Re: [tuning] Re: electric Harry

Allen:

It's not a question of electronics or not, but simply of what instruments
Partch wanted.

In the 1st edition of _Genesis_, the amplification of the adapted guitars
and the Kithara (with a phonograph needle stuck into the soundboard) is
already apparent, the scores occasionally include remarks about vocalist use
of the microphone, and he continued to specify amplification when he wanted
it up through the Mazda Marimba and the "g" tuning fork heard at the
beginning of _The Dreamer That Remains_. Double- and half-speed tape
manipulation is required for _Windsong_/_Daphne of the Dunes_, _Revelation_,
and _Water! Water!_ and overdubbing was required to realize several works
from the _Intrusions_ through _Petals_.

Partch's scores are always clear about pitch, instrumentation, and, when
metric, rhythm. When he wanted a string quartet (as in _Water! Water!_, but
definitely not in _Barstow_) he asked for it. He did indeed consider
electronic alternatives to the harmonium (at least once in a
less-than-serious scam to reroute research funds) but never did he suggest
in a score the use of an alternative. In my last posting, I indicated some
of the musical problems involved in finding a synthesized surrogate for a
Chromelodeon but thus far no one has suggested any ways to overcome these.

Daniel Wolf

> Indeed- I think it was Bewitched (1955?) that Harry used real-time
> recording/performance to record live one section of the dance to be
> played back later in the pieces at twice the speed (of course 8va
> higher). This was one of the first instances of "live electronic music"
> that I know of! I heard a performance last year with NewBand in San
> Francisco- correct me if I am wrong about the piece and/or date.
>
> Cheers-
>
> Allen Strange
> ********************************************

Daniel Wolf wrote:

>In my last posting, I indicated some
>of the musical problems involved in finding a synthesized surrogate for a
>Chromelodeon but thus far no one has suggested any ways to overcome these.
>
These were:

>In particular, the swell levers are extremely
>difficult to replace, and Partch's scoring uses the swells, octave stops,
>and the low-pressure sounds of large (keyboard-chromatic) clusters at
>essential moments.

If I fully understand your descriptions (which I likely don't), I don't see
any major problems to electronic reproduction of the Chromelodeon. If
swells are mostly a matter of volume, there are many MIDI footpedals or
other add-ons that easily effect that. Depending on the synth/sampler, such
controller input can also be made to affect various other parameters.
Octave stops are easily created with multiple "layers" (called various
things on different synths) or at least as different samples. I don't know
what the sonic effect of the low pressure is, but, depending on the
polyphony of a particular box, clusters are no more a problem on a synth
than any other keyboard.

Of course a sampler will never sound exactly like a Chromelodeon because
its sound goes through a loudspeaker. Nevertheless, I think that there is
evidence that Partch would have happily have adopted such an electronic
keyboard if the technology had been available to him -- though perhaps he
would have then written different music. Who knows? It's the kind of
what-if game that long ago got tiresome in the old "original instrument"
wars with early music folks. (Would Bach have written differently if he had
had a modern piano? Who cares?)

Bill

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^ Harvey Mudd College URL: http://www2.hmc.edu/~alves/ ^
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[From a post Yosemite-Lassen- Shasta Journey]
Post-Partchites!
This aspect of Partch pointed out by Jonathan is important in the discussion about the
Chromelodeon.
As we have to remember Partch was a creator of theatre. To see a DX on stage with a speaker in
"Delusion" or any of his other works would be a far from his theater as possible. Electronics?
Haven't you ever notice his almost lack of such elements as METAL. This would have given his
tuning far more sustain, but his theater required something else. What Partch didn't do is
almost as important as what he did. When shown the Motorola Scalatron Organ his comment was
"You are 40 years too late". This comment was a comment coming from his own life theatre. I
don't think he really would have use it then.
It appears that I have worked with pump organs more than anyone else on this list which is
a bit of a surprise. 20 years. Something I would not even thought about. Being the case, I
would like to make a few comments that might shed some light. They are very frustrating
instruments for a variety of reasons of which tuning is just one. That Partch thought that
Brass was a bad choice of reeds, i will disagree with . For the most part they hold their
tuning over very long periods of time. Metal has a certain amount of memory as to its tuning.
I believe the problem he was having was caused by something by a different phenomenon. Air
Pressure. now different air pressure will change the pitch of a reed you are playing. So when
tuning you have to make sure that you pump at the same speed for every reed. Now the amount of
pressure between when you play one tone compared to when you play an 8 tone chord is large
enough to cause a difference in pitch. I assume that Partch didn't notice (like myself) till
after he made that comment. In playing these instruments one has to read adjust ones pumping
speed depending on what you are playing. They are not absolute fixed pitched instruments which
can make them somewhat unpredictable. I am sure temperature would have some effect but I
always tune around about 70 degrees. He might have not. Another aspect of a Pump Organ or
Chromelodeon is the way it interacts with mallet instruments. They do not blend easily and
things that work well alone sound bad in combination. My own use of organs with these other
instruments has been so much trial and error, that at times I abandoned there use
altogether. I am sure Bill Sethares could explain this but what i would like from such
explorations is more for this type of research to tell me what would sounds good on the organ
with the metal and wood. So far unisons and dyads doubled in octaves seem to sound the best to
my ear. I am sure there more waiting to be discovered. Many times I have thought of using
electronic instruments and use one occasionally. I can say that despite my quite different
temperament from Partch, I feel the say way as him in this case.
If I hadn't read Lou Harrisons comment about designing an orchestra as opposed to an
instrument(s), I probably might have fallen in to the many traps that Partch fell into. His
string instrument fail to have any volume at all much less hold there tuning. The use of
piano/autoharp pins would have made tighter strings possible, thus more volume. But from a
theatre point of view, the latter looks better. Partch seem to make decisions that had more to
do with going for his total vision as opposed to suggesting a philosophy of "practicality".

