more ntets: Wilson

Joseph Monzo wrote:

You're much more familiar with Wilson's work than I am. But
another difficulty with putting him on this particular list
is that it's my understanding that these various "moduli"
numbers simply refer to the number of tones per "octave", and
do not necessarily stipulate or imply that they are to be
considered equal-temperaments. Please clarify if possible.

answer:

In every case I mentioned Wilson was using the ET. In parallel, he
explored non-ETS tunings using the ETS modulus or constant structure
to design keyboard and notation layouts, but that does in no way
diminish the intensity of his work in the ETs.

DJW

Joe And Dan!
When I first started working with Erv in "75, he was primarily
concerned with ET systems, leaning in those days to 31 and 41 as his
possible personal favorites. He investigated all of them. I believe it
was those around him, like myself and others, that served as examples to
expose more of his own JI thinking. At this point out side of 72 and
some very large ET's I think he finds it uninteresting, comparing it to
putting up telephone poles so many yards away regardless of the terrain.

My biggest gripe with McLaren Article is its complete bias to ET.
After all being the first to build an instrument in the the complete CPS
is just as important as any ET. In fact Each JI scale should be treated
on the same level as ETS. Also people like Boomsliter and Creel and
Omitted. BUt we need a history that isn't so bias toward ETS and non
acoustic music

djwolf1@matavnet.hu wrote:

> Joseph Monzo wrote:
>
> You're much more familiar with Wilson's work than I am. But
> another difficulty with putting him on this particular list
> is that it's my understanding that these various "moduli"
> numbers simply refer to the number of tones per "octave", and
> do not necessarily stipulate or imply that they are to be
> considered equal-temperaments. Please clarify if possible.
>
> answer:
>
> In every case I mentioned Wilson was using the ET. In parallel, he
> explored non-ETS tunings using the ETS modulus or constant structure
> to design keyboard and notation layouts, but that does in no way
> diminish the intensity of his work in the ETs.
>
> DJW
>
>
>
>
>
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-- Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria island
http://www.anaphoria.com

The Wandering Medicine Show
Wed. 8-9 KXLU 88.9 fm

There is, as Dan Stearns pointed out, a lot of stuff in the McLaren
article, but much of it is plain wrong. For example his
identification of Douglas Leedy, one of our finest composers, as "a
microtonal bibliographer". If we want our interests taken seriously
outside of our small circle, we have to demonstrate our seriousness
and respect by at least trying to keep things accurate.

For a long period McLaren managed to foist things onto this list
without ever lowering himself to actually becoming a member. In this
way, he could spout out all he wanted without ever having to take
responsibilty for his writings, that is, by answering criticism in a
civil dialogue. Instead, when he happened to hear of criticism, he
would reply with invective. In my case, by making exactly this
complaint about McLaren, the list received a public attack about
myself and my music -- of which he had probably never heard one note -
- that had no factual basis and, in its www immortality, has caused a
demonstrable injury.

I would be delighted if McLaren would condescend to join the group
and actually discuss matters. If he's capable of it, his own work
might be even improved by some dialogue. For example, I'd like to
suggest some improvements to his German translations in his extensive
bibilography, some of which are misleading if not plain wrong. For
example, he translates the _Tonbeziehungen_ (Tone Relations or
Relationships)as Tone Manifestation.

In addition, you have to wonder why someone would cultivate a writing
style imitating that of Ivor Darreg, especially when one has not had
to suffer the indignities of Darreg's life?

Daniel Wolf

Kraig Grady wrote:

> My biggest gripe with McLaren Article is its complete bias to
ET.
> After all being the first to build an instrument in the the
complete CPS
> is just as important as any ET. In fact Each JI scale should be
treated
> on the same level as ETS. Also people like Boomsliter and Creel and
> Omitted. BUt we need a history that isn't so bias toward ETS and non
> acoustic music
>

Douglas Leedy and I have had correspondence, and in fact he turned over
editorial responsibility for the New Grove article on Tui St. George Tucker
to me many years ago. Somehow, I never yet to hear any of Leedy's music and
only think I saw a score or two (which I no longer remember). So it does not
seem to me that Brian McLaren is "plain wrong" in describing Leedy as "a
microtonal bibliographer." Indeed we all have different taste. I am also "a
microtonal bibliographer," even if this does not present the full picture of
my person, or even a primary one.

