(amb) Re: SUBJECT

In a message dated 96-08-10 02:03:55 EDT, you write:

> > okay okay, after much foot dragging I've gone ahead and made the change,
> > hopefully this post should have an "(amb)" in the subject line.
>
> For me, this is just six characters taken from the visible Subject
> header. Not a big deal, but could the proponents of this tag make
> sure that they can't filter on the Sender line? If you can, it will
> come in handy with all of the other mailing lists on the planet.

AOL has no such filters. I wasn't looking for the tag, but it will
come in handy. Now I won't miss email catalog requests.

Keep it.


On now: Orchestre Frances de Flutes - Horatiu Radulescu
Masses of flutes using the upper harmonic series, much like
Glen Branca (or even LaMonte Young).


* * .. * ... .* D a v i d B e a r d s l e y
dmb5561719@aol.com . . . * . . ...
I M M P & B i i n k! m u s i c * ..
E m a i l for a catalog of strange beautiful m u s i c ... .
. .. .*.. . .. . ..* . . .. . *. .
not a store, but an independent label.

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From: mclaren
Subject: Innova Partch 4-CD release
--
One correspondent mentioned s/he hadn't heard
of the Innova Records Partch release.
This is arguably the most important collection of
Partch compositions yet released on CD. The
collection includes 4 74+-minute CDs, an
elaborate and informative booklet complete
the text of several Partch manuscripts not
reprinted since the 1940s, and some fascinating
archival photos.
Included are:
By the Rivers of Babylon
Ten Li Po Lyrics
Barstow (1942 version)
San Francisco - Newsboy Cries
While my Heart Keeps Beating Time (the only
survivng Partch pop song from the 1930s!)
Two Settings from Joyce's "Finnegan's Wake"
Dark Brother
A Quarter-Saw Section of Motivations and
Intonations
Warren Burt's almost-complete performance
of "Bitter Music"
Yankee Doodle Fantasy--On the Words of an
Early American Tune
O Frajous Day!
Ring Around the Moon
and Bless This House.
Apparently the Minnesota Composers Forum
collaborated with Dr. Philip Blackburn to
explore the Partch archives and extract many
early and all-but-unavailable recordings.
Some of these recordings were released
originally in 1950 on a 78 r.p.m. limited-
release record.
However, the most important part (to these
old ears) of this collection is the Quarter-Saw
Section, a full 60-minute stereo tape
worked up and re-worked by Partch for
a presentation to a meeting of the American
Society of Composers in 1967. The tape wasn't
ready on time and as a result no one has heard
this seminal document for 30 years. Only a tiny
fragment of the 60-minute total is published
in "Bitter Music;" the vast bulk of the material,
replete with Harry's explanations of his harmonic
and melodic practices, the resources of Monophony,
why his system was never limited to 43 just tones,
and so on, is entirely new. This is the most
astonishingly complete document of Partch's
musical system and compositional practices extant.
It far exceeds in detail and in breadth either the
1933 "Exposition of Monophony," the 1942 "Resume
of the Musical Philosophy and Work of Harry Partch,"
the 1947 "Genesis of A Music," or the 1974 "Genesis
of a Music."
This collection is a breakthrough in Partch scholarship
because it gives audible and visual access to current
generations of Partch fans and scholars materials long
since unavailable.
The audio quality ranges from superb (the reel tape of
"Quarter-Saw Section") to atrocious (DAT copies of
original 78 r.p.m. records, which were clearly either
recorded at the wrong speed or are played back at the
wrong speed--they are obviously a semitone too high in
pitch, or, if you prefer, about 5% too fast).
Does this matter?
Not if you're a Partch fan. The collection is a must-have.
Oddly enough, this 4-CD set showed up in the record bin
at a large Tower Records "A" store. The list price is
about a hundred bucks, but Tower had it for $67.00--
a real bargain.
The chances are good that any sufficiently large record
store with carry or can order this Innova 4-CD
collection for you.
It's a "must have."
--mclaren



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Date: Thu, 15 Aug 1996 11:58:36 -0700
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From: mclaren
Subject: errors real & imagined
--
In digest 763 Paul Erlich mentions:
"As for factual errors, [mclaren's] post on meantone tuning was full of
'em. One Tuning Digest consisted entirely of my slam of that post.
Care to reply?" -- Paul Erlich
My reply is:
Paul Erlich is exactly correct. Thanks for pointing this out, Paul.
In retrospect it's clear that my post on meantone tuning was not
only full of errors, but unclear and confusing.
Mea culpa.
Erlich goes on to say:
"If I am expected to get your CPS/SCALA joke, surely it is not unreasonable
for me to expect you to take my critical comments with a sense of humor, or
for someone else to compare you with their antisemitic uncle without
fearing a libel charge." (No one need fear a libel charge from li'l ole
me. Libel threats are for dweebs and lusers.)
Presumably Paul is referring to gtaylor's hilariously amusing stories
about anti-Semitic uncles.
Pardon the hell out of me, but I don't see a damn thing funny
about anti-Semitism. If you visit the Holocaust
museum in Washington D.C. you'll see one entire room with nothing
but the photographs and the shoes of a whole shetl full of men,
women and children murdered in a Nazi concentration camp.
When you leave that room, you'll be shaking.
I don't find that hilariously amusing. I guess I have to "lighten
up." Maybe then I'll be able to snicker and giggle when studying
the boxcars in which families were transported to the gas
chambers at Auschwitz.
--
In post 757, however, Paul Erlich with great acumen
made several excellent points about the theory of
consonance according to small integer ratios.
What's particularly fascinating is the fact that both Paul
Erlich and William Alves hear the neutral third as
discordant, while to me it clearly sounds consonant.
One of the most valuable services a forum like this one
can perform is to allow us to compare notes. The idea
that someone might find the neutral third discordant
would never have occurred to me: and the idea that the
7/5 might be heard as *more* concordant is extremely
surprising.
Ivor Darreg used to point out that people tended to prefer
either 19 or 22 tone equal temperament, and their
preferences were generally strong. If you liked 22, you
rejected 19 violently--or vice versa.
At least one tuning forum member has decried 22-TET
as "slimy," which presumably indicates a negative
reaction to 22-TET. For my part, I prefer 22 to 19.
Ivor pointed out that such consistently binary and strong
preferences (hardly anyone likes both tunings equally, or
is indifferent to both) might indicate personality traits.
Ivor suggested that something like the Minnesota Multiphasic
might be done with tunings, rather than written cues.
Expanding on that idea, it occurs to me that personality
types might be distinguished by, say, preference for 7/5
as opposed to the geometric mean neutral third.
This is highly speculative. Anyone care to test a group
of students with both Minnesota Multiphasic *and*
tuning preference and see if there's a correlation twixt
various personality traits and various tuning preferences?
In correspondence, I recently ventured the hypothesis
that folks who like primarily near-just equal
temperaments like 31-TET, 19-TET, 22-TET, 41-TET,
53-TET, etc., might fall toward the left-brain purist
control-freak end of the personality spectrum, while
folks who mainly enjoy wildly non-twelvular equal
temepraments like 13-TET, 11-TET, 9-TET, 23-TET, etc.
might fall toward the right-brain intuitive New Age
hippy-dippy end of the personality spectrum.
Again, this is mere persiflage and wild speculation.
However, the fact remains that people do tend to
fall in distinct groups as regards their response to
different classes of tunings. So perhaps there's
a personality component involved.
It'd be fascinating to play real microtonal music,
tally preferences, and compare the results to
personality test scores.
--mclaren





