RE: [tuning] Cecil Taylor/Improvisation

I agree with you Jacky, and think that sonorities containing multiple
fourths, fifths, major seconds, and major ninths have become much more
prevalent in piano music written since the universal adoption of 12-tET (in
the West) around 1850 due to the fact that these intervals are closer to
just than they were in most of the tuning systems used since 1500.

Jacky wrote,

> Today I was listening to Cecil Taylor's "Air above Mountains -
Buildings Within" from 1976, and an interesting question came to mind:
Would this music even be possible in a tuning other than 12 tET?

IMO, absolutely. Kind of like the Godowsky example that came up a few
days ago ("Java Suite"), I think that a given musics tuning is not one
of the more dominant conveyers of a given musics style, or rather
overall impact. (Note that this is different from a dominant or
prominent shaper of music.) This is probably not going to be a popular
view here at the tuning list, but it has been my experience.

> It would be great if there was some software that could achieve this
kind of analysis of a midi file, by allowing you to input the
intervals of the tuning that was used, then be able to look inside of
the moment-to-moment choices that a 12 tET improviser made during a
first exposure to the tuning - and be able to quantify the choices.
Two things it might reveal are the deficits of 12 tET and the
strengths of the tuning used - providing intuitive information based
on improvisation.

I don't really see how this sort of a first exposure approach could
really tell much more than some very basic (and most likely trivial)
things about the particular improviser and the particular tuning. I
would tend to think the 'magic' and the 'secrets' come from a body of
committed music (be it improvised or composed or whatever).

> Perhaps a "12 Tetter" would gravitate to things that are better than
what they are used to.

Perhaps, but as you said earlier, (and I agree) "it's way too
subjective of a thing to ever be universally quantified."

Dan