TUNING digest 829

Thanks to Brian McLaren for an interesting and helpful reply to my
somewhat exasperated reply to his...etc. I have no idea whether anyone
else is interested in this stuff any more. I won't respond to all of
Brian's points, because most of them either clarify the matter or allow
the reader to choose how to proceed.

Much of this may be about different ways to structure and use ETs. I
think really that you may use many of them differently. Clearly the
closer you want to derive from Pythagorean principles, the closer the
notation may resemble the traditional one. But it is certainly true that
using only sharps and flats in 19 may mislead people who are used to 12
and are unable to make the switch. I have seen it happen so often that I
wonder if it ever *doesn't* happen with untutored performers.

On the other hand, presenting most performers with a radically different
notation carries obvious problems of its own. There seems no "solution"
here independent of many other variables and contexts.

I am indeed interested in "wild" notations which capture unique aspects
of tunings. I don't happen to have invented any, but I've certainly read
through a fair number. There's still time...

Brian's claim that "when faced with anything other than an
ultra-conservative completely common-practice-period notation, Paul's
interest appears to drop drastically" is odd. His recollection of our one
meeting in 1992 certainly isn't mine. I have spent a lot of time teaching
fairly far-out music with bizarre notations or no notation in music
history surveys and seminars for nearly 20 years. Recall the discussions
about John cage...Again, if anyone cares, please don't take pars pro toto.
If you have read my articles written mostly about notations derived from
the common practice period, don't assume that that's all I accept. Of
course few have read them as carefully as Brian, but that's a different
point.

I am intrigued by turning the "essentially no one attends live concerts"
point into a question of ratios. Of course far more people listen to
recordings and the like, but that answers a different question. It's
rather like saying that essentially no one lives in New York because
there are several billion Chinese on the other side of the planet!

Blackwood does more than create music in Pythagorean frameworks. Several
of his pieces derive modes of various kinds which don't relate to Pyth.
thinking any more than Messiaen's modes do.

And that is probably enough. Except to say that Brian's carefully thought
out and written ideas are a pleasure to read. For me, anyhow.

========================== =================================
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




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