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From: mclaren
Subject: 30 years of gibberish
--
My statement of what has long been regarded
as obvious fact sparked real fury in this tuning
forum. When I pointed out in Digest 714 that,
"As has long since been demonstrated, most of
the subscribers to this forum have no interest in
music. To all but a handful of you, music is an
annoying and deeply distasteful waste product of
the really IMPORTANT aesthetic process--
namely, theorizing." -- mclaren, TD 714
..Well, when I pointed out this obvious fact, a
veritable firestorm of outrage ensued.
Yet it has been recognized for more than 30
years that my statement is simple fact.
In the Perspectives of New Music article "Some
Current Trends," vol. 5, No. 4, 1966, pp. 81-84,
Ernst Krenek points out: "...after assiduously
studying Babbitt's essay "Twelve-tone invariants..."
Musical Quarterly, XLVI (April, 1960), 246-59,
I have covered several sheets of music paper with
experiments, exercises, and examples trying to
penetrate the meaning of his discourse, and finally
approached my learned friend by letter for more
information. It was of no avail, and I gave up in
frustration since I did not wish to encroach
further on his time. I am afraid that the use of
this language in PERSPECTIVES has reached a point
of diminishing returns: *the possible increment of
scholarly prestige (not to speak of snob appeal)
is compensated by loss of communicability.*" [Krenek,
Ernst, "Some Current Terms," Perspectives of New
Music, Vol. 5, No. 4, 1966, pg. 84]
This quote is 30 years old. Yet it echoes precisely my
own.
How can any of my posts *possibly* be considered
"outrageous" when they merely repeat sentiments
*expressed and agreed upon for more than 30 years?*
In "Some Problems Raised by the Rhythmic Procedures
in Milton Babbitt's Composition for Twelve
Instruments," Perspectives of New Music, Vol. 4,
No. 2, 1965, Peter Westergaard points out that "Such
a resultant rhythm has just as little to do with ordering
the sets as the previous example, and nothing to do with
their contours. If the supposition at the beginning of
this paragraph were true, it might at best be thought
of as the unstructured results of a conflict between
two highly structured elements. But the supposition
is not true.
"I see no way for the ear to distinguish those attacks
which define durations for Po and those which define
durations for RI2. Thus, I see now way for the ear to
perceive either order or content." [Westergaard, Peter,
op cit.]
Again, this prelection on the unintelligibility and
musical meaninglessness of Milton Babbitt's "theories"
differs from my own merely in fine details. Are we
to believe that, after *more than 30 years,* anyone
is still shocked by this simple recitation of fact?
Please.
People have been pointing out that Babbitt's pitch-class
matrix jargon is musically meaningless nonsense for
30+ years. Get over it.
Krenek cuts to the heart of the matter when he mentions:
"We are reminded of Oswald Spengler's prediction forty
years ago that the true representative of our age will
be the engineer and that the artist will become obsolete.
Perhaps some artists fear that he was right and attempt
to demonstrate that they really *are* engineers, in order to
be assured of a raison d'etre." [Krenek, Ernst, "A composer's
Influences," Perspectives of New Music, 3(1), 1964, pg. 41]
Again, this is a near-verbatim reiteration of points made in
my own posts.
More recently, William Thompson has summarized the
process of systematic post-1948 academic obfuscation
and pretentiousness in his book Schoenberg's Error: "The
flurry of enthusiasms of [the 1950s] centered not around
Schoenberg, whom Boulez had declared `dead,' but around
Webern. From the movement's inception in the United
States, the newly-influential academic segment of the
population became prominent, especially among themselves.
In time it demonstrated how the lives of artworks (whose
dependence on the auspices of higher education had in
times past been negligible) could be sustained by
artificial means beyond normal expentency, regardless of
their direct aesthetic vibrancy.
"The era's post-Viennese energy induced a remarkable
production of analytical dissections and speculative
tracts--more those than public performances of music.
The torrent of words and numbers and fomulae unleashed
about Schoenberg's methods, about their more thorough
exploitation by Webern, and then about subsequent
extensions (like those of Boulez and babbitt) to other
musical dimensions, produced one of the most bountiful
crops of verbiage ever harvested in the cause of art.
"The movement also habored a hidden cul de sac for
the unwary. Its participants produced a fair amount
of theoretical "how to..." composers' shoptalk, which
tended to be preoccupied with manipulations of notes
as permutable collections, rather than with interpretive
descriptions of phenomenal things. So the unassailable
and unchanging concern of musicians for the art's aural
ontology became secondary to the orderings of serialized
particles. Permutations, reciprocal relativities,
combinatoriality, segmentation, source sets, derived
sets, intersections, adjacencies, partitions, germ cells,
aggregates, pitch qualia, hexachords, mathematical
models, complementation modulus-12, pitch (or note)
cells, and the like dominated the literature of Serialism.
(..) "Words have special powers: *permutation* had an
inimitable ring of profundity, and *modulus-12* was
sheer magic. Both seemed to guarantee conceptual
precision and mathematical certainty; both hinted
at the flinty `rigor' of the hard sciences. Such
terminology prompted a comforting fantasy in the
1960s and 1970s; it allowed us metaphorically to
put on laboratory smocks and pretend to be
`genuine scientists,' the Einsteins of harmony."
[Thompson, William, "Schoenberg's Error," 1991,
pg. 184]
Great as was the outrage that greeted my mention
of what has for 30 years been recognized as fact--
namely, that dexterity in the manipulation of
words replaced skill in the manipulation of sound
among the musical so-called "cognitive elite" from
1948 onwards--even greater was the fury that
greeted my casual acknowledgement of Boulez,
Cage, Stockhausen, et al., as incompetent
con artists.
Yet this too has been exposed as obvious fact
for more than 30 years.
In discussing the first 6 issues of Die Reihe,
touchstone of the Darmstadt School of music
and supreme model for all subsequent jargon-
laden music theory, John Backus points out:
"The baffling technical language we
encounter contains a considerable amount of what
appears to be scientific terminology--definitions,
acoustical and physical terms, etc. (..) We may therefore
examine Die Reihe with a critical eye... We wish to see
if the scientific terminology is properly used, to see if
the charts, graphs and tables have any real significance,
and to determine the technical competence of the
material from the scientific standpoint. (..)
"The first article in V. I by Herbert Eimert demonstrates
the technical style adopted by most of the
contributors. [Eimert] states (I, 3):
`The composer is required to have a certain amount
