11/13 and spiritual

I wanted to weigh in on some of the issues flying around. I use 11 and
13 limit with extreme trepidation. The 11th or 13th chord in 12ET are
just another two chords. But the same in JT have really "burned" me in
the past. I'd have to look at my drafts, but I believe it was the just
major 11th chord that marred a harmonious climax I was going for. My
guess is that it wasn't prepared correctly. But the way I corrected the
offending passage was just to eliminate the offending 11th. The voices
were leading to a climax at which point I thought an 11th chord might be
the chord to which everything was leading, but I was wrong. It was an
experiment that blew up in my hands.

I had more success using the 11th in an earlier piece where the 11th was
introduced before the rest of the chord. And I think this showed me how
carefully one needs to approach this tone. In this situation, the 11th
appearing alone was no big deal, but when the rest of the chord comes
in, the 11th makes it sound very different, even fresh.

My experience with microtonal composition is that a lot of the rules of
voice leading developed via 12 ET just don't work in these more cramped
conditions. And I think Danielou points this out with his universal
harmonic scale and its avoidance of 7. One example that comes to mind
is a kind of Landini cadence idea I once used, whereby the leading tone
keeps going higher by microtones. Logic might dictate it would become
"more" of a leading tone the higher it got, but perhaps because of the
other voices, my ear now hears it as jarring. In this case, the term
"leading tone" seems suspect.

To amplify on Danielous avoidance of 7, my impression is that the 7
seems to lead away from tonic too much and it destroys the the tonal
center so important to East Indian music. I noticed in my analysis of
one Japanese shakuhachi piece, the same applies.

Elliott Carter, by the way, hears all microtonal music as
"out-of-tune." And I think that is the fine line the serious composer
needs to address.

I'm thinking of the way just intervals are used in folk music and in
popular music where the pure intervals help to amplify the music and
bring music "in tune."

In terms of the spiritual quality of music, I equate "spiritual" with
the concern we all share about just intonation. The concept behind
"miracle" in Smokey Robinson and the Miracles or the "delicate
harmonies" used to describe pygmy music might be reduced to tonal
ratios.

RT

>Elliott Carter, by the way, hears all microtonal music as
>"out-of-tune."

Personally, I hear all of Elliott Carter's music as "out of tune."

Bill

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^ Bill Alves email: alves@hmc.edu ^
^ Harvey Mudd College URL: http://www2.hmc.edu/~alves/ ^
^ 301 E. Twelfth St. (909)607-4170 (office) ^
^ Claremont CA 91711 USA (909)607-7600 (fax) ^
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Bill Alves wrote:

> From: alves@orion.ac.hmc.edu (Bill Alves)
>
> >Elliott Carter, by the way, hears all microtonal music as
> >"out-of-tune."
>
> Personally, I hear all of Elliott Carter's music as "out of tune."
>
> Bill

Go get him bill. Carter music is easy to analyze. On paper you can see it
all. despite this you can't hear even after seeing it! sometimes it is
successful but not because of what the composer is trying to do!
-- Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island
www.anaphoria.com

Ouch
i dig Elliot Carters music and it is hard for me to believe such an
innovator spoke in such a manner but maybe he was taling about Haba--hah!

Bill Alves wrote:

> From: alves@orion.ac.hmc.edu (Bill Alves)
>
> >Elliott Carter, by the way, hears all microtonal music as
> >"out-of-tune."
>
> Personally, I hear all of Elliott Carter's music as "out of tune."
>
> Bill
>
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> ^ Bill Alves email: alves@hmc.edu ^
> ^ Harvey Mudd College URL: http://www2.hmc.edu/~alves/ ^
> ^ 301 E. Twelfth St. (909)607-4170 (office) ^
> ^ Claremont CA 91711 USA (909)607-7600 (fax) ^
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
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>From: Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@anaphoria.com>
>Go get him bill. Carter music is easy to analyze. On paper you can see it
>all. despite this you can't hear even after seeing it! sometimes it is
>successful but not because of what the composer is trying to do!

