microtonal guitars etc., etc.

I wrote,

<< If blatantly, explicitly twelve-tone equal temperament instruments
are hanging on the walls of all the music stores kids (and the
curious) are gonna grab 'em and check them out. It can be no other
way. >>

Whoops... that should've read *NON* twelve-tone equal temperament
instruments:

"If blatantly, explicitly non twelve-tone equal temperament
instruments are hanging on the walls of all the music stores kids (and
the curious) are gonna grab 'em and check them out. It can be no other
way."

Seems like everyone read through the omission as though it were there
though, and my point came across as intended?

I once did a workshop with John Abercrombie and Ralph Towner, and I
remember Towner talking about his improvisational approach and how it
hinged on "setting things in motion", and that once certain things
were set into motion you could drop them altogether and in a very real
sense they would still be there... Funny, but this kind of works with
email too. I often find myself reading right through others mistakes
as though they're not even there so long as the meat of the matter has
already been set in motion.

I think things are getting better as far as more microtonal guitars
are popping up with more frequency. But I think it's really going to
take a "sound" to get a lot of people saying, "damn, check that
out..." I think someone like Tom Morello would be PERFECT for
fretless... the guys in Korn for quarter-tone guitars, Metheny for JI
or some other more colorful 'tonal' tuning, etc., etc.

If it were just about something looking cool, then I think Catler's
G&L just guitar would already rule the world <g>... But I think it's
gonna take a highly visible person with a striking sound who also
preaches some strain of the xenharmonic gospel with a bit of gusto.

Via, McLaughlin, Fiuczynski, none of these guys have had anything
close to that combination all synced up and out there. It simply
hasn't happened yet. But it will! <"any day now", "any day"...>

In the past I've kind of felt like I didn't really give a rat's hat if
no one "big" pushed "the cause", 'cause I kind of like quite places to
call my own... so the hell with 'em all! But in-between my craggy
muttering I can't help but think that it's going to happen anyway, so
let it begin I say...

12-tET's plenty cool enough, but the ol' monopolist has seriously over
saturated its resources and it's only a matter of time and
circumstance before the its omnipresent stranglehold begins to loosen.

--Dan Stearns

--- In tuning@egroups.com, "D.Stearns" <STEARNS@C...> wrote:

http://www.egroups.com/message/tuning/16650

> 12-tET's plenty cool enough, but the ol' monopolist has seriously
over saturated its resources and it's only a matter of time and
> circumstance before the its omnipresent stranglehold begins to
loosen.
>
> --Dan Stearns

Yes, and Dan, it seems at this point that it is pretty difficult to
write original "serioso" concert art music in 12-tET that is not:

1) Minimalism

2) Prokofievian rewrites of history

3) Serialism (still) or "derivative" pieces in a more extended
"theatrical" version of this genre

4) Theatre pieces

Why, of course, as has been discussed on this list, there is the
occasional original who fights all the odds and comes up with an
original voice in 12-tET these days... but the language is pretty
much exhausted... it has been hammered with minimalism,
chromaticized, rotated, set-theoried and turned upside down and
backwards,re-written by tonalist neo-romantics (yecch!) under the
guise of the old "New Romanticism" that was written better by many
composers years ago...

No, it's time for "fresh air" and it's going to happen. In fact, it
*IS* happening, and we have the technology now to back it up!

_________ ___ __ __
Joseph Pehrson