of acoustical knowledge' and proceeds to define
six categories of electronic sound... His definitions,
however, besides being difficult to understand, are
not acoustically accurate. His first one, tone, is what
is known in acoustics as a `simple tone' (his
statement that it is unknown to traditional music is
not entirely true; flutes and clarinets played softly
produce nearly simple tones, for example, as do
tuning forks). [Eimert's] second definition, note, is
what is called in acoustics a `complex tone'...
"On the other hand, in number four, `noise,' he states
` only blank noise which fills an acoustic region
may be determined in position.' This statement
does not make sense; if by `blank noise' he means
what is now called `white noise,' which contains
equal amounts of energy in each unit frequency
band width, and if by `position' he means pitch,'
then `blank noise' has no `position.' If `white noise'
is filtered to give it the attribute of pitch,
it is no longer `white.' Finally, [Eimert's] fifth category,
chord (note complex), is hardly a definition at all.
Taken all together, the definitions are very poor
examples from the standpoint of conciseness,
clarity, or accuracy.
"Eimert himself thus appears to be somewhat
deficient in the acoustical knowledge now required
of the composer. Since he does not seem to have a
clear idea himself of the meaning of the terms he
is trying to define, it is not surprising that his
definitions are inadequate... The remainder of [Eimert's]
article is for the most part impossible to follow,
but since we now see that this is not due to our
ignorance of the supposedly necessary acoustical
background, we need not concern ourselves further
with it. (..)
"H. Pousseur adopts a technical style in his
contribution. (..) The definition is too diffuse to
quote in full; it has no perceptible beginning nor
ending. Considerable study of it has failed
so far to decipher what he is trying to say; it
remains quite incomprehensible even after
allowing for considerable distortion in the
meanings of the technical terms used. The
term 'index of rationality' has no discoverable
connection with any concept in acoustics.
"The remainder of Pousseur's article follows
the example set above. Trying to understand
it is most frustrating to one with merely a
technical training in acoustics and music.
`Further difficulties were raised in the coordination
of preselected quantities with a durational
ordering.' Here is a beautiful example of
unintelligibility `Though they were theoretically
correct, they did not have the anticipated
effect.' Correct by what theory? And so on.
"What is being described is basically the process
of recording sounds on tape. It is quite possible to
describe this process in a manner that can be
understood by a physicist with acoustical
training. It should be possible to describe it
in simple enough terms so that even a musician
with a relatively amall amount of acoustical
knowledge could follow what is being done.
Pousseur's discussion is only bewildering, and
demonstrates his lack of understanding of the
subject.
"The article by Paul Gredinger states (I, 42) 'the
basis of our work remains within the domain of
physics...' while remaining unintelligible to
the physicist. The word `proportion,' for
example, is one which has a specific meaning in
physics; it is used a score of times in the article,
but never in its accustomed scientific meaning.
(..) "Karlheinz Stockhausen contributes a article
of forbiddingly technical appearance. (..) What
he means by `statistic' variation is not known;
his later discussion of the term (I, 48) only
confuses matters further.
"His subsequent discussion becomes more and more
inspired; mention is made of `harmonic, sub-harmonic,
and chromatic ptich-scales,' `spectral composition,'
`line- and band-spectra,' and so forth. The climax is
reached in a paragraph which must be quoted in full
to be appreciated (I, 47):
`Differentiation of the intended permutation of timbres
is obtained from the complexity resulting from the
simultaneous combination of the six formant regions
within one sound process, from the varying of the
elements or groups of elements, in all their components,
according to the series and of coordinating a special
intervallic scale of partials or of medium frequency
width ratios in each formant octave.' - Stockhausen
"This is formidable language. What are the six
formant regions? What is an intervallic scale of
partials? or a medium frequency width ratio? What
is a formant octave? None of these phrases has
been used or defined previously. The individual words
have perfectly well-defined scientific meanings, but
are combined in ways that make no sense as acoustical
language. The paragraph quoted is an excellent example
of technical jargon without technical meaning. (..)
"We conclude that Stockhausen's technical language is
his own invention, using terms stolen from acoustics
but without their proper acoustical meanings, and that
the technical jargon he has developed is designed mostly
to impress the reader and to hide the fact that he has
only the most meager knowledge of acoustics."
[Backus, John, "Die Reihe--A Scientific Evaluation,"
Perspectives of New Music, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1962, pp.
160-171]
Ladies and gentlemen, there *is* a term which describes
the use of "technical jargon..designed mostly to impress
the reader and hide the fact that [the user] has only the
most meager knowledge of acoustics."
The term is "scam."
Such scams were used to sell snake oil in the 1890s,
Florida swamp-land in the 1920s, junk bonds in the 1980s,
and derivative stock options in the 1990s. The use of
technical-sounding gibberish to baffle and nonplus the
unwary dupe is a staple of astrologers, spiritualists,
fortune-tellers, ufologists, perpetual motion machinists,
orgone therapists, bogus swamis, crystal-power healers,
aura readers, and dowsers from time immemorial.
As John Backus points out, "In fact, the articles in Die
Reihe conform to all the best traditions of pseudo-
scientific writing in their disregard of accepted
meanings of scientific terms, their unintelligibility,
and their complete lack of any reference to the results
of other workers as support for their statements."
[Backus, J., "Die Reihe - A Scientific Evaluation,"
Perspectives of New Music, Vol. 1, No. 2, 1962, pg. 171]
And thus the primary distinction claimed by Boulez, Cage,
Stockhausen, et al., is that for the first time they
applied the techniques of ufo cultism and palmistry
to music.
Thus it's clear why Cage developed such a close
relationship with the composers at Darmstadt:
Stockhausen and Cage were attracted to one another
as irresistably as two psychic surgeons at an AMA
convention. One whiff of the meaningless jargon
spouted by Cage, and Darmstadt knew he was one
of their own.
As we have now seen, wayyyy back in 1962 the musical con
job was revealed and the scam exposed. Yet the exact same
musical confidence game continues, today--*right now.*
Robert Morris' music theory article "Compositional Spaces
and Other Territories," from Perspectives of New Music,
