Blackwood

>>1) The best of Ivor's stuff is roughly as good as the best of Blackwood's.
>>2) The majority of Ivor's work is un-recorded.
>
>In that case, I should shut up. I've only heard "Detwelvulate." The
>whole of Blackwood's etudes were made more powerful to me by the ending
>of the last one (in 19), which rocks.

Actually, I only think of Blackwood's 19-tone works as so-so. It's the
15-tone stuff that really makes the alubum. The etude (track 7, methinks)
is AWESOME. It's the kind of finely-crafted composition you're not going
to get from Darreg. The guitar suite is somehow traditional and trippy at
the same time. But man, that dominant makes me WINCE!

As Gary pointed out, the performance of Ivor's music suffered on many
levels from lack of money. I think the best stuff he probably played live.
Denny reports that he could play the meanest 19 and 17 tone blues on
guitar. I have the entire Beyond the Xenharmonic Frontier, and the best
track is actually on Detwelvulate. It is in 51. It's famous for the
trill, which is very cool indeed, but the thematic material is actually
very interesting, and it can be heard under the trill. Another great
Darreg work is the prelude in 19 found at John Starrett's microtonal page.

>>>If you mean the best 11/8 and the best 9/8, then that might not be true,
>>>although consistency will guarantee that it's true. If you don't mean
>>>the best 11/8 and the best 9/8, then what do you mean?
>
>>That's what I mean. Can you give an example where it's not true?
>
>Easy -- 12-tone equal temperament. The best 11/8 is off by -48.68 cents,
>the best 9/8 is off by 3.91 cents, and the best 11/9 is off by 47.41
>cents.

Doh! I checked it in 12, but used 51 cents off for the 11/8 out of pure
mistake (51 - 4 = 43). Okay, so you need consistency.

>>I will say that the 720 cent interval may function as the dominant in many
>>parts of that suite, but it does not function as a 3/2. I cannot imagine
>>any two intervals more sharply contrasting in sound.
>
>To me, the triads in 15-equal on the classical guitar sound almost as
>good as those in 12-equal.

Wow.

>No, certainly not alike. But I guess I should have said something in the
>paper about how in 12-tone equal temperament there is one and only one
>way of approximating any consonant ratio, and that is a property that
>adds a degree of simplicity that musicians mayt be happy to give up.

I agree that we only want one way to approximate something in an equal
tuning, as long as we're using equal tuning to approximate. But I do not
agree that the 1% rule determines which things are one.

>>Maybe I mis-understand what you mean by "power"
>
>Yeah, something to the third power is a third power, not a power of
>three.

You lost me. Are you agreeing with me?

>>I do think that 19
>>has clearly better 10-12-15 and 4-5-6-7 chords than does 12.
>
>That's odd -- so you think the tuning of the 3:2 is more important in
>the major triad than in the minor triad?

No, I don't think that. And I don't think that the sound of a triad will
submit to being predicted by such rules as "3/2 is more important in major
than minor triad". All I can say is that the combinations of mistuning in
the 19-tone major triad produce a different result than the combinations of
mistuning in the 19-tone minor triad.

That is, I think that the results of mistuning depend upon the type of
interval (nothing new here), the amount of mistuning (duh), the direction
of mistuning (I think you disagree with this), and all of the above on any
other interval you combine with it. I believe that the results of
mistuning depend on the combination of these factors such that none of them
are any good alone.

I'm not trying to be fancy. I'm just trying to describe what I hear.

C.