RE: Triads, tuners, tonality

Hello Daniel Wolf and thank you for your intelligent comments. I will
reply to them below and hope that you will consider my replies with an
open mind. I see no need for the hostile tone that our arguments often
take on and I apologize if I have contributed to that tone in the past.

>I have witnessed both Balzano and Babbitt demonstrate virtuoso
>aural command over the tonal materials in their respective systems
(Balza=
>no
>in 20tet, Babbitt in 12tet), demonstrating convincingly that 'set and
>group' properties are not just abstract constructions but real
resources
>for organizing musical works.

I don't doubt it -- but it must have taken them some compositional
ingenuity to avoid the tonal implications of simple intervals in order
to make these other features reign. Where can I get Balzano's music to
listen to?

>Hearing highly structured, non-tonal music =

Balzano's system is supposed to be as "tonal" as traditional diatonic
music, according to his theory. He explicitly rejects the important of
simple ratios, except (implicitly) powers of two, in the development of
Western tonality and tuning. That is the point where I exclaim, "bunk!"
Similarly for Clough&Douthett with respect to Indian music. . .

>in
>these temperaments may not reflect the modes of audition closest to the
>biases of the physiological system, but it does remind one that the
physi=
>cs
>of musical intervals has no such bias and that musical cognition, with
>training, can be a far richer resource than the ear alone. (In
different
>domains, the works of Alvin Lucier are constantly demonstrating that
the
>frequencies in the margins between rhythm and pitch or pitch and timbre
a=
>re
>both perceivable and musical rich.)

I prefer to build cognition upon, rather than reject, the biases of the
psychological system. Music that is "out," i.e., far from tonal, can
fascinate me for long periods of time, but once in a while I break down
and want to hear something that pleases me on a visceral, almost
precognitive level.

>If Mr. Erlich has a formula for determining the relative strength of an
>"organizing force in music", I would certainly like to know it.
Naturally=
>,
>this should be independent of any local cultural biases. =

Clearly this is absurd, perhaps some kind of mockery of my quantitative
bent. I did say "the music I enjoy". Therefore I can't declare myself
independent of local cultural biases (but then again neither can anyone
else).

>I can't help but note that I find it surpring that Mr. Erlich is
framing
>his argument in this way. His own work in 22tet is within a systwm
whose
>set and group properties are certainly more useful than the quality of
it=
>s
>representation of ratios of small whole numbers. =

Please elaborate. If you mean the properties I describe in my paper,
note that virtually all these properties presuppose representations of
ratios of small whole numbers. If you don't mean those, then which ones
do you mean? Also note that 22tET's representation of 7-limit ratios is
about as good as 12tET's representation of 5-limit ratios, and that
12tET evolved in, and largely superceded the authentic tunings of, a
musical style where 5-limit ratios were of primary importance (it could
do so because the quality of its approximations was sufficient). I do
examine non-ET 7-limit tunings which contain the scales in my paper, but
find that they are optimally tuned very close to 22tET. The impetus for
choosing an ET rather than an open, meantone-type system is certainly a
"group" property, that of infinite transposability with a finite number
of notes. I would be more than happy to advocate a non-ET, open 7-limit
tuning if it had any significant acoustical advantages over 22tET. It
doesn't.

On the other hand, meantone is audibly superior to 12tET for 5-limit
diatonic music, and the important group property of transposability can
be recovered for meantone in 19 or 31tET. Musicians chose 12tET over 19
or 31tET only for convenience. Therefore, for Balzano or Clough to
ascribe features of tonal practice (ones that date back to the meantone
era) to properties of 12 which are not shared by 31, amounts to a sort
of revisionism that I object to.

> From: Ascend11@aol.com
> Subject: Emotional response upon first hearing harmonious polyphonic music

I wrote:
> to sound like, he reported, that they would immediately begin to drum along.
> Sometimes, they would be so transported into ecstasies by the revelation of
> his piano playing, that they would drum louder and louder -- sometimes to the
> point where he could no longer HEAR his piano playing!"

Dave Hill wrote:
> Dame church in Paris. These reports spoke of people "shuddering
> in the doorways" of the church awestruck by this new fuller sounding music
> which was just starting to be performed.

and Dave opined:
> It seems to me that the fact that the Indians responded very
> enthusiastically to the sounds of their music deepened by the
> full harmonies of the piano is evidence which tends to support
> the belief that although not all peoples have developed a
> polyphonic music, there is something about full chordal harmony
> in music which is naturally appealing to people everywhere and
> which people will gladly incorporate into their music when they
> have once experienced it.

The funny thing is, I wasn't taking this at face value -- I found myself
assuming that if the Indians really liked the piano harmonies on their
music, they would have listened to it, rather thatn drumming so loudly
that the piano could not be heard. I assumed they were trying to cover
that awful sound up, and was amused at the missionary's pianocentric
misinterpretation. The thirteenth century people 'shuddering in the
doorways' of Notre Dame are open to the same kind of interpretation. Not
that I don't love harmony and polyphony...

Judy

Re:
> > Could someone explain to me why many on this list appear to be hung up on
> > the triad as a systemic harmonic basis?
Gary Morrison responded:
> It's hard to escape the influence of history. Whether desirable or not,
> the truth is that most audiences and people in general interpret new
> experiences in terms of what they already know.

Hi Gary,
I don't totally disagree with you, but imagine the following
conversation:

COMPOSER: Why are you so hung up on 12tET? Since ancient times and in
other cultures there have been other tunings, and now, with the aid of
computers and synthesized sound, we can have virtually any tuning we want
at the drop of a hat. Why not open your ears to these other regions, both
historically based ones as well as ones no one has ever been able to
access before? Some of these are quite interesting, rich and complex.