McLaren actually encouraged me to belong to the list. He sent me a floppy
disc with a year's worth of list discussion. After that, I was egged on to
get my fledgling internet skills in tow. He is one of the pioneers of this
list, no?

Re McLaren's "Darreg-esque" writing style, I'm not sure Darreg himself needed
to be in any particular style because of life experience. Simply put,
McLaren is acerbic if not acidic, provocative if not incendiary, and
accomplishing if not exhaustive.

Most recently, McLaren released a CD with representation of many others, some
from this list, and sent it out gratis. It is this selflessness of spirit
that makes him a valuable force in our sphere. Regarding Daniel Wolf's
concern that McLaren doesn't take his criticism fairly, I can only report
anecdotally that I have certainly had opportunity to rip into his more
audacious comments both in person and by telephone, and by letter. He has
always reconsidered his positions, often changing them, as a result.

Re music composition...hmn....how do you tell someone you don't care for
their music when you really like the person. (very difficult, but it has to
happen if you really like the person) When you are not honest over a long
period of time, it seems akin to a disorder that develops and gets worse.
It's not much easier to tell total strangers, let alone people you don't get
on with, that you don't care for their music.

Remember all those doctoral candidates who claimed they will wait until after
they get their PhDs before they write articles about what they "really" mean.
(well, I do)
It never happens, if rarely. McLaren, however, gives us polemics like a true
Clinton.

Unfortunately, McLaren does get mean and he won't be the first or last to
upset. However, I think genuine inaccuracies in McLaren's compilations
should be put onto the list and rigorously evaluated. McLaren will surely
recalculate. I am also disturbed by McLaren's false assertion which are on
the web. Daniel also puts his opinions on his web site and I do not approve
of his assertions, yet am helpless to do anything about it.

IMHO, there are many different personalities abounding, and we need to keep
the big tent and not allow visceral difficulties to turn into unprofessional
animosities.

Johnny Reinhard

--- In tuning@y..., Afmmjr@a... wrote:
> IMHO, there are many different personalities abounding, and we need
to keep
> the big tent and not allow visceral difficulties to turn into
unprofessional
> animosities.
>
> Johnny Reinhard

Johnny,

I want to warmly thank you for the openness and depth of good spirit
you display in this message. It is indeed challenging to overcome
these shadows of the past. And my feeling is that we need each other
more than we don't. You make a great first stride toward healing.

As a person who was not around during all this, it has been quite
tough to make sense of all the possible first causes for it, which
are largely irrelevant to me as someone in the humble position of
coming here to learn and share music. I believe our cause must
outweigh any bad feeling left over from all this, although I'm not
sure what the complete answer is, if indeed there is one.

What I do recognize as a relatively newcomer to this virtual internet
world, is that generosity of spirit, and mutual patient
understanding, is what will create an environment that is positive
and inclusive to all, and will cause more people to look toward what
we do, where factionalism or continued stirring of the sediments of
the past will perpetuate the opposite.

I must openly admit to a bit of deep sadness in coming into this
world I had not known before Joe Monzo made me aware of it, to find
the divisions I see. I sincerely wish I knew what the answer is, but
I know that mutual respect has got to be the best place to start for
peace, and "burying the hachette". Maybe someday we'll work it all
out behind the scenes, then perhaps we will see the needed unity that
is befitting of the microtonal community.

Bless you Johnny Reinhard!

