Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup tuning Hot micro times at the AMC

Things are getting pretty "hot" over at the American Music Center
microtonal forum board... I think we will have to agree that we are
pretty "sedate" over here by comparison.... Here are some of the
posts:

*******Anybody remember this guy?? Was he on the Tuning List?? [JP]

Date: September 13, 2000 04:38 PM
Author: Adam B. Silverman (adam@minimumsecurity.org)
Subject: microtonal plusses and minuses

I haven't chimed in about microtonality for quite a while now, but I
used to have avery strong interest in composing microtonal Just
intonation music, and was a avid correspondent on the online tuning
list.

I composed several pieces in just-tunings, and found my
microtonal education to be an excellent way to put together my
thoughts on an aspect of music that many people don't know exists.
Some of my pieces
used instruments with fixed tunings (electric guitars, keyboards and
electronic instruments), and these were performed very well. Those
that I wrote for flexibly-tuned instruments were performed less well,
and I found that they gained no more rehearsal time for their
microtonal intricacies; the time that would ordinarily be spent on
expression was given over to tuning. This generally resulted in dull,
uninformed performances with dubiously accurate tunings.

I also found that, in discussing my music, I became primarily a
teacher of tuning concepts. The other important musical features of
style, structure, melody, and texture seemed to be of no interest
when alternative tunings entered the picture. I found this to be a
form of elitism, and found the gap between composer and performer to
be greatly increased as a result.

In composing music that uses vanilla tuning, I have found much
greater rewards in my relationships with performers and also with
audiences. This is probably because we gain a closer comaraderie by
"speaking the same language." This summer, I spent quite a lot of
time with people who were performing a microtonal piece by Tristan
Murail- a piece in a "spectral" style that was foreign to everyone in
the ensemble. The stylistic aspects were no problem for these
capable performers; the quartertone runs, however, caused much grief
and soured the piece for many of the players. In the end, the
performance sounded quite good, but the overall experience of the
performers was not a positive one.

For those who perform their own music, alone or with a
self-directed ensemble, they certainly could create a situation in
which everyone involved would be thrilled by the process. I don't see
many people doing this with great result, but certainly this was a
great outlet for composers like La Monte Young and Lou Harrison,
who both additionally dealt with bringing foreign cultural
experiences into Western music.

What I'm trying to do is fairly express that I found most
microtonalists to be frustrated with their musical relationships and
experiences. Some of them endure this with a great zeal for the
microtonal "cause," and others seem to hide behind the technical
aspects of microtonality to disguise a lack of inspiration.
Perhaps others simply thrive on adversity.

So I find microtonalism in Western classical music to be a sort
of a cult which has, granted, been a source of inspiration for a few
great musicians. But overall, I have decided to place my energies
elsewhere.

At least for now.

***********[At least "for now?? What does that mean, buddy...
equivocation if I ever heard of it...] [JP]

**********Kyle Gann, "Mr Custer" to the rescue: [JP]

Date: September 14, 2000 04:15 AM
Author: Kyle Gann (kgann@earthlink.net)
Subject: Hiding behind the math

Gee, Adam, I appreciate your honesty, and it's true that a
lot of microtonal composers seem to hide behind the math, and be more
interested in demonstrating the theory than in making expressive
music. But that doesn't mean that there aren't a number of strategies
for achieving beautiful, expressive microtonal music. In fact, I
quite enjoyed your just-intonation string quartet at the last AFMM
microthon, as I'm enjoying the Dan Stearns pieces I'm hearing, which
are anything but dry. For years I've been making music with
synthesizers that presents no additional performance difficulty at
all, and in fact the performers love the feel of playing the familiar
keys and getting an array of totally unfamiliar pitches. A compliment
that I've gotten several times that I greatly treasure is that, in my
music, you can hear the expressive effect of the microtonal chords,
and that the pitches make memorable melodic sense.

