A challenge for list members

Hello all,

I've been on this list now about 8 months and have found it very
enlightening. I must admit, though, when the discussion gets too
technical about ratios of super-rational numbers etc, at times my eyes
glaze over -- which, of course, is not to say that these aren't important
discussions. What I find myself struggling with, is that for someone
like myself, a technical discussion may have some intellectual meaning to
my brain, but what are my ears going to hear as the product of the
discussion?

Sooo, I've been thinking -- I'd really really like to have a library, a
web page or something where I could go and get a synopsis of a technical
idea, theory, argument and some actual sound, or MIDI files that would
demonstrate the idea so my intellect and ears can be "singing from the
same songsheet", if you know what I mean.

Then I got to thinking in a similar vein, it'd also be very nice to have
a library of music that could take one from traditional 12 tone equal
step tuning, to a variety of alternate tunings, but instead of making the
jump to *extreme* variation from TET, there would be a progression of
individual songs that would allow ones ears to get accustomed to the
final desired tunings in a series of steps. It's very akin to the first
time I ever had a beer, I really didn't think it was all that great, but
after a while I did develop a taste for light beers, but wasn't all that
crazy about darker brews, but over the years, I generally wouldn't touch
a light beer anymore, because I have come to a point where I much prefer
the full bodied flavor of a dark brew.

So, list members, what I'm asking I suppose, is to have my ears slowly
seduced into enjoying alternate tunings the way my taste buds were
seduced into drinking a dark beer!

Positive steps are regularly posted in this direction, I will point out,
in annoucements of concerts, or reviews of CDs. It would also be nice to
know if the piece of music was going to sound totally bizarre and
unpalatable if you were expecting something close to TET. I suppose some
sort of rating might be nice that would let you know based on someone
else's subjective sense how "out there" a piece is from TET.

I must admit I don't have the time, experience or resources necessary to
build either one of these libraries I spoke of, but I did want to make it
known from my point of view these kinds of libraries would be extremely
useful.

Jeff


Received: from eartha.mills.edu [144.91.3.20] by vbv40.ezh.nl
with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Fri, 7 Jun 1996 23:02 +0100
Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI)
for id OAA20189; Fri, 7 Jun 1996 14:02:30 -0700
Date: Fri, 7 Jun 1996 14:02:30 -0700
Message-Id: <199606072059.AA27870@felix.dircon.co.uk>
Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu
Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu

Brian Lee said:
> From my own work with rational tunings, I find that I get most out of them
> either using long sustained tones or repeated patterns. This gives the
> quality of the interval time to really resonate for me inwardly. Whereas the
> short chippy sounds of much of Partch's music communicates well rhythmically
> but I don't get much else out of it other than at an intellectual level.

I just have to put a big "amen!" on that one. That was one of the biggest
confusion points to me in getting to understand Partch's music. I also find it
strangely - or perhaps amusingly - ironic that he used some of the most
nonharmonic timbres to perform music based on harmonic relationships.

But I once posed that concern to Jonathan Glasier, who has been associated
with Partch and his legacy since his youth. He responded that he understood
that concern, but cautioned me to realize that Partch's musical goals were not
wholly, or in his view, even primarily, about tuning alone. He wanted to create
an entire alternative music tradition, including instrumentational, rhythmic,
literary, and yes intonational.


Received: from eartha.mills.edu [144.91.3.20] by vbv40.ezh.nl
with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Sun, 9 Jun 1996 02:45 +0100
Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI)
for id RAA24150; Sat, 8 Jun 1996 17:45:09 -0700
Date: Sat, 8 Jun 1996 17:45:09 -0700
Message-Id: <960609003845_71670.2576_HHB38-6@CompuServe.COM>
Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu
Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu