Re: [tuning] Pon-y-mail [Erv Wilson]

Joseph!
A few have referred to Erv in the past tense, so let me state he is is very much ALIVE and
ACTIVE. There is a big lag time between what he is doing and that which he wants to make
public in the archives. It is his desire to follow some of the implications what he is working
on to present a complete picture. More often than not, he will give the newer things to those
who works he likes in order to get some response on the material. There is much older material
that also needs to go up, some which interest him so little at the moment it is hard to get
him to concede to put it up.
He grew up in that adobe house in Pacheco, Chihuahua,
Went to BYU and studied music. Worked as a Draftsman for Lear until his retirement about 10
years ago.
But the gov't and intelligent (?) agencies keep list on all of us, we probably don't need to
keep list on each other. I will dispel with those type of "facts" per se.

As much as he still goes to Pacheco twice a year, he prefers to live in a city because he
believes that is where the exchange of ideas take place. Yet no TV. Prefers the radio which he
listens to. He finally "accepted" an answering machine. He didn't have a refrigerator for
months. He has an ear that is phenomenal. He hears absolutely everything he puts down on
paper. I have watched him meet people for the first time who knew so much less than himself,
and he might ask question after question to find out not so much what they know as much as a
desire to want to find out what musical problem are they seeking to answer. Much of his work
has been the result of such conversation. He is more inclined to give his material related to
what the other person is interested in than his own recent innovations. His concise logic is
beyond anyone I have ever met. Not inclined to anything "supernatural" or occult, or overly
speculative.

As his Father had a seed company , it is of no surprise that his other field of interest is
in cross-breeding of plants for adaptation to better climates, etc. Believes such things are
done in the old fashion way of planting related plants close by, at times to cause
synchronized flowering, all basic native american methods (is opposed to genetic engineering).
Some of the plants he has done extensive work with include
Corn (was spearhead in causing the first marketing of Blue Corn), Quinoa, & Monarda (mint
family).
I mention this because IMHO his attitudes towards scales and his structures i believe is
analogous to his plants. If one saw a tuning structure as a "species", the variations by
individuals would be like the variation in a species. It is "species" that he enjoys making.
He has chosen more the line of work of providing the type of musical material he saw lacking
in order to fertilize the musical arts than in creating "compositions." He felt he could say
more in the long term by "feeding" his fellow artist the type of musical material grounded in
an acoustical basis and/or in "musical archetypes". He would probably consider the Moments of
Symmetry as an Archetype, a "spontaneous" human artifact not limited cultural borders. Much of
his work he does in Dreams

Joseph Pehrson wrote:

> I would like a little more information regarding Erv Wilson's background
> and life. He was obviously a person who didn't like a lot of
> distracting influences -- maybe a kind of modern Thoreau?? I was
> particularly fascinated by the following quote, which accompanies the
> Combination Product Set document we have recently been studying on the
> list:
>
> http://www.anaphoria.com/dal01.html
>
> Erv Wilson:
>
> "A keyboard program that embodies all of the Combination Product Sets on
> the bottom row of figures 3 & 19 was accomplished by September 1974,
> from my adobe house in Pacheco, Chihuahua, and mailed by pony to John
> Chalmers for Xenharmonicon II..."
>
> Now there's a man who doesn't want excessive external influences!
> Forget e-mail... Try pon-y-mail!
>
> __________ _______ ___ __ _
> Joseph Pehrson
>

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