It is a question I'd like to see others address: why does so
much microtonal music seem like a mere expression of theory, with no
memorable expressive value. But I don't see it in any way as a
condemnation of microtonality in general, which has existed as a
potential for thousands of years for anyone willing to use its
resources. Microtones do form a tremendous barrier in a conventional
performance situation, but why settle for a conventional performance
situation? I steer clear of those situations for precisely the reason
that, when I write equal temperament music, I feel like I'm
using chords 5000 other composers have already used to death, and I'm
constantly struggling with associations they created; but when I
write in just intonation, I feel like I'm all alone on a new planet,
and it's so much easier to be inspired and spontaneous. Lately I've
gotten several requests from performers for 12-ET music, and I'm
gratifying them, but I can't wait to get back from the crowded
metropolis of 12 tones to the wild, free woods of just intonation.

********Jeff Harrington has his "say" [JP]

Date: September 14, 2000 07:58 AM
Author: Jeff Harrington (jeff@parnasse.com)
Subject: Microtonalism in the Real World

A few comments:

1. Just intonation pieces, I just don't get them.
Especially with winds and string players. They're already playing
just (or something nearby)! Now they have an additional burden of
tuning "as I say" and so their performance is going to suck.

2. Microtonal music as an expression of theory is the
reigning microtonal musical raison d'etre. Why? It's like programming
in C++. You only attract the geeks because it's a pain in the butt
and the rewards are limited. Guess what! Here in the 21st century
we've found a new and unique way to piss audiences off!!!! :) Bad
performances plus never heard before dissonances! :P

You want to attract the cool musicians to write
microtonal music? Well, if they want a live performance, you've got a
ton ofwork with the possibility of a crappy performance at best. If
you have a studio recording you've got the certainty of expensive
recording session. So you're stuck doing pure electronic music. Not
many guys can take a completely new paradigm to musicianship and
create something great with the already problematic electronic
systems
(dull performances due to sequencing and loss of articulative info,
limited dynamic expressiveness and dull tempi due to metronomic
systems).

So here we are! Brave new world, but timidity, and
geekery abound. It's pretty obvious the blood for much of the
interesting new music of the next 100 years is going to come from the
marrow of new tuning systems.

Now my question! Has anybody got that Sethares book's
software to work? Has anyone hear any interest in irrational tunings?
Irrational tunings for specific timbres is fascinating to me right
now. (I'm working on another piece like my Jardin des Merveilles with
bell FM sounds using an irrational tuning system I got from his
book).

jeff - http://www.parnasse.com/jeff.htm -
http://www.mp3.com/Jeff_Harrington

********Gann comes "gunnin'" again: [JP]

Date: September 14, 2000 09:57 AM
Author: Kyle Gann (kgann@earthlink.net)
Subject: Plenty of well-performed JI music

Well, I don't know what just-intonation pieces you're
listening to. I listen to Young's Well-Tuned Piano, Ben Johnston's
Suite for Microtonal Piano, his Quartet No. 4 in the old Fine Arts
Quartet recording, Harry Partch's music with his own ensemble,
Lou Harrison's gamelan music, and my own electronic music, and it's
all perfectly in tune and the performances are excellent. In fact,
I've heard a lot more good performances of just-intonation music than
I have bad, and I feel just as likely to hear bad performances of
ET music.

And once you attune your ears to what just intonation can do,
and hear the sonic world come into focus, you start realizing that
what most performers play is *not* anywhere near just intonation.
I've tasted papaya fresh off the tree in Mexico, and I've eaten
papaya
out of a jar in New York, and they're two different fruits: just like
a pure 5/4 major third is a different and far less vivid interval
than
an ET *almost* major third. But you don't know the difference until
you've sensitized yourself to it. And that's what I object to most,
the fact that musicians are expected to be content with having
systematically desensitized themselves to harmony.

*******Harrington, again, being a little "controversial..." [JP]

Date: September 14, 2000 11:32 AM
Author: Jeff Harrington (jeff@parnasse.com)
Subject: Unjustly accused!

