TUNING digest 777

Brian's characterization of what I have done with ETs is at least partly
accurate, which I suppose is praising with faint damnation (?). Much (not
all) of what I have done is 5-limit, but that doesn't make it wholly
Pythagorean or tied to 12.

What I have tried to do in a couple of articles is to explore the
implications of 5-limit in equal temperaments and to use modified 5-limit
notation in ETs and in JI (with no prime limit). I don't think that makes
me quite the brontosaurus Brian suggests, especially because I am always
pointing out that other issues, explorations, and solutions exist. I am
aware that the notation system considered standard is quite limiting; I
am also aware that one good way to get musicians to make advances in
microtonality is to build on what they know, as Brian points out. The JI
piece of mine recorded by an amateur choir would never have gotten past
the first choral entry if I had turned the notation system on its head.
(They had a hard enough time as it was.)

I have also been saying for years the things Brian quotes Enrique Moreno as
saying. Part of the uniqueness of microtonal music is the context and
structure of the intervals, not just some abstract sense of how they sound.

In any case, nothing I have done is intended to be restrictive. I don't
argue that one system or one notation is the only way to do anything;
even if the disclaimers in my articles look like they're there to be
ignored, they're not. In the meantime, I await others' comments on those
articles, to see whether some of my ideas might be advanced by them, or by
me, for that matter...

One of these days I'll respond to Brian's original arguments about my
notation article in XH16, but in the meantime someone else should take
over. Has anybody read it? I really would like to have comments from more
than Brian and Manuel, both of whom have had considerable insight into
what I'm trying to do.

Diaskhismatically yours,

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Dr. Paul Rapoport e-mail: rapoport@mcmaster.ca
SADM (Music) tel: (+1) 905 529 7070, ext. 2 4217
McMaster University fax: (+1) 905 527 6793