernstein wrote a nice sonnet about why he continued to write
tonal music despite the arguments presented by atonal/serial advocates
that tonality had been exhausted. (If I get a chance, I'll look it up
and post it.) I don't feel that 12TET has been "played out" any more
than tonality has.

> > As something of an aside to this discussion, I have long thought that
> > movie music is be a great avenue for microtonal composers to get their
> > ideas to the proverbial masses.
>
[snip]
>
> Seriously, movies have such a huge budget you can't expect too much
> experimentation, especially as the people who hold the purse strings
> aren't going to be big musos. Now, if an established film composer
> were to go microtonal, then we'd be in business. If the audience
> don't realise they're listening to microtonal music, they might
> accidentally like it!

"There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio . . . " Some pretty
far-out things happen in film scores; often in spite of the producers,
but sometimes because of them.

To add another example to the ones already cited, I think (according to
Manuel's list) there's some microtonal stuff in the "Genesis Effect" cue
of the _Star Trek II : The Wrath of Khan_ soundtrack. I forget who did
it; it wasn't James Horner, who did most of the score. Trek movies have
a not completely insignificant audience, I believe. 8-)>

--pH http://library.wustl.edu/~manynote
O
/\ "You just ran nine racks but you won't give me a spot?"
-\-\-- o "I can't; I haven't seen you shoot yet."

NOTE: dehyphenate node to remove spamblock. <*>

>Seriously, movies have such a huge budget you can't expect too much
>experimentation, especially as the people who hold the purse strings
>aren't going to be big musos. Now, if an established film composer
>were to go microtonal, then we'd be in business. If the audience
>don't realise they're listening to microtonal music, they might
>accidentally like it!

Then again, there's a lot of low-budget "shorts" out there, often by
University film students. They're often looking for a cost break, which
can sometimes take the form of hiring an amateur film composer with a "real
job", and who will therefore compose for free.

Now those sorts of movies in themselves won't get much audience, and
thus not much listening to microtonality. Buuuuut, one of the best ways to
write for big films is to prove - and IMprove - yourself on small films.