Ha... my comment was on classical musicians in general. Classical
music when it's played without even tempered instruments is
auto-just-tuned typically by musicians. When you hear a Beethoven
String Quartet it's just-tuned! Good musicians re-tune constantly and
it's only when there's a piano involved that things get out of wack.

Good just-tuning is common in the real classical world. It's uncommon
in the microtonal world! :) (JOKE)

Just for the record... I'm not a fanatic about just-tuning. I
don't buy the hype. I don't even enjoy most of the just-tuning
piece I've heard. Can't even think of one I like, to be truthful.

I'm interested in microtonality as a way to find some truly
hard core NEW harmonies and melodies, fresh, amazing and unbelievably
strange. Could really give a shit about just, unjust, this or that in
tuneness. I expect that from myself and from the musicians I work
with.

Playing in tune is a given, I've always thought. Playing
in composer-demanded tuning though, is problematic!

Is Just Tuning merely another composer neurosis???
(ANOTHER JOKE)

jeff - http://www.parnasse.com/jeff.htm -
http://www.mp3.com/Jeff_Harrington

*****Gann has the last word... but then, he has his "Voice" behind
him...[JP]

Date: September 14, 2000 08:45 PM
Author: Kyle Gann (kgann@earthlink.net)
Subject: Cherished myth

Good classical musicians may play in tune, but that does
*not* mean that they play in anything approaching just intonation.
It's often said that old, European string quartets play in just
intonation, and if it was true, it hasn't been in decades. I have an
experiment I do with music students, including at conservatories: I
play a droneon G and ask them to sing a purely in-tune, beatless B.
In
every case, I have invariably gotten a pure, ET, 400-cent B. When I
gradually lead them down 14 cents to the 5/4 B, they are surprised to
learn there's a pitch "notch" there. How can they play in just
intonation if they've never heard the interval in their lives? The
complaint that the piano has ruined the intonation of singers and
string players has been around for the entire century. I know a
choral
conductor in CA, Jeffrey Bernstein, who tunes his choir low on major
thirds at cadences, but I've never seen anyone else do it. And there
might be an exceptional string quartet here and there, but the belief
that classical performers gravitate toward just intonation hasn't been
true in my lifetime. You can tell just by listening.

******If our own intrepid "frequency band" would like to get "into
the
act" and give 'em some REAL background... posts can go here: [JP]

http://www.newmusicbox.org/forum/index.html

________ ____ __ __ _ _
Joseph Pehrson

--- In tuning@egroups.com, "Joseph Pehrson" <josephpehrson@c...>
wrote:
> Things are getting pretty "hot" over at the American Music Center
> microtonal forum board... I think we will have to agree that we
are
> pretty "sedate" over here by comparison.... Here are some of the
> posts:
>
>
> Date: September 13, 2000 04:38 PM
> Author: Adam B. Silverman (adam@m...)
> Subject: microtonal plusses and minuses
>
> So I find microtonalism in Western classical music to be a sort
> of a cult which has, granted, been a source of inspiration for a
few
> great musicians. But overall, I have decided to place my energies
> elsewhere.
>
> At least for now.
>

To this I say: Then retire to the Cozy World of Spoon-Fed Conformity,
so that the rest of us can get on with the tasks at hand.

>
> **********Kyle Gann, "Mr Custer" to the rescue: [JP]
>
> Date: September 14, 2000 04:15 AM
> Author: Kyle Gann (kgann@e...)
> Subject: Hiding behind the math
>
but when I
> write in just intonation, I feel like I'm all alone on a new
planet,
> and it's so much easier to be inspired and spontaneous. Lately I've
> gotten several requests from performers for 12-ET music, and I'm
> gratifying them, but I can't wait to get back from the crowded
> metropolis of 12 tones to the wild, free woods of just intonation.

Profuse thanks to Kyle for all of his well put responses to these
guys.