Jacky Ligon

> Johnny Reinhard wrote:

Unfortunately, McLaren does get mean and he won't be the first or
last to
upset. However, I think genuine inaccuracies in McLaren's
compilations
should be put onto the list and rigorously evaluated. McLaren will
surely
recalculate. I am also disturbed by McLaren's false assertion which
are on
the web. Daniel also puts his opinions on his web site and I do not
approve
of his assertions, yet am helpless to do anything about it."

Johnny Reinhard:

You miss my point entirely. I'll repeat it: McLaren never
condescended to actually join the list. He would send his missives to
the list via friends. If you found something you liked or disliked in
what he wrote, found something to be corrected, explained or expanded
upon, he left no means of responding directly, and no assurance that
he would condescend to read any responding post. This is the
intellectual equivalent of hit and run driving.

When I make a statement on the list or on my web site, it's under my
name and email address and I'm ready, available, and pleased to
correct it. For example, earlier this week Graham corrected some cent
values in a table I posted, and I'm grateful for the correction. I
indicated that I thought Krenek's 13tet experiment was in a
particular work, but Dan Stearns had another idea. I'm eager to learn
which was correct. (Okay, I'll admit it: with Krenek's music, "eager"
is, for me, a relative term).

When I post an opinion to this list or on my web site, I hope that I
have adequately qualified it as an opinion rather than a factual
statement. If my statements of opinion are based on errors of fact,
I beg to be corrected. Otherwise, I stand by them and my email
address is there if you disagree. Maybe you can persuade me
otherwise.

If you will read any of our discussions in the past, Johnny Reinhard,
you will see again and again that I have criticized your scholarship
for turning opinions, however reasonable they may be, into factual
statements. Such a critique does not in any means lower my
estimation of the substance of your work, it just begs for some more
honesty with regard to the nature of the conclusions.

With the case of McLaren's downgrading of Leedy to "microtonal
bibliographer", given the fact that both are Oregonians, McLaren knew
exactly what he was doing when he made the slight. It's your own
loss that you have corresponded with Leedy and NOT asked more about
his music. The JI string quartet (in XH IX) is a minimal landmark,
the harpsichord books in JI and meantone (both Fallen Leaf press) are
fine works, as is the Symphoniae Sacrae (also Fallen Leaf).
Pastorale, after Horace for choir and JI piano, four hands, is
extraordinary. (Kraig Grady - can you back me up on this?)

As to Darreg's writing style. Darreg was an extremely bitter man who
felt tremendous neglect and injustice. He lived for decades in
poverty and in ill health, without a car in an LA where the red cars
had long vanished. He admitted that his writing style emulated the
journalism of the Hearst papers from his childhood and Hayakawa-style
semantics. Often he used typography to issue the printed equivalent
of a scream. The whole package, the life and the writings, was of a
piece with the original content, so the reader is content to puts up
with it. With McLaren's printed screams, on the other hand, I am much
less generous.

Finally, one of McLaren's missives identified me as a "serialist".
For the record, although I have a scholarly interest in 12-tone
serial techniques and admire much music using such techniques, the
closest I've ever come to writing in this tradition is to be found in
the following 45-second bagatelle:

http://home.snafu.de/djwolf/In%20Bregaglia.pdf

Was it for this bit of sentimentality that I was branded
a "serialist"?

Daniel Wolf

List!
I know of Doug Leedy First through "Entropical Paradise" which was a
widely distributed Box set of electronic music he did at UCLA. I know he
is probably a bit embarrassed by it now but found some of the side quite
enjoyable at the time.

About 10 years ago I had the honor to share the bill with Doug, Lou
Harrison and David Doty. Doug's Piece for piano and Choral group was one
of the best microtonal pieces i have heard. I take him far more
seriously than most. That he chooses not to publicly promote himself
might be a disservice to his talent, or to his credit, but we should
remember that those who yell the most are not necessarily the one we
should maybe be listening to, even though in our society it seems who
ever gets the most PR wins!