I remember an issue of Perspectives of New Music years ago that had on the
CD a piano piece by Brian Fernyhough (sp?) and in the rag a 50 page paper by
him on the structure of the piece. I swear that any competant pianist could
improvise something that would sound similar. Isn't it interesting that
extremes of structural complexity end up sounding random? Carter's string
quartets sound like four people sawing away in their own worlds, also easily
simulated improvisationally. Ives went for a similar effect in parts of his
string quartets but with much better results I'd say, and within the context
of other parts where the players are playing together. Schoenberg opened the
door to the overly-abstracted side of 12tet which comes to anti-fruition in
Babbit et al. I think that stuff is pretty much played out now and will in
the future be of little interest except to musicologists looking for obscure
and forgotten 20thc. music to write their dissertations about. I took a look
at Carters "Changes" for solo guitar but got impatient with trying to play
rhythms that are better realized by a machine and sounds that have no rhyme
nor reason (to my ears). Actually I think its the combination of over
abstraction of sound and rhythm at the same time that puts that music beyond
the pale. One or the other works better, thats why Schoenberg's serial
tonality set in late romantic rhetoric is more listenable. Conversely,
Thelonius Monk's sometimes far out rhythmic abstraction is framed by tonal
harmony and also works.

dante

"I remember an issue of Perspectives of New Music years ago that had on the
CD a piano piece by Brian Fernyhough (sp?) and in the rag a 50 page paper
by him on the structure of the piece. I swear that any competant pianist
could improvise something that would sound similar."

Are you thinking of Richard Toop's analysis of the Ferneyhough? I found it
extremely amusing to read how F. initially chose a set of chordal materials
on the basis of their subjective ugliness. There was certainly a lot of
'system' in how the materials were worked out, but this is audible only at
a very local level. We are left then with only the materials governing the
overall coherence of the piece and their unsystematic nature, in the end,
leads to an impression that it is essentially an improvisation on paper.
Toop -- folowing his messy fall-out with the Stockhausen -- struggles
mighty hard to claim F. as the saviour of the serial cause, but even he
lacks conviction.

Richard Barrett, to my ears one of the best of the complexity camp, came
directly from a background in improvisation, and he sometimes succeeds in
finding a good balance between spontaneity and the discipline of notation.

Rosati wrote:

> Schoenberg opened the
> door to the overly-abstracted side of 12tet which comes to anti-fruition in
> Babbit et al. I think that stuff is pretty much played out now and will in
> the future be of little interest except to musicologists looking for obscure
> and forgotten 20th

I have always found it interesting that two different girlfriend and my
daughter have requested that I take off the music of one composer, no other.
Schoenberg. I mean I've played stockhausen and even Elliot Carter!He knew about
53 even and wouldn't take the leap!
-- Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island
www.anaphoria.com

>I have always found it interesting that two different girlfriend and my
daughter have requested that I take off the music of one composer, no
other. Schoenberg. I mean I've played stockhausen and even Elliot Carter!
He knew about 53 even and wouldn't take the leap!
-- Kraig Grady<

First, Thanks for clearing up the scale! It could well be that the
influence on Debussy was more of a way of hearing. There is his use of
Pentatonic scales as especially his use of Pentatonic chords. There are
passages where he rocks between two chords mush like you have in passages
of the Wayang. Would not these type of passages possibly be common in
pieces with Dance?
-- Kraig Grady

KG -

Isn't the difficulty with Schoenberg more in his expressionistic style than
in his use of 12tet? If he had composed in 53, it's unlikely that his style
would have changed. Indeed, 53 -- which is far from the most suitable
temperament for the kinds of thick harmonies he favored in the tonal works
-- might have made his tonal practice even more restless. Since symmetry
and complementarity are such important organizing principles for
Schoenberg, he might have been much more attracted to working with
combination-product sets...

I've heard (and played in) a lot of wayang, both Javanese and Sundanese,
but I don't quite get what you're after. As I wrote before, I think you're
not going to find a convincing example of a material influence of gamelan
on Debussy. As for pentatonic materials, there are plenty of European
sources to look at, and rocking between chords in the way you describe
sounds more like Satie or Mussorgsky or French folk song, than anything
Indonesian. If there is an influence from Java, I think that it is
something more subtle to be found in his keyboard writing and in his
instrumental textures, for example in _En Blanc et Noir_ or my favorite
_Six Epigraphes Antiques_.

Daniel Wolf wrote:

>
>
> KG -
>
> Isn't the difficulty with Schoenberg more in his expressionistic style than
> in his use of 12tet? If he had composed in 53, it's unlikely that his style
> would have changed.

I think you or right, his music in 53 would be the same caliber

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