Vol. 39, 1995, pp. 329-358, perpetuates the *exact same*
1950s jargon and the *exact same* technical-sounding yet
meaningless pseudo-mathematical gibberish...the same
tired old musical con job. It's merely been brushed off,
polished up and trotted out to dupe yet another generation
of gullible composers and naive music students.
Morris writes:
"A closer look at the realization reveals a functional
distinction between notes of long and short duration.
Long notes, sustained by at least one of the
participating instruments, are circled in the underlying
design to show that each aggregate projects its
own ordered hexachord. The inside aggregates (numbers
2 and 3) project transformations of the first hexachord of
the generating row; the long notes in the outside aggregates
project hexachords related to one another by T sub 1 1 but
not to the hexachords of the P row. If this were an
excerpt from an actual piece, these Q hexachords might be a
reference to some other hexachord in the word or even
some other piece of music." [Morris, Robert, op cit, 1995]
This is formidable language.
What is an "aggregate"? How does it "project" its own
"underlying hexachord"? How can one "project" a transformation?
In analytic and projective geometry, the term "projection"
has a specific meaning, but it is not used in its accustomed
mathematical sense in Morris' article. Instead, Morris'
use of the term "projection" has no discoverable connection
with mathematics, physics or geometry.
What are "inside aggregrates" as opposed to "outside
aggregates"? What are they inside of? What are they
outside of? None of these terms has been used or defined
previously. In particular, the phrase "the long notes of the
outside aggregates project hexachords related to one another
by T sub 1 1 but not to the hexachords of the P row" stands
out as a beautiful example of unintelligibility.
Is there any point in trying to decipher mathematical
terms which are not used mathematically? Is there any
sense in trying to unravel pseudo-scientific jargon whose
sole purpose is to render the meaning (if any) opaque?
How much of an egg do you have to eat before you realize it's
rotten?
--
Now that we have surveyed the 30-year history of jabberwocky,
jargon, gibberish and pseudo-science in so-called serious modern
music theory (most of which cannot be taken seriously),
it should be clear that nothing I've said about modern music
theory and academia in *any* of my posts is startling,
unprecedented, or even new.
Backus, Krenek and many others have made the same point--for
more than 30 years. I've simply reiterated these obvious and
long-recognized facts because of the astounding persistence
of gullibility and naivete in successive generations of
theorists and music students. Just as urban legends like
"alligators in the sewers" have long since been disproven
and recognized as fantasies, yet continue to circulate among
young and old in the form of stories "everyone knows are true,"
in the same way the gibberish and jargon of the 1950s music
theorists, long recognized as meaningless jabberwocky,
*continues* to circulate like a turd that won't flush. It's a kind
of musical Gresham's Law: gibberish drives out sensible
rational discussion in modern music theory.
My statements in this regard have been recognized as fact for
more more thirty years, and the frenzied reaction to my
posts which accurately describe Cage, Boulez, et al. as
inept con artists...well, the reaction can only be described
as the reflexive twitch of a patient with brain death.
And what does ANY of this have to do with microtonality?
Well might you ask, kiddies.
The sad fact is that all too many members of this tuning
forum have grown up spouting the kind of musical
glossolalia decried by Backus, by Krenek,
by Thompson, et alia. Alas, all too many members of this
tuning forum have learned music not as music but as
a gallimaufry of pseudo-scientific gardyloo...
indistinguishable from astrology or ufology except
in the details of the pseudo-science employed.
And thus all too many of the members of this tuning
forum reflexively approach microtonality as a brand-
new wide-open opportunity for jargon and gibberish.
This is a poor idea, and we should discourage it.
Microtonality is about *music.*
To the extent that the posts on this tuning forum
depart from the discussion of actual sounds, actual
performances, actual notes and chords, actual
fist-in-the-gut emotional impact of *music*,
to that extent they are wasting the bandwidth
of this tuning forum.
As Randy Winchester has noted, there is now no
longer any rationale for the existence of IRCAM
or a Darmstadt School or a Babbitt-style Princeton
clique or any of the other purportedly "elite"
centers for "modern" music. With Intel's
announcement of the P7 clock rate of 1400 Mhz,
it's clear that within two years computers
capable of running circa 3 billion (with a B)
instructions per second will be on sale at Wal
Mart, K Mart and Sears.
This destroys the raison d'etre for an "elite" center
for technologically advanced music just as the world
wide web has destroyed the rationale for "elite"
venues of music theory publication. Anyone can now
disseminate valuable ideas about music theory to
a wide public--costly paper is no longer required,
expensive subsidy-press music magazines need no
longer be run through costly binderies. Thus it is now
no longer possible to shut out uncredentialed but
insightful music theorists by refusing publication
on the basis of their supposed lack of academic
qualifications; they can publish their insights on
forums like this one. It is now no longer possible
to silence critics of the 12-TET status quo by denying
them print space in prestigious music journals; they
can post incisive critiques on forums like this one. It
is now no longer possible to crush unknown composers
who are not members of the proper elite clique of
academia by refusing them access to sophisticated
hardware and software, because *everyone* has
access to awesomely sophisticated hardware and
software nowadays.
As a result, the only criterion for judging musical
value is increasingly: *musical talent.*
This explains the fury and hatred which has greeted
my posts... For all too few modern music theorists have
even the slightest jot of musical talent. Indeed, given
the continued prevalance of gibberish and jargon in
so called "serious" music theory & the continued
promulgation of the same old pseudo-scientific
language used as an academic con job to intimidate
the uninitiated & boost the reputations of the inept,
it becomes clear that more than two acronyms are
pertinent to remedial education.
The first classic cateogry is EMR: Educable
Mentally Retarded. The individual suffers cognitive
deficit, but is capable of learning complex tasks.
The second classic category is TMR: Trainable
Mentally Retarded. The individual in incapable
of complex tasks but can be trained to perform
simple repetitive motions. The third category
is PhD. The individual suffers severe cognitive
deficit, cannot learn musical tasks, and is
incapable of recognizing behaviour which is
unproductive and meaningless.
--mclaren