"Jonathan M. Szanto" wrote:

> I would suggest he was a finder of ancient performance ideals, and a dreamer.

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

Actually, the reed organs, before being Chromelodeonized, were considerably
more ornamented, with florid woodcarving in the oak cases. (The 1st edition
of _Genesis_ shows at least one of the organs in its American version of
Victorian elegance). The case for one of the organs was removed and became
the keys in the Xy- half of the XymoZyl.

From: Jonathan M. Szanto <JSZANTO@ADNC.COM>

Carl Lumma wrote:

>And imagine a stock reed organ there on stage, as compared to the object
>of art that Partch called the Chromelodeon. Art can be anywhere, Jon.

I didn't say "stock", youngster, and I didn't say unadorned. HP started
with stock reed organs, save for the original Chromelodeon, which was lost,
that he "says" he built from the ground up in London (see Gilmore, etc.)

My guess is that few have had the chance to pour over Enclosure 3: there is a
lot of fantastic material in it. Gilmore is good, but he is still second
hand. First hand material is indeed eye opening, if not always ear opening,
or at least, mind expanding.

Thank you, Jon, for recognizing its hefty (though fair) price. 2 other
points; it is too detailed for a normal library visit. I am anxious to post
some new material, but I don't have it with me. It is very, very heavy (as
in hard on the back).

Johnny Reinhard

Carl Lumma wrote:

>Or is it just that your idea of Partch as warm, fuzzy bits of wood and
>string doesn't jive with your idea of electronics?

Lou Harrison wrote (in his "ITEM: THOUGHTS WHILE DESIGNING A GAMELAN" in XH
7&8):

"He (Partch) favored wood; for I well remember asking him, on a San
Francisco streetcar, why he didn't make & use instruments of metal. His
response was "Well, I like wood & Bamboo & am doing that --- why don't you
do metal?"

Partch's _Genesis_ is largely a treatise on his notion of the corporeal. The
corporeal, in Partch's aesthetic, is a constant demand for authenticity in
the music-theatrical experience. Ratios of small whole numbers and their
performance on instruments whose very physical character mediated between
the playing body and the acoustic realization of those ratios in the
theatrical space were both parts of that aesthetic. The only surrogates he
seems ever to have accepted were the small instrument called on to assist
the overworked kitharist and the device for simulating railroad horns (and
whose very name suggests perhaps other horned contexts).

Lou Harrison's music for gamelan can, to large extent, be realized on any
Javanese-style instruments, with a variety of tuning. He has made his scores
widely available just for that purpose. Understanding and accepting the
varieties of realization to which that can lead is one emblem of Lou's
generous and open character as well as an outgrowth of his experience with
percussion music of abstract pitch and with Indonesian musical tradition.
Likewise, Lou is terribly enthusiastic about David Doty's electronic
realization of his "Simfony in Free Style".

Partch, on the other hand, never had much interest in publishing his scores
(only two were published in full during his lifetime), both as a way of
protecting his own performance monopoly and as a realization of the
practical difficulties in realizing the scores. But he did will his
instruments to be used in the future, rather than be destroyed in a second
_auto da f�_ and his intellectual testament, _Genesis of a Music_, contains
such detailed information about his instrument designs, tunings, and playing
techniques, that one cannot help but read this book as an invitation to take
up carpentry for oneself.

The idea of realizing a Partch score is daunting. First, forget most of what
you've previously learned about music and theatre, second, build an
orchestra.... The only parallel that comes to my mind is fictional, Borge's
"Pierre Menard", who attempted to write _Don Quixote_ by living the life of
Cervantes. I'm not suggesting that you have to spend a decade on the bum or
suffer Partch's various ills and anxieties in order to play his music, but
you damn well better spend some time in the American Southwest and Pacific,
and a few blisters on the hands from the workbench or on the feet from
pumping a reed organ are probably prerequisite to admission into this
particular corner of musical paradise.

Daniel Wolf
Frankfurt

In an answer to a letter to Leigh Gerdine (former President of Webster
College in St. Louis, and translator of several 31-TET items, working closely
with D.A. Fokker of The Netherlands), Harry Partch wrote the following on
June 4, 1944:

"In answer to your questions:
1. Electronic instruments. I am tremendously interested, but I have always
had to work on a small budget or none at all. I've had to stick to what I
could do, and I've built my entire orchestra for an amount that would hardly
budget one single musical electronic experiment.

"However, I do not think that I rationalize when I say that I hope we never
abandon the natural world of direct sound--entirely. Percussion is direct,
the guitar is direct: the piano is not so direct, and electronic instruments
generally, do not have the direct potentiality.

"2. Some keyboard system. Since you know my book you know that I built--away
back in 1935--a reed organ with something resembling a typewriter keyboard.
I still think that it, or something like it, is a good idea, and I've spent
many hours detailing the capabilities that I would like to see in an
electronic keyboard instrument--possibly with a typewriter keyboard, with
engineers. The thousand dollars that Guggenheim gave the Microwave
Laboratory for materials on this project did not lead to the hearing of a
single tone, by my ears at least. The difficulty for a composer who must get
his music heard in order to survive is players. There is at least a
possibility that I will find a musician willing to play my present
Chromelodeon, whereas this would become an improbability in the case of the
typewriter keyboard."

(page 229 of Enclosures 3)
----

This brings up many thoughts and feelings. Perhaps I'll open it up to the
forum first.

Johnny Reinhard
AFMM