Post from McLaren

From: mclaren
Subject: Partch's tonality diamond
--
In "History and Principles of Microtonal Keyboard Design,"
1985, Douglas Keislar proposes that Harry Partch might
have gotten the idea for the tonality diamond from a book
by Max Meyer(!) Keislar suggests that "Partch might have been
inspired by his reading of Meyer (1929), who depicts a
similar diamond on page 22 " of Max Meyer's 1929 book
"The Musician's Arithmetic."
Can anyone confirm or deny this?
--
The Innova Release 2 4-CD set of Partch recordings boasts
a cover photo of Partch with the adapted viola and an
instrument I've never seen before--the Monocordion.
It looks like a version of Partch's 1932 circular-key
ji keyboard mapped onto an accordion.
Does anyone know anything about this instrument?
Any sources available on it?
Partch mentions nary a word about the Monocordion
in "Bitter Music," the 1933 "Exposition of Monophony,"
or any other material I've been able to find.
--
Gary Morrison objected to my posted statement "therefore,
naturally, no one has written an article on the tunings
between 5 and 11 tones per octave." Gary pointed out that
he has written a number of articles about 10-TET.
My statement should have read "therefore, naturally, no has
written an article on all the tunings between 5 and 11 tones
per octave as a group."
This set of tunings forms an obvious "island" of equal temperaments
separated from the main body of divisions of the octave usually
discussed by music theorists. It seemed surprising to me
years ago, and still seems astonishing, that no one else has
penned a monograph on this clearly distinct group of equal
temperaments.
Thus Gary Morrison and Yaws Twuwy are both correct.
--
Some weeks back, Thierry Rochebois asked for citations
of composers who'd combined different tunings in a
single composition. It turns out Allen Strange wrote
a string quartet with a tape part circa 1980. "I just
finished a piece which was premiered in December, a
string quartet, and it dealt with simultaneously seven, twelve
nineteen and twenty-five-tone equal temperament, as
closely as players could come to it, being kept in tune
by a tape..." ["Interview: Allen Strange," Ear Magazine
West, 8(3), May-June 1980, pg. 1]
No doubt there are bezillions of other composers who've
nonchalantly combined different tuning systems but
who haven't bothered to let anyone know.
How about posting on this forum? How about letting
the rest of us know, folks?
--
Gary Morrison stated recently that he judged this tuning
forum a place for recitations of personal experience
in microtonality, rather than for citations of the literature
on the subject.
Permit me to suggest that both are necessary and appropriate.
Without citations, this tuning forum would degenerate into
a C.B. radio-type chat line..."Breaker breaker, we got a cool
tuning comin' up on the left!" Without descriptions of the
personal experiences of the participants, this tuning forum
would degenerate to the Perspectives of New Music level
(shudder).
--
To emphasize my point about the MIDI tuning standard,
this quote from Jim Cooper in January 1986 article
in "Keyboard" magazine:
"Since MIDI is not part of some police state decree,
there are differences in implementation. These are
mostly too esoteric to explain here, but they can
definitiely cause communications problems when
two devices are MIDIed toegether. Like most other
people, I refer to MIDI as a "standard," but for it
to really be a standard would bring up severe legal
problems of an anti-trust nature. (...) So MIDI
is a specification for a method of interfacing, not
a law. Exactly which parts of the specification
actually find their way into a given instrument or
device depends on complex tradeoffs that the
engineering and marketing departments of each
manufacturing company must decide on."
Exactly the same point applies to the MIDI tuning
dump specification.
So the next time someone on this forum claims,
"Wow, I just read that such-and-such synthesizer
will have a tuning precision of 1/800,000 of a cent!"
blow it off.
It's nonsense.
We're lucky (alas!) to have the 1024 parts per
octave given us by Yamaha and Ensoniq.
Incidentally, my point here is NOT that Yamaha
and Ensoniq are horrible folks for giving us "only"
1024 parts per octave tuning resolution--this
resolution is completely adequate for any musical
applications I can think of. The point is, rather,
that people on this tuning forum ought to stop
wasting their time mooning around for some
super-accurate tuning resolution and instead
get off your rears and use the equipment we've
got. A number of microtonal theorists who won't
be mentioned continue to mope & sulk and refuse
to compose in exotic scales with modern digital
synths because the "tuning accuracy is inadequate."
C'mon, people, remember the Nike commercial:
"JUST DO IT."
--mclaren


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