La Monte Young on interval affect

I just ran across some stuff La Monte Young
said on interval affect, which relates to the
discussion in this forum over the last few days.
This is from an interview done by Ramon Pelinski
in 1978, and published in "Interval", vol. 4 no. 3.

> PELINSKI: ...you wrote that the system of rational
> number relationships is the system for categorizing
> the relationship between sounds and feelings...[and]
> that from the infinity of possible tunings, you can
> choose the tuning that establishes the feelings you
> wish to materialize...

> YOUNG: Yes, I think it's very important here that
> I define what I mean by feelings because many people,
> when they read this, think that what I mean by feelings
> is happy, sad, amorous, angry, these types of feelings.
> This is not really what I mean. What I'm thinking of
> is the feeling that one has each time he hears a piece
> of music in the same mode. ...in just intonation...you
> have the possibility of labelling your material in an
> abstract way with these [integer ratio] numbers, and
> in a true way which really represents them, and...also
> ...when you play any two or more of these frequencies
> together, they produce a composite waveform that is
> periodic; if it's periodic, it means that it is a
> structure which can be recognized, repeated, and stored,
> and then brought out of storage, used again -- listened
> to. It's the basic principle for any system of
> information, or any system of language, because it
> depends on the fact that you can repeat things, and
> that's what the system of just intonation provides.

> ...When I hear the same interval in just intonation,
> it evokes in me a same feeling. When I hear intervals
> in equal temperament, it's like they *remind* me of the
> truth, whereas when I hear intervals in just intonation,
> it's as though I'm *hearing* the truth.

This issue is available thru Sonic Arts. See:

http://www.tiac.net/users/xen/interval/home.html

- Joe Monzo
monz@juno.com
http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/homepage.html

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End of TUNING Digest 1565
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> Can anyone offer a comprehensive mathematical explanation of consonance?

I doubt it, frankly.

I have no doubt whatsoever though, that a lot of us can suggest
mathematical definitions of something we want to *call* consonance.

But defining consonance itself is somewhat like defining beauty. Not to
suggest that it's synonymous with beauty, but just that it's an experiential
quality that depends on far too many considerations to be quantified.

Or let me rephrase that in terms similar with Bill Sethares' book: There
are physical and perceptual qualities of sound and music. Logarithmic
amplitude is a physical quality, and volume (loudness) is a perceptual one.
Logarithmic frequency is a physical quality, and pitch is a perceptual one.

You'll probably find a good 25-30 or so mathematically-formulable and
physically-measurable phenomena that will be called "consonance," or something
like that. But don't confuse it with actual consonance, because that's a
perceptual quality, not a physical one.