Topics not unrelated

******From Patrick Ozzard-Low******

>Carl: the idea that consonance is not important in serialism is very
>odd. Sorry, can't let that one pass!

Sorry, maybe I should have specified *atonal* serialism. Insomuchas Norman
Henry insists the subject of the last fugue in the WTC can be viewed as a
tone row...

But I don't really know. Do you make a distinction between serialism and
atonal serialism? If so, can you offer a definition of serialism, and a
definition of atonality? What I read of Schonberg (not much) I thought I
understood, and it seemed like nonsense to me. Since then I've heard at
least 10 different people speak on what they thought serialism was, and
they all said different things, and all of it still seemed like nonsense to
me.

What I've heard of serialist music (not much), seeemed like nonsense to me.


*****From Joseph L. Monzo******

>I've written about this same passage in my book. Partch describes
>three ways of modulating, assuming two chords which possess
>a "common tone":
>
>1) Making the "common tone" consonant with the first chord and
> dissonant with the second.
>
>2) Making the "common tone" dissonant with the first chord and
> consonant with the second.
>
>3) Making the "common tone" actually two different tones which
> are close by in frequency (differing by said "comma") and
> which are each consonant with their respective chords.
>
>His conclusion, with which I agree, is that all three methods can
>be used to effect a modulation in just-intonation.

Rock!

>1) I have tried sequencing Mozart's 40th Symphony in several
> different versions, using ratios that were 5-limit, 7-Limit and
> 19-Limit. 5-Limit sounded best, 7- and 19- were both OK, but
> when tonicization was effected by a common-tone related by
> 7, it didn't sound right. It sounded to me like the tonality veered
> off into a weird key that was microtonally "off". This argued
> against the applicability of 7 in Mozart's music.
[etc]

So where are all these sequences now? What did you sequence and perform
them with?

>I'll grant that equal temperaments are easy to hear in melodic terms

Whoa! Wait a minute? Where did this come from?

>but, aside from the ratios they imply well or badly, they don't have much
>significance from a _harmonic_ standpoint.

I have to disagree in a big way here. Some ET's have very good just
approximations: 12 is great at the 3-limit. Higher limits are well done in
41, or if you insist on a negetive tuning, 31. And even ET's that have
poor low-number approximations can have really worthy intervals. Take 17.
What a fantastic tuning! Did you hear what McLarren did with it on the
Tape Swap?

This brings up the subject of the two schools of Equal Temperament. On the
left we have those who want to approximate Just Intonation. Erlich and
Hahn are of this school. They want a tuning be consistent and fairly
accurate at a given limit before considering it usable at any higher limit.

On the right we have those who insist that any ET is usable and "good".
Students of this school include Ivor Darreg and Easley Blackwood. The
basic premise is that all ET's can support cool musical structures (like
hierarchy, or whatever), and that their intervals will deviate from Just in
some systematic way that gives each one a characteristic flavor or "mood"
[like that the best 11/9 will be off by the absolute value of the sums of
the errors of the 11/8 and 9/8, consistency or no, and that all intervals
have inversions].

I sit somewhere in the middle. For me, tunings like 11, 13, and 23 simply
don't have the type of flavor I want to compose in, and tunings made of
lots 3's and 4's (like 16 or 18) are just boring. On the other hand, 25
isn't consistent past the five limit, and it has horrible fifths, but its
strong 3's and 7's make it great for the 7-limit, as Paul Rapaport proved
in his "Study in Fives".

Carl