Afmmjr@aol.com wrote:

> Douglas Leedy and I have had correspondence, and in fact he turned
> over
> editorial responsibility for the New Grove article on Tui St. George
> Tucker
> to me many years ago. Somehow, I never yet to hear any of Leedy's
> music and
> only think I saw a score or two (which I no longer remember). So it
> does not
> seem to me that Brian McLaren is "plain wrong" in describing Leedy as
> "a
> microtonal bibliographer." Indeed we all have different taste. I am
> also "a
> microtonal bibliographer," even if this does not present the full
> picture of
> my person, or even a primary one.
>
>

-- Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria island
http://www.anaphoria.com

The Wandering Medicine Show
Wed. 8-9 KXLU 88.9 fm

Daniel Wolf wrote,

<<I indicated that I thought Krenek's 13tet experiment was in a
particular work, but Dan Stearns had another idea. I'm eager to learn
which was correct.>>

One of the references I was thinking of can be found at the
Bohlen-Pierce Site:

<http://members.aol.com/bpsite/firstnotes.html>

And another on page 47 of H.H. Stuckenschmidt's "Twentieth Century
Music".

<<As to Darreg's writing style. Darreg was an extremely bitter man
who felt tremendous neglect and injustice. He lived for decades in
poverty and in ill health, without a car in an LA where the red cars
had long vanished. He admitted that his writing style emulated the
journalism of the Hearst papers from his childhood and Hayakawa-style
semantics. Often he used typography to issue the printed equivalent
of a scream. The whole package, the life and the writings, was of a
piece with the original content, so the reader is content to puts up
with it. With McLaren's printed screams, on the other hand, I am much
less generous.>>

Boy, you know, I've never got anything like the triple fortissimo
blastfurnace effect from any of Darreg's writings the way I have from
many of McLaren's... if anything I see a continuity of likeminded
ideology between the two, but I don't see anything wrong with that.

Former list member Jeff Collins kindly sent me a video of Ivor Darreg
in which he drags out a ton of his instruments and generally carries
on in his inimitable way. And the whole feel, much like his writings I
think, is more that of a peculiar warmhearted event (that's a
compliment where I come from) than "an extremely bitter man"...
conversely I NEVER get the slightest warmhearted anything from
McLaren's work, despite the fact that I'm generally supportive of
it... Maybe I'm missing something?

--Dan Stearns

In a message dated 2/16/01 11:28:09 AM Eastern Standard Time,
djwolf1@matavnet.hu writes:

> You miss my point entirely. I'll repeat it: McLaren never
> condescended to actually join the list.

Perhaps you do not see the irony in the above statement.

Moving on...Ivor Darreg was a friend of mine. He was not bitter, so much as
fragile. He had a keen paranoid sense that kept him alert and safe. His
condition seemed to be one of arrested development, a kid in an adult body.
When I sent him a child prodigy student of mine, he could not relate
directly, which I thought curious. When I asked him where he wanted to go
while on a visit to San Diego, he said "the Aquarium." Without a car, Ivor
had never had the opportunity to make it to the Aquarium in San Diego. Too
bad it was closed that day. Ivor was visually shaken by its closure.

On a web site, I suspect put up by McLaren, an article by Darreg speaks of my
invitation for him to come to New York to be part of the an AFMM Microfest
Symposium, featuring many luminaries. The article (which I prefer not to
point to) gives a false rationalization by Darreg for why he could never fit
into the tight strictures of my New York concerts. Basically, he was afraid
to fly in an airplane. I knew this early on and tried every which way to
evade and circumvent his fear. When Ivor backed out he was relieved and I
understood. But the web site doesn't reflect the above perspective. Add to
the list of perceived misrepresentations.

McLaren did produce Ivor's compositions in the best form they have ever
received. Thanks to McLaren's efforts, enthusiastically supported by Ivor,
he is a recorded composer, in the popular sense. Frankly, I had difficulty
taking Ivor seriously as a composer until I could find and perform a select
number of pieces that showed acumen and had an even consistency. He was many
things, including theorist, linguist, mathematician, etc.), but it is
composer that most excited him, and which he most identified. His production
of his own stuff was often out of tune and poorly constructed, partly out of
economics and partly out of chic, but mostly because he was a pioneer.