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While I still don't fully comprehend how 30-year-old (and justified)
attacks on the esoterica of Babbitt et al. justifies Brian's judgment of
"all but a handful" of tuning list subscribers as musically untalented
number pushers, I would like to compare the following statement by Brian:

>The third category
>is PhD. The individual suffers severe cognitive
>deficit, cannot learn musical tasks, and is
>incapable of recognizing behaviour which is
>unproductive and meaningless.

with another post by Brian last year:

>To the extent that any of
>my statements about academia or people with PhDs has
>hindered the discussion on this forum, or poisoned it
>with unnecessary bad feeling, I certainly apologize....
>Suffice it to say that
>this tuning forum represents an extraordinary confluence
>of exceptionally talented academics.

Brian, how are we to reconcile statements such as these? You may be
surprised that subscribers object to the notion that they're not interested
in music. Permit us the surprise that you admit admiration for some
academics while continuing to attack all PhDs and academia in general.

Bill

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^ Bill Alves email: alves@hmc.edu ^
^ Harvey Mudd College URL: http://www2.hmc.edu/~alves/ ^
^ 301 E. Twelfth St. (909)607-4170 (office) ^
^ Claremont CA 91711 USA (909)621-8360 (fax) ^
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^




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From: mclaren
Subject: disagreements about notation
--
Paul Rapoport posted a reply to some of my (probably ignorant)=20
comments on his article in Xenharmonikon 16, "The Notation of
Equal Temperaments," published in 1995, pp. 61-85.
Paul's article dealt with the intractable issue of designing coherent
and systematic notations for the full range of equal temperaments.
No small accomplishment, that.
Paul has succeeded in producing a notationally coherent set of
set of conventions that will theoretically allow the systematic
notation of any equal temperament. Pauls' achievement is
considerable, and the article valuable, for three reasons: [1] Paul
appears to be the first theorist who has put together an integrated &
coherent notation which can apply not just to a limited range of
ETs, but to all of 'em; [2] He has generalized Blackwood's procedures
(as when B'wood used every other note from 26 to notate 13) to
regularize the notation of equal temperaments in which either
the limma =3D the apotome, or in which the neutral mode is the=20
predominant melodic paradigm; [3] Paul's approach is open-ended
enough and flexible enough to admit of considerable expansion,
potentially to other systems than those he considers in his
article.
All together, Paul's article "The Notation of Equal Temperaments"
is among the most impressive and theoretically dextrous=20
written on the subject.
That said, permit me to respond to some of Paul's wise and
insightful comments:
Paul posts:
"1. Brian says that relate "all the especially 12-like tunings with good fifths."> I don't.
The basing of a notation system on fifths is all I did, whether or not
those fifths are good or bad, or whether an ET has fifths at all. For
those that don't (e.g. 13-tET), I proposed a general solution to notate
them within the same framework."
This is an excellent point, and it cleverly dodges the question of what's
an "implicit presumption." My experience is that when you notate
music on a five-line staff (never mind the names of the notes or
exact shape of the accidentals), the immediate presumption created
in the minds of the average musician is: "Oh, this is familiar!
Here's a perfect fifth, and here's a major second, and...I guess there
are some odd accidentals, but this is really just like 12, isn't it?"
No, 13-TET doesn't sound a bit like 12.
The problem with notating highly xenharmonic equal temperaments
like 13 or 23 on the five-line staff is that the 5-line staff itself
carries baggage. It automatically seduces the unwary observer into
assuming that you've got a perfect fifth, major 3rd, &c. This is an=20
*implicit presumption.* Use the five-line staff *at all*=20
and you can't escape creating this illusion.
Paul posts:
"2. method.> The article shows how to do this. Of course many may prefer the
method for ETs with recognizable fifths; see point 1." =20
Paul & I disagree over what is meant by "usefully notated." Clearly,
Paul has a different idea of "useful" than do I. To me, "useful"=20
notation is that which most accurately reflects the *sound* of
the equal temperament and its fundamental melodic/harmonic
paradigms. Paul Rapoport may mean something different--
for instance, he might mean "the notation that most clearly
brings out certain abstract structures present in the tuning." =20
In any case, let me give you an example: in 21-TET a *basic*
melodic mode is the neutral mode. Here you're in catch-22 if you
stick with the five-line staff and conventional note-names--
because if you write the neutral mode 1 4 7 10 13 16 19
(scale-steps numbered 1 to 21) as C D E F G A B, you will
be bamboozling the person who reads the notation inasmuch
as s/he will assume there's a semitone twixt E and F: but in
the 7-note neutral mode of 21 all successive notes have the same
interval, 171.428 cents. On the other hand, if you flat the E or
sharp the F, your reader will assume that the distance D-Eb
or F#-G is smaller than the other steps. Again, having settled
on a five-line staff and conventional note-names, these implicit
assumptions are *unavoidable* regardless of which particular=20
exotic symbols are used instead of # and b...and thus these
implicit assumptions (created unavoidably in the reader) render such=20
notation less than useful (again, in my opinion).
I should mention that Paul Rapoport knows *vastly* more than I do=20
about notating the equal temperaments. So he'll surely answer what
to me seem like serious objections. My guess is that I'm overlooking
something obvious and fairly deep here.=20
Paul posts:
"3. just intonation.> Many uses of ETs do exactly that, especially the ones
that allow recognizable tonal or modal progressions. This does not mean
that they grew from JI historically, which is a different and differently
arguable point." =20
The key words here are "many" and "allow themselves." =20
Paul is absolutely correct in implying that some xenharmonic composers
use ETs as quasi-JI arrays--Ezra Sims comes to mind, some of the music
of Fokker, etc. But nowadays with retunable synths, most modern
xenharmonic composers who use equal temperaments generally
use 'em because they like the way each ET "sounds" or because
each ET enjoys structural or melodic or harmonic properties which
render it musically unique and impressive. In short, nowadays, if
you want JI, you just press a button and retune your synth to JI.
So this "quasi-JI" use of ETs has dropped drastically. Also, with the
advent of true JI, composers can hear just how far from JI most
equal temperaments sound. Most ETs sound unique--not like JI.=20
Now that all of us can hear that, there's been a steadily growing
realization that each ETs is musically unique not for this or that
aproximation of this or that JI array but because of its unique
internal structural and modal properties... And this awareness
on the part of composers and listeners alike has steadily eroded
the tendency to hear any particular ET as a JI analog. (53 and
72 remain exceptions in this regard, depending on the ratios.)
Paul's objection here may well relate more to theoretical than to
compositional concerns. Certainly listeners react to music in
ETs when we perform them in terms of: "Wow, 19 is really smooth
but 17 is brilliant and steely," rather than, "Wow, 19 sounds much
more just than 17 does."
Paul posts:
"4. Brian spends some time discussing why small intervals, e.g. 1/17 or
1/31 octave don't sound like JI, for no reason I can determine." =20
The reason is simple. Throw in a bunch of chromatic 1/31 or 1/17
octave intervals in succession and the impression of a quasi-JI
construct disappears. Now that we can get all 31 or 53 or 72
or whatever tones per octave at once, my experience is that=20
xen composers/performers are much more willing to sound
radically microtonal chromatic passages. Neil Haverstick is
a shining example. "Hit 'em with tiny intervals" seems to be
his watchword, and it's a knockout. Listen to Neil's superb
"Birdwalk" if you want to be rocked back in your seat. This is very
different from the "bad old days" back when the Prophet 5 rev 3
was all you had, and you had to choose "12 out of" 31 or "12 out
of" 53, etc. Paul's comments in his numbered rebuttals
3 and 4 seem more appropriate to 12-out-of-X usage than=20
all-notes-of-X-at-once microtonal usage. =20
Again, for the obvious reason that lots of chromatic successive=20
notes destroy any sense of "JI-ness" *even* in a highly JI-like=20
ET like 53.
Paul posts:
"5. them all as 12-like as possible.> Not quite; he tried to make them as
tonal/modal as possible." Paul is very close to being accurate here,
but his statement is just shy of 100% correct. In fact Blackwood tried=20
to=20
make the ETs as tonal/modal as possible *in the Pythagorean framework*--
there are tonal/modal constructs entirely *non-Pythagorean.* Viz.,
the neutral mode used by the Kwaiker of Guatamala, the Thais, etc.
Blackwood's usage forces the ETs into either major or minor=20
melodic modes derived from Pythagorean theories and
constructs. This doesn't work musically for more than half the
equal temperaments between 5 and 33 tones per octave.
Incidentally, I mentioned that upwards of 40% of=20
Blackwood's claims about the ETs were incorrect. =20
Here's the rundown:
B claims that 21-TET has no recognizable diatonic mode. [Blackwood,
Research Notes, NEH Grant R0-29376-78-0642, 1978-81, pg. 9] This
is verifiably wrong, as you can hear for yourself. Tune up 21 & sound:
MAJOR IN 21-TET: 1 5 8 10 13 17 20
MINOR IN 21-TET: 1 5 7 10 13 16 19
(notes numbered numerically from 1 to 21, Carillo-style)
Your ears will end the debate.
Blackwood on page 124 of his NEH Grant Report claims that in
16-TET "the effect of CEG is that of a minor triad with
acceptable thirds, but a singularly peculiar perfect fifth."
[Blackwood, Research Notes, NEH Grant R0-29376-78-0642,=20
1978-81, pg. 124]
*Nonsense.* Tune up the triad 1-5-10 (starting at A440 Hz,
these are frequencies 400 Hz - 546.417 Hz - 649.803 Hz).
Does this triad sound as though it has anything *remotely*
akin to a perfect fifth?
In fact the triad sounds like discordant diminished chord
of some kind. No perfect fifth is perceptible, Blackwood
is simply wrong. But don't take my word for it--again,
let your ears decide.
In discussing 17-TET, Blackwood states that there is
no consonant triad available. Wrong. The neutral triad
formed by 1-6-11 (again, these are scale steps numbered
from 1 to 17, Carillo-style) sounds just fine. =20
Blackwood claims that 19 has a recognizable diatonic
scale: to me it sounds unacceptably distorted. The 2/19
of a whole-tone leading tone is the Achilles heel of
this mode--it just doesn't work at all, and the 9-tone
