Re: Beardsly and Ehrlich

1) Strats are notorious for occaisionally having
a nasty inharmonic 'warble' on the low
strings (I've only heard it on the low E). I've
always fixed it by lowering the pickups, as it
seemed to be caused by the magnets 'tugging'
some sick anti-node out of the string. I don't
know if this was the particular effect you
were referring to.

2) To work microtonally some, all or none of the
time is a difficult question. It was good to
hear Neil chime in on good music in 12tet.

My musical activities fight for time with my
day job and my family. Daily, I practice guitar
and do some amount of 'deep listenning'.
Occasionally, I
rehearse/jam/perform jazz
compose jazz compositions
play other instruments (drums and keyboards)
do non-musical art (painting and sculpture)
etc...

I WAS going to buy a 31-tet guitar since it
would seem that my existing repetoire would be
realizeable after some practice (at least with
flexible instruments) and it would discretize
some of extensions to 5-limit that I already am
comfortable with (septimal sevenths and thirds,
neutral intervals, a decent 11/8...)

However, there is a commitment here that is
VERY difficult to make. It costs a lot, has a
learning curve (I've been playing 7-string for
about six months now and am still playing all
kinds of new and unexpected mistakes), and I
don't know if thats the 'right' tuning to
make the next 'step' in my music (or even if
tuning investigations are going to be as
beneficial a direction to pursue as, for
instance, grokking more rhythm through my
hand-drumming).

As far as how this all relates to my enjoyment of
the list

a) I like the math, when I understand it
b) I like seeing other peoples mechanisms for
getting a musical process going, whether
that is a list of just ratios, a lattice
showing the capabilitys of a certain EDO,
etc... It all seems to me to be a way of
looking over your materials and getting a
handle on where the tension and resolution
will naturally be found. On this list,
the concentration is on which
intervals are more or less concordant and
will therefor fit into a musical spectrum
of consonance and dissonance. You can
also just jam on the pitch set and discover
what you like. Theres no reason not to
do both.
c) I believe that there ARE fundamental
aspects to harmonic music which
investigations such as the H.E. graphs
bring to light. How much they may influence
my future music, I don't know, nor do I
know how they fit in with musics which
are clearly NOT close approximations to
small fractions.
d) I enjoy exposure to historical and/or
cultural movements (and their musics) which
I wouldn't otherwise get exposed to. Finding
a new music to listen to is one of the
best things that happens.

enough for now,

Bob Valentine