Maneri/VanDuyne 72-tET book

Monz wrote,

>This brings to mind another comment I had: we discussed the
>Maneri/VanDuyne 72-tET book a little, with you and Daniel Wolf
>(from an old post I dredged up) casting doubts against its
>theoretical rigor. While I can't say I disagree with either
>of you, I have worked thru the book (at least a bit) and see
>it as an eminently useful *ear-training* guide. I think perhaps
>the strongest criticism I can level against the book is that
>it carries the title ('P[r]eliminary Studies in the Virtual
>Pitch-continuum), while aptly vague, could have been more
>meaningful: it should be viewed as a *practical* ear-training
>manual, and not as any kind of theoretical exegis.

I don't know if I would have questioned its "theoretical rigor" since it's
not a theory book, as you say. However, I would certainly make use of the
intervals among the first 12 harmonics as a way of teaching a large
proportion of the 72-tET intervals. This book does not make any reference to
the harmonic series.

--- In tuning@egroups.com, "Paul H. Erlich" <PERLICH@A...> wrote:
> http://www.egroups.com/message/tuning/12680
>
> I don't know if I would have questioned its "theoretical rigor"
> since it's not a theory book, as you say. However, I would
> certainly make use of the intervals among the first 12 harmonics
> as a way of teaching a large proportion of the 72-tET intervals.
> This book does not make any reference to the harmonic series.

Yes, you're right there. I didn't mean to misquote you, I was just
basing my comment on my memory of your post a few days ago.

But I'm pretty sure that their omission of any reference to
harmonics is intentional. Maneri and Van Duyne in this book seem
to be specifically intent on training their student's ears to
hear *divisions of the continuum*. IOW, the 72-tET *notation*
is only an expedient in understanding parts of the continuum that
are 'in the cracks' between 12-tET; it is *not* meant to refer
to any kind of rational harmonic underpinning.

What I found so interesting as I worked on the exercises (as I've
already said here twice) is that with my JI background, I couldn't
*prevent* myself from hearing the intervals as pseudo-JI. Of
course, this is because 72-tET is such a good approximation to
the ratios and because it's highly consistent.

I think I can pretty easily agree with you that the book would
have been enriched by an inclusion of reference to the harmonics.
But the authors are coming from a fundamentally 'different place'
than you and I.

-monz
http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/homepage.html

--- In tuning@egroups.com, " Monz" <MONZ@J...> wrote:
> http://www.egroups.com/message/tuning/12683
>
> I think I can pretty easily agree with you that the book would
> have been enriched by an inclusion of reference to the harmonics.
> But the authors are coming from a fundamentally 'different place'
> than you and I.

Hmmm... I just realized there's a pretty good unintentional pun
in that last sentence. :)

-monz
http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/homepage.html