MAN ON THE STREET: It's hard to escape the influence of [recent] history.
Whether desirable or not, the truth is that most audiences and people in
general interpret new experiences in terms of what they already know.

Would you, as the composer, close up shop at this point and just write in
12tET? How do you *know* that an audience (and we should all distrust
this collective noun) is responding to the "triad-ness" of a piece, or its
"12tET-ishness" or some other element? When you come right down to it,
why should you even draw an audience's attention to "microtonality" at
all? Should the audience care? If so, why ... since historically(?)
general(?) audiences(?) haven't had the foggiest idea about the
intricacies or simplicities of the tuning they were hearing?

Further, don't you unnecessarily pigeonhole yourselves when you have a
"microtonal festival"? And don't such festivals confuse the audience (and
worse, the critics who are always looking for convenient labels) into
believing there is such a thing as "a microtonal composer" or a
"microtonalist school" when, as we've seen just on this list, there's a
stunning variety of ways to compose with an astounding variety of
microtonal pallettes? (I'm playing devil's advocate in all of this, and
would rather argue the other side -- but I think none of these questions
is inconsequential.)

Returning to the difficulties of trying to override historical (or any
other kind) of prejudice, I'm reminded of the 19th(?) century astronomer,
Maria Mitchell, who noted, "If the earth had waited for a precedent, it
never would have turned on its axis."

Steve Soderberg

PS: Please don't any literalists who may be lurking out there think I'm
anti-triadic! My response to my own question is that, in the context of
the complexities of 20th century music, it's a matter of texture. In
fact, one of the interesting things about the particular pentachords
generated with the Erlich string that I noted in an earlier post is that
they can be broken into third-order maximally even triads. Thus, the
pentachords can be viewed as forming an architechtonic layer BETWEEN the
scale and the triads... an interesting "composing out" possibility for
mega scale structures such as this.

Stephen, I enjoyed greatly your devil's advocate role. Perhaps the answer
is _res cognitans ergo sum_. (pardon spelling errors)

I had an interesting discussion with a Bulgarian bagpiper Stoyan
Boshnakov (staying with me on an arts exchange). He wants me
(self-described polymicrotonal composer) to write for 2 bagpipers and 2
voices and bassoon -- this for a collaboration.

Surprising to me, a Varna-based erudite player wanted to warn me against
being too "dirty," although he himself _loves_ my dirty music (Cosmic
Rays, Odysseus, Dune, Raven--he heard these). He seemed to confuse
materials with theoretical understanding. He positively flinched when I
suggested having the 2 drones at a 5/4 major third. No, I did not
describe it to him that way, merely that I'd like a major third. This
proved to be emanently doable.

Concerts have proved that the audience receives microtonal music as they
do any other music. Things that are new are scary in general to many
people.

Johnny Reinhard
Director
American Festival of Microtonal Music
318 East 70th Street, Suite 5FW
New York, New York 10021 USA
(212)517-3550/fax (212) 517-5495
reinhard@idt.net
http://www.echonyc.com/~jhhl/AFMM

On Sat, 21 Nov 1998, Stephen Soderberg wrote:

> Re:
> > > Could someone explain to me why many on this list appear to be hung up on
> > > the triad as a systemic harmonic basis?
> Gary Morrison responded:
> > It's hard to escape the influence of history. Whether desirable or not,
> > the truth is that most audiences and people in general interpret new
> > experiences in terms of what they already know.
>
> Hi Gary,
> I don't totally disagree with you, but imagine the following
> conversation:
>
> COMPOSER: Why are you so hung up on 12tET? Since ancient times and in
> other cultures there have been other tunings, and now, with the aid of
> computers and synthesized sound, we can have virtually any tuning we want
> at the drop of a hat. Why not open your ears to these other regions, both
> historically based ones as well as ones no one has ever been able to
> access before? Some of these are quite interesting, rich and complex.
>
> MAN ON THE STREET: It's hard to escape the influence of [recent] history.
> Whether desirable or not, the truth is that most audiences and people in
> general interpret new experiences in terms of what they already know.
>
> Would you, as the composer, close up shop at this point and just write in
> 12tET? How do you *know* that an audience (and we should all distrust
> this collective noun) is responding to the "triad-ness" of a piece, or its
> "12tET-ishness" or some other element? When you come right down to it,
> why should you even draw an audience's attention to "microtonality" at
> all? Should the audience care? If so, why ... since historically(?)
> general(?) audiences(?) haven't had the foggiest idea about the
> intricacies or simplicities of the tuning they were hearing?
>
> Further, don't you unnecessarily pigeonhole yourselves when you have a
> "microtonal festival"? And don't such festivals confuse the audience (and
> worse, the critics who are always looking for convenient labels) into
> believing there is such a thing as "a microtonal composer" or a
> "microtonalist school" when, as we've seen just on this list, there's a
> stunning variety of ways to compose with an astounding variety of
> microtonal pallettes? (I'm playing devil's advocate in all of this, and
> would rather argue the other side -- but I think none of these questions
> is inconsequential.)
>
> Returning to the difficulties of trying to override historical (or any
> other kind) of prejudice, I'm reminded of the 19th(?) century astronomer,
> Maria Mitchell, who noted, "If the earth had waited for a precedent, it
> never would have turned on its axis."
>
> Steve Soderberg
>
> PS: Please don't any literalists who may be lurking out there think I'm
> anti-triadic! My response to my own question is that, in the context of
> the complexities of 20th century music, it's a matter of texture. In
> fact, one of the interesting things about the particular pentachords
> generated with the Erlich string that I noted in an earlier post is that
> they can be broken into third-order maximally even triads. Thus, the
> pentachords can be viewed as forming an architechtonic layer BETWEEN the
> scale and the triads... an interesting "composing out" possibility for
> mega scale structures such as this.
>