gapped mode 1 4 7 8 9 12 15 18 19 works infinitely
better. But let your ears decide.=20
Lastly, Blackwood claims that 18-TET allows the
construction of various chords which he writes as
V, V7, etc. This is contrary to what my ears hear,
to what common sense tells us. Rather than creating
a sense of tonality, diminished seventh chords *destroy*
a sense of tonality. Thus, for Blackwood to claim that
(for example) "the V/II harmnies are both complex
altered chords with roots missing" (as on pg. 213 of
his grant report) and that "the chord in bar 96 is..a
minor dominant ninth with a lowered fifth and lowered
seventh" and that this creates any sense of tonal
harmonic progression... Preposterous. When
you lower the fifth as much as the 18-TET scale does,
it makes no sense to speak of "dominant chords with
lowered fifths." The thing doesn't sound even remotely
like a dominant anything, it sounds like a diminished
chord and it's discordant as hell. Listen to an 18-TET
4:5:6 triad and you'll hear instantly that there is
no recognizable fifth, there is no dominant, there
is no V chord, there is no sense of tonality. Blackwood
has simply let the theory and the numbers carry him
away to a conclusion contrary to what the ears hear.
Again, don't take my word for it--play the 18-TET
progression I-IV-V-I and let your ears decide whether
this creates any sense of tonality or not:
12=091=096=0912
6=0913=0918=096
1=098=0912=091
I-----IV----V----I
(Pitches of 18-TET notated from 1 to 18; vertically
stacked numbers indicate notes sounded together.)
Can you hear any kind of V chord? Is this a functional
dominant?
So adding up the total, we find that Easley Blackwood
has made statements verifiably incorrect (tune up=20
your synth, don't take my word for it) about 16, 17,
18, 19 and 21 tone equal temperament. That's 5 out
of the 12 equal temperaments twixt 12 and 24: a
40% error rate. =20
Paul posts:
"6. a notation.> It does, but no one I know would want to perform or
analyze from. Brian goes on to claim that aren't in traditional notation,> a point which he dreamed up himself."
Paul might imagine that I dreamed up this point, but the fact remains
that when faced with anything other than an ultra-conservative=20
completely common-practice-period notation, Paul's interest
appears to drop drastically. I've seen it happen in person. If I
play Paul a notated piece, he shows real interest--but play him music
notated in a MIDI file and he's apt to say, as he did to me face-to-face,
"I can't make anything of this without a score." (1992, personal
communication, in person.)
This seems a strong bias against accepting or listening critically
to music not notated in a quasi-conventional way...but then again,
perhaps I misinterpret. =20
As to the question of a MIDI file or numerical notation
being a notation that "no one I know would want to
perform or analyze from," well, Paul knows me, and I've no
problems performing or analyzing from such a notation. So the
statement falls short of absolutely strict accuracy. Actually,
in my experience numbers are *far* simpler than using note names.=20
Bill Schottstaedt and Julian Carillo are two obvious examples of=20
superb composers who prefer this kind of notation, and you could
make a good argument that all Csound-using computer composers
analyze, perform and use numerical notation all the time. So when
Paul says "no one I know" prefers using numerical rather than
quasi-ceonventional 5-line-staff-based notation, perhaps it's a=20
slight overstatement...
Paul posts:
"7. <"Essentially no one attends or gives live acoustic concerts any
more."> Statements like this lead people on this forum to ignore Brian."
This statement is numerically accurate. The question here is: what
is meant by "essentially no one"? =20
Let's do the math. Compare the total number of hours of recorded
music played last year with the total number of hours of=20
live acoustic concerts played last year. (Rock concerts don't
count since they are nowadays karaoke to a DAT.) If the latter number
is C and the former is B, then B/C is indeed essentially zero.
Let's consider just one concrete example: DMX is a digital music
channel broadcasting 24 hours a day sans commercials. You pay
10 bucks a month to your cable company for it, you get 30
channels, and it's CD-quality sound. 24 hours/day*365 days/year
*30 channels * 30 million subscribers (at last count, 1995) =3D
7.884 BILLION person-hours of listening to recorded music.
How does this number of person-hours compare to the total
amount of live acoustic music person-hours listened to in 1995?
Let's take a guess...say, 200 people per live acoustic concert,
maybe 1000 concerts per day across the U.S., say 2 hours
per concert, total =3D 200*1000*365*2 =3D 189,800 person-hours
of live acoustic concert.
Now divide live/recorded person-hours of listening:
189,800/(7.884 exp 9) =3D 0.000024
Isn't this "essentially zero"? Paul is being silly here. He's
quibbling. This is as near zero as makes no difference.
Quibbles about how closely 0.000024 approaches zero are
obviously superfluous--obviously virtually the music listened
to by virtually all the people in the U.S. is recorded music. Clearly the
obvious fact is that by and large 99.999% of the population no
longer attends live concerts of acoustic music. Essentially all=20
music is nowadays heard off CDs, off cassettes, on the radio, or
some other recorded form. To deny this is to discredit yourself
by denying the facts.=20
Paul posts:
"8. sharped or flatted versions of C, D, E, G, and A proves less than
useful."> Sorry, no sale. Keeping to that principle of notation would
