Re: [tuning] the $64,000 question

D.Stearns and co.!
Yes as Carl Jung pointed out, there is no life without tension. without it in music the
experience of cadence would not be possible or necessary!
It seems the greek notion of Orpheus was to get us into the underworld and get us out,
even if he didn't necessarily make it himself. On the otherhand the notion and possibility of
music acting upon the individual in a "healing " fashion is not new and one would expect to
continue to function in this way in our society. The release of stress may not be the best
way, in my own case I find that happy music makes me depressed and sad minor upon minor has an
uncanny effect of lifting my spirits. I am not sure if the latter is just a release of the
stress of sadness that its expression alleviates or not!

"D.Stearns" wrote:

> Margo Schulter,
>
> > Thus while I might describe a tuning such as 1/4-comma meantone as
> not in any usual sense "painful" for Renaissance music, I would
> nevertheless recognize that the tempering of the fifths, for example,
> involves a degree of "stress" -- some stress possibly being a usual
> norm in music as in life.
>
> John A. deLaubenfels,
>
> > That's the $64,000 question. For me, music is a place where the
> greatest possible release from "stress" is paramount. There, it is a
> joy for intervals (including 7:4) to be close to true in the midst of
> frenetic 19th century (etc.) music. But I would not discount the
> opposite experience, especially given how different our ears are (I
> use the word "ears", of course, to refer to the ear/brain combination,
> and, as for the brain, its subdivisions are endless...).
>
> While I don't think this answer's going to get me the sixty-four
> grand, I'll roll it out there anyway for whatever it's worth... From
> an ideological or artistic standpoint, I for one am totally opposed to
> the _idea (the retuned music I'd hope to take a listen at a time; each
> on its own merits as I understand or see them, etc.) of an across the
> board aesthetic that would retune all intervals in all music to a
> given optimal... 110% TOTALLY OPPOSED. However, that's just my view,
> and I wouldn't expect everyone to agree with it!
>
> Dan

-- Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria island
www.anaphoria.com

I'd just like to comment that not enough distinction is being made between
dissonance, which can be used, desired, and even focused on, and plain
out-of-tune-ness, which I would only ever use for beats, as in the beginning
of http://www.xs4all.nl/~huygensf/midi/beatgen.mid
I've experimented with various dissonant intervals (especially the 7/5
tritone) in just and tempered, and the dissonance, or pull to the
resolution, is incariably sharpened. The fact that they are in tune adds the
extra capacity to linger tantalizingly of them before finally resolving,
without the pain.

On a related thought, I think the limit of a piece should be split into two
categories, tuning limit and consonance limit. Tuning limit is the regular,
familiar concept of the highest prime number appearing in a ratio, but
consonance limit is the highest odd multiple that can appear in a final
chord, all the more complex intervals needing to be resolved. Thus in
7-limit 5-consonant music, 7-limit ratios and chords would appear, but they
would always resolve to 5-limit consonances.

Stay Tuned,
Keenan P., JI Fanatic

P.S. Isn't it revealing that the words "temper" and "tamper" have the same
root?...

Keenan Pepper wrote,

> I'd just like to comment that not enough distinction is being made
between dissonance, which can be used, desired, and even focused on,
and plain out-of-tune-ness, which I would only ever use for beats,

While you of course are encouraged to do (and say) whatever it is that
you like here... I would like to say that the main reason I personally
started to explore alternate tunings was to have as many musical
choices, colors, emotions, and methods of intonational interface as I
could to draw from and build upon, and "plain out-of-tune-ness" has
really been one of my very favorite musically useful friends for many,
many years now.

> P.S. Isn't it revealing that the words "temper" and "tamper" have
the same root?...

No, though I've now gone and violated a longstanding family tradition
by acknowledging a rhetorical question...

Stay tuned (or out of tune, or any damn other way you deem fit to
willfully tune!),

Dan