Scala help

Peter Brewis wrote:
> ... and still shudder when I recall overhearing someone in
> the audience ask his neighbour, 'Have they finished tuning up yet?' (As a
> matter of fact _I_ wasn't sure whether they had or not.)

There's the famous anecdote that someone from the East was at a
concert of Western classical music, and when he was asked how he liked
it he said he especially liked the first part. So his hosts asked
whether it was the first movement that he liked, he said "no, before
that!" I think it was emperor Hirohito but am not sure.

> I'm trying to get to grips with Scala and I wondered if someone might be
> able to tell me why, when I type 'help' it says, 'Help is available for
> the following items:' That's all it says. There _are_ no following items.
> I've also tried 'help append', 'help intersect' and so on. What am I
> doing wrong? What a terrific piece of work Scala is, by the way.

Glad you like it. Two things can be wrong. Either you are missing the
file 'help.par' which should be in the same directory as the program,
or you are starting the program up from another directory than the
one it's in. The program namely looks only in the working directory
for its datafiles: help.par, intnam.par, modenam.par, harmon.par, etc.
The working directory can be changed from within Scala with 'cd'.

Manuel Op de Coul coul@ezh.nl

Received: from eartha.mills.edu [144.91.3.20] by vbv40.ezh.nl
with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Sat, 20 Jul 1996 20:50 +0100
Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI)
for id LAA23890; Sat, 20 Jul 1996 11:50:13 -0700
Date: Sat, 20 Jul 1996 11:50:13 -0700
Message-Id:
Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu
Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu

Let's include *Ten* by John Cage for 10 musicians in 74-tone equal
temperament, also performed by the AFMM in New York. It is a 30-minute
work. There are also similar late works for trombone in an unusual ET.

Johnny Reinhard
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@ios.com


Received: from eartha.mills.edu [144.91.3.20] by vbv40.ezh.nl
with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Sun, 21 Jul 1996 00:16 +0100
Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI)
for id PAA28136; Sat, 20 Jul 1996 15:16:06 -0700
Date: Sat, 20 Jul 1996 15:16:06 -0700
Message-Id:
Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu
Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu

On Sat, 20 Jul 1996, John Chalmers wrote:

> As for John Cage, whether one likes his music or not, he was the
> major 20th American experimental composer. I must admit that I've never

I am pleased to see that Cage's works before 1951 have not been
overlooked. I presume that Johnny included "Sonatas and Interludes" as
microtonal for the same reasons as I would. I find the charm of the
timbres in some of the more reflective and melodious of the "Sonatas and
Interludes" is in the beatings that occur in some of the sounds. They
sound out-of-tune in a really nice way.

There are probably two reasons why Cage's prepared piano work has rarely
been considered microtonal : one is that the most obvious surface feature
of the music is its rhythm; the other is that the 'tuning' is not
systematic.

The prepared piano was an ingenious and musical way of breaking free of a
notational system developed for writing in 12-TET. I suppose they've never
gained Cage the reputation as a microtonal composer because the method of
inventing the timbres - with their quirky tunings - is not as systematic
as some would like. Indeed the timbres are often the invention of the
performer and not the composer. Hence, it is easy to discredit Cage's
contribution by making something monumental out of his later philosophical
statements at the expense of these earlier works.

I'd love to hear what Brian has to say about the "Three Dances for two
Amplified Prepared Pianos". Every performance I have heard of that work -
live and recorded - has left me breathless. I can't say the same for works
post 1951.

Thanks for the information on the later works.

Greg S


Received: from eartha.mills.edu [144.91.3.20] by vbv40.ezh.nl
with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Sun, 21 Jul 1996 19:30 +0100
Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI)
for id KAA11564; Sun, 21 Jul 1996 10:30:34 -0700
Date: Sun, 21 Jul 1996 10:30:34 -0700
Message-Id:
Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu
Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu