tuners in Los Angeles area

G'day,

Just a message to say I'll be presenting a paper at the IEEE LANMAN98
workshop in Banff 17th-20th May and I've been offered a flight returning

to Sydney via Los Angeles. I thought it would be worth trying to connect

with some of the folks on the tuning group on the way through LA. Maybe
I could present about four or five recent (and very interesting)
electro-
acoustic pieces in Just Intonation by Sydney-based composers who study
with me at the Conservatorium. I'd also be happy to repeat my IEEE
presentation. My paper is entitled �A MIDI protocol via IEEE
1394-1995�. For those who don�t know IEEE 1394-1995 is the
high-speed LAN standard more commonly known as firewire.
Or just a social visit where I could learn more about what's
happening there. And there's plenty to learn as I've never been
on the eastern side of the Pacific (it must be fun driving on the
wrong side of the road!) Anyone interested contact me ASAP.

Greg S

> > There's a big difference between music
> > being microtonal, and having notes detuned here and there. I personally
> > believe that a truly microtonal composition should be tuned, preferably
> > systematically, unlike 12TET throughout the entire composition.
> Gary, could you go into this in more detail? I think you are suggesting a
> very important viewpoint and it would be interesting to contrast this with,
> for example, the broader use of 'microtonal' by Johnny Reinhard.

I don't personally know if Johnny and I particularly disagree on this
question. And I think it's largely a matter of opinion really. And of
degree.

But in general, I was making stating a broader opinion: If a
composition is performed entirely on instruments that produce pitch
relationships very much unlike 12TET, then it's clearly microtonal. If a
composition is performed in entirely 12TET, then it's clearly 12TET music.
But what happens between those two extremes?

If it's performed in 12TET except for one note, then I'd perhaps call
that one note microtonal, but I would not call the entire composition
microtonal. Actually, I'd be more likely to call that one note simply "out
of tune".

If it's played on, say, a piano whose A=440Hz key is 25 cents flat, but
all of the others play right on 12TET, then we're starting toward
microtonality. But I'd still be more inclined to say that the instrument
is out of tune than that the composition is microtonal.

If ALL "A"s were 25 cents flat, then we're a lot closer to being clearly
microtonal. That would show a specific, consistent, and systematic
microtuning statement. At that point I'd reserve judgement on whether the
composition is microtonal based upon how often "A"s are used. If "A"s are
never used, then it's clearly 12TET, but if the composition is clearly
tonal in the key of A major, then I'd call it unequivocally microtonal.
Where we sit between those two extremes is somewhat iffy.

Now, all "A"s being 25 cents flat is a specific, consistent, and
systematic microtuning statement, but I kinda doubt if it's a very
meaningful such statement. If we base our detunings upon an audibly
meaningful formula, like quarter-comma meantone for example, then the
resulting music is clearly microtonal.

So then, let me comment on your examples:





>(1) Klarenz Barlo's
>_C,ogluotobu"sis,letmesi_ which for long stretches uses 8 pitch classes
>from 12tet, but gradually introduces the 4 remaining pitch classes tuned,
>however, a quartertone lower. ... Is this piece microtonal only when the
>lowered pitches appear

That would be my take on it, except that...




>- or is it microtonal at all, since the pitches appear only in scalar
>contexts with all intervals larger than semitones?

Given that, I'd say that if pitches from the first group of 8 notes
appear as harmonies to those additional four, then that section is clearly
microtonal. If not, then I'd have to hear how much memory of the other 8
pitches remain in my mind as I listen to the other four.




>_Concerto In Slendro_ which uses two different anhemitonic pentatonics in
>5-limit Just Intonation. This piece is 'macrotonal'.

By the way, I used the word "microtonal" in its general sense of
non-12TET, even though I, ideally, would use it only for tunings the
majority of whose smallest scale-step sizes are smaller than 100 cents.




>From my point of view,
>this could be considered microtonal only when the tuning is compared to
>some other tuning.

I would call it microtonal (again in that broad sense of the word)
because that comparison point is inherently 12TET. I would not, however,
call it nontraditional, because (based upon your description anyway), it
doesn't use any nontraditional pitch relationships (e.g., neutral thirds,
or septimals). But it would in my mind be microtonal on the grounds that
it could be rendered in 12TET approximation, but it would not sound as
"clean" as JI would make it sound.




(3) The Carillo String Quartet, where a single
>quarter-tone lower pitch is introduced as the seventh of a chord. Is this
>enough to be considered 'systematic'?

If it's performed that way consistently for all such seventh chords and
those chords appear frequently throughout the composition, then I'd call
that systematic, and the composition microtonal. But again, if that chord
happens at only one spot in the music, then it more likely to be perceived
only as an out-of-tune note.




Getting back to generalities, it all ultimately comes down to the
impression that the music leaves on the audience. If only a handful of
notes noticeably deviate from 12TET, the audience will perceive there to be
a problem with those one notes rather than there being something unusual
about the entire composition. Quite frankly, they'll probably perceive
those notes as performance errors.

If however a great many of the pitches are shifted from what they expect
(12TET), they'll have no choice but to conclude that the performer is doing
this intentionally, and that there's some sort of musical expression behind
it.

If the detunings are consistent and systematic, then the audience has
the potential to see a clear musical expression behind those detunings. If
the detunings are pretty much random, then they'll see chaos behind the
detunings. Expressing chaos isn't necessarily undesirable of course, but
the audience won't likely perceive any purpose or underlying meaning behind
the detunings.


So, to me anyway, a broader and more fundamental, but much less concise,
criterion for whether a composition or portion of a composition is
microtonal, is whether the audience perceives the proverbial "method to
your madness". The "madness" being analogous with non-12TET tuning, and
the "method" being what you're trying to express by using an unusual
tuning. I have no doubt that an audience *may* perceive a meaning to a
handful of "off" pitches, but I also have no doubt that that's vastly less
likely than when you use them more frequently and consistently.