But he was not bitter, just whiny, mostly because that's the way his voice
sounded. His audio cassette openings beginning..."This is Ivor Darreg...."
is still ringing in my ear.

So....we see people differently. One man's condescension is another man's
criticism, or is it the other way around? We can project onto others things
for which they are innocent. It makes it more difficult to condemn in them
what is indefensible, more so than the physical lack of representation on a
tuning list. McLaren didn't have a telephone for years: as a recluse, he is
surely not the only one.

Daniel Wolf, I thank you for your criticism on my work as well. To disprove
your acceptance of received German wisdom, I researched for a week in
Germany. Thank you for the push. However, sometimes criticism can be badly
delivered. I recognize that the academic world can be chillingly surgical in
its biting criticism, and I understand the abhorrence of speculation as fact
is potentially risky to the naive, but this list is a place to dream, as well
as a forum to inform, and (perhaps inadvertently) to incite.

"...begs for some more honesty with regard to the nature of the conclusions."
?

Let us not forget that some of us are the Partches and Darregs of latter-day
generations, while some of us will leap frog beyond what the pioneers
imagined. Let us insist on respect, especially since Partch and Darreg were
treated very badly by the world and we should learn from their experiences.

Johnny Reinhard

Kraig Grady wrote,

<<My biggest gripe with McLaren Article is its complete bias to ET.>>

Hmm, if your talking about "A Brief History of Microtonality In the
20th Century", what I got out of it was something completely
different! And that was there are no 'bad' tunings. That there are
many many different approaches, and that they're all valid avenues of
exploration...

If there was a slant I think it was in the direction of the audibly
*xenharmonic*; hence the more glowing praise of say Partch and the
practitioners of decidedly non-12 equal temperaments, etc.

I think we all tend to read ourselves into most anything we tackle,
and perhaps this just underscores the different ways that you and I
would tend to look at the same thing more than anything Brian actually
wrote... ? I dunno, but one thing's certain: you can't please
everybody!

BTW, this was the first place I'd ever heard of Erv Wilson or of
Kornerup's "golden meantone". McLaren's take on the latter planted
that seed in my mind of a 'universal type measure' for scales that was
tethered to neither JI nor ET references... and eventually I come upon
away to do that for any two-term scale. This was a long-term effect of
reading that type of an article... litter things that really stuck
with me. And this really has next to nothing to do with technical
particulars; it's all about resonant charismatic ideas I think...

Also, as I mentioned before, I think Brian was on his best behavior
<G> in this particular article... I know for a fact that I would NOT
have dug it the way I did had it been in his uppercase, red-hot
bellicoso mode.

--Dan Stearns

Dan!
I consider Brian a friend, but still it seems your statement
coincides with mine. That he mentioned Partch along with the feast of ET
people still seems "biased":). He did include a lot that I had not seen
other places. That he has turned out some interesting music is his main
contribution.
I met Ivor A few years before i met Erv. He loved Puns to the point
you couldn't stand it and I played on a couple of his shows when I was
first starting out. As much as McLaren did with Ivor s music that had to
be done and he did it, is the fact that a large part of Ivors artistic
statements was the crudeness of his materials. It was almost a Punk Rock
aesthetic. He calls something a lullaby and make it the harshest thing
he could. Then he would laugh when he would see you twitch. He liked the
distortion on his tapes and amplifiers as far as i could tell. He
enjoyed and was quite aware of when he was being annoying.

"D.Stearns" wrote:

> If there was a slant I think it was in the direction of the audibly
> *xenharmonic*; hence the more glowing praise of say Partch and the
> practitioners of decidedly non-12 equal temperaments, etc.

Kraig Grady wrote,

<<My biggest gripe with McLaren Article is its complete bias to ET.>>

-- Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria island
http://www.anaphoria.com

The Wandering Medicine Show
Wed. 8-9 KXLU 88.9 fm