Four remarks on Smith 's topic

Four remarks on the Ronald Bruce Smith 's topic :

1. The book of Allen Forte had have an important influence in France
impulsed by the IRCAM people. It has completely masked the works
of a French musicologue Edmond Costere who had published a
theory very closed to pitch set theory.
E. Costere : Lois et styles des harmonies musicales, Paris, Paris, 1954.
E. Costere : Mort ou transfiguration de l'harmonie, Paris, PUF, 1962.

2. Ronald Bruce Smith said that Magnus Lindberg is the only IRCAM
composer that had a knowledge of Forte's theory. Many others composers
(Tristan Murail, Hugues Dufourt, Jean-Yves Bosseur etc....)
perfectly know the Forte's theory, but they don't used in their
own compositions. Magnus has said (I can't remember where but I have read it)
that he used the pitch set theory in his compositions. Perhaps the book
had been introduce in France by IRCAM. I remember, I had bought it in
the St-Paul-Meanneapolis Fine Arts Museum Book store and have not
seen it before in France.

3. The "objet sonore" is a concept of Pierre Schaeffer and electro-acoustic
music, born in the GRM (Groupe de Recherches Musicales), not really a "friend"
of the IRCAM because they have to deal with the same pie... Messiaen, Dutilleux
and Boulez don't refer to the "objet sonore".

4. If IRCAM had opened "les nouveaux espaces", "a rather large and impressive
extension to their building in Beaubourg" said Smith, IRCAM has also always been
in crisis. Many people think that IRCAM has imposed his esthetics in the french
developpement of the music, had marginalized many other musical institutions
and eat to much money for what they do. Pierre Boulez had published an interview in
"Telerama" (a TV program paper) last week on the musical french life.
In reading this paper, you could understand what kind of people is Pierre Boulez
and understand how IRCAM had been what it is today.

--franck

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>But if you listen more carefully (and only a little more carefully), you
>notice that the tonic mysteriously migrated by about 1/41 octave. All of
our
>musical experience since childhood tells us that we just went 360 degrees
>around
>and landed where we started, but mysteriously we somehow landed somewhere
>else.

You don't need non-octave scales for this to happen: try a I vi ii V I or I
IV ii V I in 41-tet, 34-tet, 22-tet, 15-tet, or JI. If you observe all
possible common tones, the tonic will descend.

>Forgive me for pushing one of my proverbial hot-buttons, but some feel that
>this wandering tonic effect is a problem to be dealt with, but to me it's a
>really interesting, surprising, and useful musical effect.

Perhaps; it's centainly very different from the traditional effect.


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> You don't need non-octave scales for this to happen: try a I vi ii V I or I
> IV ii V I in 41-tet, 34-tet, 22-tet, 15-tet, or JI. If you observe all
> possible common tones, the tonic will descend.

Also absolutely true. I first experienced that effect in 5-limit JI on Dave
Hill's PPS setup at Florida State University.


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>> to my ear, Blackwood's
>> comment that a diatonic scale will sound "recognizable" if it follows the
>> standard pattern of 2 large intervals, one small, three large, and one
small
>> seems correct.

>Try for example tuning up a synthesizer
>to 12 steps per 3:2 and play some familiar melodies.

To be fair, Blackwood's book, "The Structure of Recognizable Diatonic
Tunings," only speaks of octave-based tunings. I highly recommend this book,
but none of the math is as complicated as it looks.

>> schismatic temperaments should refer
>> only to those with fifths larger than 700 cents. Otherwise, the diatonic
>> thirds are purer than the schismatic thirds, and the tuning is better
>> characterized as a meantone temperament

>That strikes me as a curious comment considering that third-, quarter-,
>fifth-, and sixth-comma meantone all have fifths smaller than 700c.


Which is why they are considered meantone tunings. What's curious about
that?


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> >Try for example tuning up a synthesizer
> >to 12 steps per 3:2 and play some familiar melodies.
> To be fair, Blackwood's book, "The Structure of Recognizable Diatonic
> Tunings," only speaks of octave-based tunings.

Octave-basis or not really doesn't matter much with regard to what I was
pointing out, which is that you can clearly recognize diatonic-like melodic
structures even when the large and small melodic step sizes are mashed down by a
factor of ~1.6, but that doing so utterly pulverizes diatonic harmony.



> Which is why they are considered meantone tunings. What's curious about
> that?

Sorry, I read that wrong.


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Paul E wrote:

> I just happened to note that theorists who derive the diatonic scale from
> three triads are perpetrating a historico-geographic fallacy.
>
I agree whole-heartedly. I was reminded of this misunderstanding when
recently rereading Mathews' and Pierce's "The Bohlen-Pierce Scale." In the
introduction are the misleading statements:

"The diatonic scale has provided a basis for most Western music since the
seventeenth century."

and:

"The major triad provides the harmonic basis for the diatonic scale."

In fact, the diatonic scale (at least as I define it) has been the basis
for most European music since the early Middle Ages (at least that which we
know through theoretical works or notation). It's impossible to know
precisely when, though I have long been fascinated by this issue.

Major and "natural" minor are two possible diatonic modes. I believe they
were used long before Glareanus recognized them in theory as separate
heptatonic entities (I presume that's who the seventeenth century reference
was to).

Certainly by the seventeenth century, composers were mainly interested in
harmony, and "standard" 5-limit JI can be derived through interlocking
4:5:6 triads. But to phrase it as Mathews and Pierce have, it would seem
that the diatonic scale was invented in order to accomodate the triad, when
in fact it was "invented" centuries before the triad.

I don't think this "invalidates" the Pierce-Bohlen scale -- it's absolutely
a valid approach to derive a scale based on the harmonies one wants. I just
don't think the diatonic scale, or even the major mode, was derived this
way.

>My paper is an attempt to find a set of pitches
>which, like the diatonic scale, stands up on a melodic basis alone, but
>leads as naturally to 7-limit harmony and 7-limit tonality, as the diatonic
>scale leads to 5-limit harmony and tonality, and (if you believe Yasser was
>on the right track) as the pentatonic scale leads to 3-limit harmony and
>tonality.

I look forward to your paper. Personally, I think Yasser had a lot of great
ideas with a lot of ethno-centrist, Darwinist and ultimately unnecessary
ethno-historical nonsense to try to justify them.

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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