heirs to Partch

Haverstick here...Steve Curtin's post was great, and helped me to
realize something that was just below the surface of my intellect,
which now looks clear...my whole approach to other tuning systems
had nothing to do with Partch, Ivor, Helmholtz, or any other prominent
person in the micro field...I simply took a 19 tone guitar, thanks to
Starrett, and started doing what I had always done in 12/eq...playing
what I heard in my head. I was always a composer rather than interpreter
(although I've learned much from my studies of other's music), and I
always wrote some way out stuff that many people found hard to listen
to...in that way, I am more like Partch than those who use their
musical gifts to recreate what he composed. I have been fired from my
share of gigs for upsetting knuckleheads with my playing, so I do surely
sympathize with Harry for all the times he was misunderstood.

So, the point is this...by the time I got around to hearing and checking
out the wonderful theories of all the microgreats, I was already in my
own groove with what I wanted to do, so I really have no awe of Partch
and others...they are a small blip in an infinite Universe of sound, just
as we all are. Sure, some make a bigger blip than others, but, and
perhaps this is where I split with the Partch devotees, I would rather
compose my own music and see if I can make some sort of imprint on my
own. I am certainly no heir to Harry or anyone else...I AM trying to
take what gifts I may have been given and shape something of value out
of them.

I am fairly astonished that such a fuss has been made over Harry and
what he accomplished...to me, he is just one of many talented and
original artists which I've heard or met in my career...I say get on
with it, and do something of your own...if you can borrow some good
concepts from other folks, no problemo...it's just when one becomes
too narrowly focused on another's accomplishments, I feel this is the
end of true creativity...creating my own sound has always been a passion
with me; in fact, essentially, all blues, jazz, and folk artists are
creators...to be truly great, a jazz player must reinterpret a piece
each time he/she plays it, or nothing is happening...listen to Parker
alternate takes, and they are all completely different from each other.

So, again, the fact that Partch did his own thing is very cool, to be
sure; to me, it's no more cool than Albert King playing a right handed
guitar left handed (so the strings were upside down), or the late, great
Thumbs Carlille playing the guitar in his lap, tapping on the strings
with both hands...there's a lot of monsters out there...Hstick

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There's a spot in early in my off-the-shelf 88CET demo tape where I play the
sound of a diminished triad implemented as 6:5 atop a 6:5, compared to a 7:6
atop a 6:5, the latter case of course being the upper three notes of a 4:5:6:7
dominant seventh chord. As soon as I play the 5:6:7, I say "you'll immediately
hear that this chord isn't quite as tense as the first chord".

What's curious is that as I rehear this periodically (to cut copies for my
various victims), I occasionally have to rethink that sentence. Basically it's
true, but in a different sense, it's actually more tense. It's actually more
dissonant (however little that word may mean for a single isolated chord). I
can't clearly isolate much less describe that sense in which it's actually more
harmonically tense. Maybe somebody else out there may know what I mean and can
describe it.

I do find though that that particular sense reduces when I add the root of
the 4:5:6:7 chord, so be sure to comment on it first with respect to the 5:6:7
without the 4.


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