imply that the only structure in 25-tET is groups of pentatonic scales.
But 25 has a quite usable major 3rd and natural 7th, which staying with C
D E G A won't reveal adequately." =20
The issue in this particular case is what is meant by "less=20
than useful." Clearly my meaning is different from Paul's.=20
My definition of "useful" in this case involved bringing to the surface
the fundamental pentatonic mode of pitches which remain exactly
the same in 5-TET through 45-TET. Paul meant something else...
no doubt we're both right.
Paul posts:
"9. etc., any ET with a 720-cent fifth) is "willful obfuscation."> It is true,
however. Several articles show why. But it is possible both to use and
relieve this fact in a systematic way. My article does this, but Brian
doesn't seem to recognize that." Paul is doubtless correct that I don't
recognize his point. I'll have to re-read his article, clearly. Mea culpa.
Paul posts:
"10. <22-tET has nothing in common with traditional tunings.> Does anyone
agree with this?" This has already been dealt with by Paul Erlich,
who also disagrees with Paul. My claim is overstated: 22-TET has
a musically recognizable semitone in common with highly=20
Pythagorean tunings, and it shares a near-just 4:5:6. Over-emphasis
is often necessary to get my point across. Murmur politely and
average folks will step on your face as they walk over you without
noticing--shout and they'll pay attention. (Shout the truth as they'll
grab for a noose, but that's a different matter...)
Paul posts:
"11. work, e.g. 13- and 14-tET.> My solutions for these and others like them
reveal exactly what he says is lacking. For example, there is no major or
minor third in 14, and no perfect fifth in 13: this emerges from what I
suggest be done to notate these ETs." =20
The issue here is whether the fact that the musical nature of=20
these ETs eventually "emerges" at the end of a lengthy process of
elaborate notation is sufficient to do musical justice to these exotic
ETs. Paul clearly feels it is, and I clearly don't. Reasonable people
can disagree.
Paul posts:
"12. <14-tET is nothing more than two sets of 7-equal.> This comment is
similar to Brian's comment about 25 being nothing more than 5 sets of
5-equal, and equally incorrect. Blackwood's 14-note etude and mine in 25
should be enough to show that." =20
Actually, Paul and I are both correct here. My intended
subtext is that melodically the neutral mode is the primary melodic
structure in 14, not a diatonic major or diatonic minor scale. In that
context my statement is correct; Paul's point is presumably that other
musically modes exist in 14 (and 25). His statement is also correct.
Paul posts:
"13. <35-tET is a nightmare to notate.> Anyone who reads my article is
invited to determine that this is not so. If anyone wishes, I'll apply the
method I've evolved to that, since I didn't illustrate it in my article.
It is a curious case, but by no means dreadful." Paul is speaking
notationally--I'm speaking musically. 35 is notationaly dire because
it boasts two "perfect fifths" about equally far from the just 3/2.
The ear thus tends to identify one or the other as "the" perfect fifth
depending on context--if you use a primarily 7-TET context, the 685.714
cent fifth sounds "right" and if you use the 5-TET context, the
720-cent fifths sounds "right." My experience is that no known notation
captures this musical reality. On the other hand Paul's notation surely
has subtleties and advantages I've not yet appreciated..I'll have=20
to study his Xenharmonikon 16 article again.
Paul posts:
"14. have semitones.> This is too vague for me. Besides, sharps and flats
aren't defined in terms of semitones, but at least initially as 7 perfect
fifths (up or down), in a Pythagorean sense, anyhow. What interests me
most are cases where the fifths are so far from just that the sharp and
flat end up denoting either fairly large or fairly small intervals."
On reflection, Paul is right. My language in this regard
is too vague.
Paul posts:
"15. <"The use of sharps and flats in 19 is willf
=D4 perverse."> There are
many counterexamples to this categorical denial. Of all ETs, 19-tET is
closest to 12." This is musically not true in my experience. 22 sounds
to my ears much closer to 12 than 19, because the 1/11 octave interval
sounds much closer to a semitone than does a 2/19 octave interval.=20
19 is a third-tone scale, with whole tones and thirds of tones.
Thus, the leading tone in 19 must be either 2/19 a (too flat) or
1/19 a (too sharp); by comparison 1/11 octave works just fine as a=20
leading tone in 22.
The other issue here is that notating 19 with #, b, 5-line staff &
traditional note names *badly* confuses xenharmonists, because the
12-TET conditioning is so strong. I've seen it happen. Because
everything is notated with *exactly* the same symbols as used=20
in 12-TET, xenharmonists stumble and stumble again when
trying to interpret this...yes...this perverse notation for 19-TET. =20
Oddball accidentals or different note names (Yasser's suggestion)
really seem infinitely less confusing to me and to most folks
I've worked with in playing 19-TET pieces.
Finally, Paul posts:
"It's a discussion about matters of notation, which I see in a=20
broader context than one of convenience or necessity: a context=20
which may reveal structures and at the same time be
useful for all the things notation is intended for."
Wise and sensible.
Incidentally, Paul, John Chalmers told me that you studied with
Easley Blackwood. If this is incorrect, mea culpa.=20
--mclaren


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