TUNING digest 1377

On Mon, 06 Apr 1998 05:31:35 -0700, Niel Haverstick wrote:
>
>... If you listen to blues, which is at the root of much
>contemporary pop, there's micronotes galore because of the
> bending and stretching that constantly goes on. As soon
> as one bends a note, we're off the pitch of the scale, and
> somewhere else. As to the related subject
>of is this then microtonal music per se, my personal feeling is
> that if the bending and stretching occurs over a base scale
> of an instrument tuned in 12 eq, then I don't feel like calling
> it microtonal, overall, because 12 eq is our home base, and
> any notes which are not bent are still in 12. Of course, this
> is a rather subjective perception, and maybe
>there's no right answer, just gut intuitions...Hstick
>

Strangely enough, I find that I can agree with the responses
to this from both Gary Morrison and Johnny Reinhard.
System-building in music certainly goes a long way
towards satisfying one's intellectual proclivities, but
then in good performances, there always seems to
be room for expressive inflection.

The ultimate (and to me, surprising) outcome of
the Hendrix Chord debate, for me, was that the
most intriguing interpretation of the chord was
that it is a *hybrid* of 12-ET and 7- (and/or
19-) limit just intonation. This is clearly microtonal,
and it's precisely those small microtonal nuances
that come from bending the lowest two notes to
approximate just ratios, and from having the
highest note a 12-equal ratio, which give the
chord the unique sound it has. It certainly
sounds much more interesting played this
way than in straight 12-equal (although not
necessarily as interesting or consonant as
in any of the straight just-intonation versions).

By and large, my feeling about calling
the blues microtonal is that there is very little
actual harmonic movement -- the 12-equal scale
gives what I think is a good approximation of
a "tonic" (I) with its close Pythagorean relatives (IV
and V) -- but lots of exploration of higher-prime
identities within that restricted chord movement.
Even though the 12-equal "7th" is between
29 and 33 cents sharper than the 7th harmonic
in all three chords, every chord in the blues
*always* has it, and to me, this reinforces the
idea that the 12-equal "7th" is intended by
blues musicians to be interpreted as the 7th
harmonic. This is even more the case when
a good perfomer like Jimi compensates by
bending up other notes in the chord to make
the "7th" fit better.

Certainly, the guitar is a 12-eq instrument, but,
as Neil says, "there's micronotes galore because
of the bending and stretching that constantly goes on"
in the blues (I emphasize the word "constantly").

And don't forget -- the vocals are an integral part
of standard blues, and we know there's no
12-equal restriction there! A great blues singer
like Robert Johnson or Louis Armstrong sings
notes that are all over the place, and between
all the cracks. And when the techical ability
on the instrument is there, as it is in both Johnson
and Hendrix on the guitar or Armstrong on the
trumpet, the instrumental notes will be all over
the place too, quite closely related to what the
voice is doing.

Throughout musical history, the measure of a
great instrumental performer's ability has been
how good he/she is at making the instrument "sing",
"wail", or "talk". Note the reference to vocal
performance! We can't always use the
construction of the instrument as a yardstick
when we're talking about such talented
performers.

To me, the blues is clearly a microtonal music,
the question is, how systematic are the
*just-intonation* implications that are buried
there in those notes? In my opinion, 7 and 19
are definitely there. What about 11, 13, and 17?
(I'm pretty sure I hear Robert Johnson singing
some 11s) What about 23 and still higher primes?

Joseph L. Monzo
monz@juno.com
4940 Rubicam St., Philadelphia, PA 19144-1809, USA
phone 215 849 6723

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