>
> Date: September 14, 2000 07:58 AM
> Author: Jeff Harrington (jeff@p...)
> Subject: Microtonalism in the Real World
>
> 1. Just intonation pieces, I just don't get them.

And we're supposed to care? Well, I guess that since he doesn't get
it, then we all just need to give up on his authority! HUBRIS in
great abundance.

>
> using an irrational tuning system

How appropriate.

>
> Date: September 14, 2000 09:57 AM
> Author: Kyle Gann (kgann@e...)
> Subject: Plenty of well-performed JI music
>
> Well, I don't know what just-intonation pieces you're
> listening to. I listen to Young's Well-Tuned Piano, Ben Johnston's
> Suite for Microtonal Piano, his Quartet No. 4 in the old Fine Arts
> Quartet recording, Harry Partch's music with his own ensemble,
> Lou Harrison's gamelan music, and my own electronic music, and it's
> all perfectly in tune and the performances are excellent. In fact,
> I've heard a lot more good performances of just-intonation music
than
> I have bad, and I feel just as likely to hear bad performances of
> ET music.
>
> And once you attune your ears to what just intonation can
do,
> and hear the sonic world come into focus, you start realizing that
> what most performers play is *not* anywhere near just intonation.
> I've tasted papaya fresh off the tree in Mexico, and I've eaten
> papaya
> out of a jar in New York, and they're two different fruits: just
like
> a pure 5/4 major third is a different and far less vivid interval
> than
> an ET *almost* major third. But you don't know the difference until
> you've sensitized yourself to it. And that's what I object to most,
> the fact that musicians are expected to be content with having
> systematically desensitized themselves to harmony.

Possibly one of the most profound things I've read in this forum is
stated here. THANKS Kyle - we've been needing you here! Welcome!!!

>
> Date: September 14, 2000 11:32 AM
> Author: Jeff Harrington (jeff@p...)
> Subject: Unjustly accused!
>
> Just for the record... I'm not a fanatic about just-tuning. I
> don't buy the hype. I don't even enjoy most of the just-tuning
> piece I've heard. Can't even think of one I like, to be truthful.
>
> I'm interested in microtonality as a way to find some truly
> hard core NEW harmonies and melodies, fresh, amazing and
unbelievably
> strange. Could really give a shit about just, unjust, this or that
in
> tuneness.

> Playing in tune is a given, I've always thought. Playing
> in composer-demanded tuning though, is problematic!
>
> Is Just Tuning merely another composer neurosis???

To each his own - BTW isn't Megalomania a neurosis?

>
> Date: September 14, 2000 08:45 PM
> Author: Kyle Gann (kgann@e...)
> Subject: Cherished myth
>
> Good classical musicians may play in tune, but that does
> *not* mean that they play in anything approaching just intonation.
> It's often said that old, European string quartets play in just
> intonation, and if it was true, it hasn't been in decades. I have
an
> experiment I do with music students, including at conservatories: I
> play a droneon G and ask them to sing a purely in-tune, beatless B.
> In
> every case, I have invariably gotten a pure, ET, 400-cent B. When I
> gradually lead them down 14 cents to the 5/4 B, they are surprised
to
> learn there's a pitch "notch" there. How can they play in just
> intonation if they've never heard the interval in their lives? The
> complaint that the piano has ruined the intonation of singers and
> string players has been around for the entire century. I know a
> choral
> conductor in CA, Jeffrey Bernstein, who tunes his choir low on
major
> thirds at cadences, but I've never seen anyone else do it. And
there
> might be an exceptional string quartet here and there, but the
belief
> that classical performers gravitate toward just intonation hasn't
been
> true in my lifetime. You can tell just by listening.

As Joseph has said before, you can tell the difference between
experience and theory about experience.

Jacky Ligon

Hot micro times at the AMC

🔗Joseph Pehrson <josephpehrson@compuserve.com>

🔗Jacky Ligon <jacky_ekstasis@yahoo.com>

🔗Paul H. Erlich <PERLICH@ACADIAN-ASSET.COM>