I spend some time looking at this monumental book yesterday, and it is quite good. I feel certain that the majority of list members will find that it strikes many chords with thier own musical understanding, in a way that has never been succesfully verbalized before. There seems to be a big hole, namely meantone temperament. But for the most part, the book is beautiful and honest. The author believes, as I do, that under normal musical conditions the ear does not recognize harmonic relationships based on partials beyond the 13th.
On Thu, 9 Apr 1998, Paul H. Erlich wrote: > }Schoenberg . . . completely recognized the overtone series as the basis > }for 12ET. > Are you aware of the extreme inconsistencies in this position that > Partch pointed out? > }Partch did Schoenberg one better by explaining the minor > }through an undertone series. > The "undertone" explantion of minor dates back long before Schoenberg. > But Partch scoffed at any reference to "undertones" or the like, calling > them "hallucinations" or worse.
Where does he say this? I am more familiar with his use of what he called "Utonality" - which was intervals formed from inversions of "Otonality" ie. Otonal intervals were derived from the overtone series, while Utonal intervals were derived from the Undertone series.