Re: [tuning/iota] Sound Mandalas

I find this all very interesting. It was in part the correspondence between
John Whitney's ideas and JI that led me to my association with him in the
years before his death and create abstract videos inspired by his ideas. I
found it interesting that his most important musical influence in the
pre-war years was Schoenberg, though he associated post-Webern serialism
with a "whithering on the vine" of Schoenberg's original idea (and I agree).

I proposed to him one day that Schoenberg's system has a strong implication
of equal temperament in its atonality that lies in opposition to the
harmonic proportions he created in his art and that he rightly saw in art
much other art such as classical Greek and Islamic art. I suggested that
just intonation and tonality were really the appropriate musical analogues
to his ideas.

I don't think he knew what to make of my suggestion. Though trained as a
musician in his youth, he didn't readily grasp the difference between JI
and equal temperament that I was suggesting. You can see this somewhat in
his book, where he talks about a "scale" of images like a musical scale.
Really he is using the term scale somewhat loosely to mean "structural
element" (as is its usual function in music) but what he is really defining
is more of a harmonic series of pictorial elements in motion, rather than a
scale per se.

One project he was interested in during his last years was the creation of
realtime varying pitches to correspond to his dots on the screen of his
animation composition software. He imagined that pitches glissandoing up
and down with the vertical height of the corresponding dot would create the
same sort of harmonic "resonance" points as the points of symmetry that
resulted in his visual composition.

Though I was looking for funding to try out his idea, I suggested to him
that a closer analogue might be a 3:1 ratio for an image with tripartite
symmetry for example, and that a mass of sweeping sine waves would not
result in the kind of harmonic resonance points he was imagining. He simply
responded that this was an art in its infancy and that many possibilities
should be experimented with. Unfortunately, that kind of realtime synthesis
was far out of the reach of desktop computers of that era. I did finally
get funding to create a 3-d version of his composition system, but he died
almost at the same time.

I have since created some animation with that and other software and with
corresponding JI scores. Examples can be seen at
http://www2.hmc.edu/~alves/hiway70.html and
http://www2.hmc.edu/~alves/static.html.

On the topic of "sound mandalas," I created a kind of continuous mandala in
which harmonics are faded in and out with the same kinds of ratios as in
Whitney's differential dynamics, creating points when all pitches are
present at correspondingly important points in the visuals. I did it as a
Director/Shockwave presentation, but unfortunately it doesn't work well
over the internet. If you want to try it out anyway and see how the visuals
reflect Whitney's ideas as well, go to
http://www2.hmc.edu/~alves/webmandala.html.

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) ^
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 17:13:40 -0800
From: Bill Alves <ALVES@ORION.AC.HMC.EDU>
Subject: Re: [tuning/iota] Sound Mandalas

BA:I find this all very interesting. It was in part the correspondence
between
John Whitney's ideas and JI that led me to my association with him in the
years before his death and create abstract videos inspired by his ideas. I
found it interesting that his most important musical influence in the
pre-war years was Schoenberg, though he associated post-Webern serialism
with a "whithering on the vine" of Schoenberg's original idea (and I agree).

I proposed to him one day that Schoenberg's system has a strong implication
of equal temperament in its atonality that lies in opposition to the
harmonic proportions he created in his art and that he rightly saw in art
much other art such as classical Greek and Islamic art. I suggested that
just intonation and tonality were really the appropriate musical analogues
to his ideas.

I don't think he knew what to make of my suggestion. Though trained as a
musician in his youth, he didn't readily grasp the difference between JI
and equal temperament that I was suggesting. You can see this somewhat in
his book, where he talks about a "scale" of images like a musical scale.
Really he is using the term scale somewhat loosely to mean "structural
element" (as is its usual function in music) but what he is really defining
is more of a harmonic series of pictorial elements in motion, rather than a
scale per se.

LB: Hallo Bill, very good to hear from an Iotan and a tuner, I am honoured.
Good to make contact and to hear striving themes of artistic and
consequential magic. Yes, I was puzzled by John's identification with
Schoenberg and Cage rather than say Terry Riley (although he did use TR's
Poppy Nogood for one film). I'm sure you're right - JI is like Differential
Dynamics is like JI in that it's effectively a complete sounding overtone
series controlling motion, many octaves below what we know as sound.

BA:One project he was interested in during his last years was the creation
of
realtime varying pitches to correspond to his dots on the screen of his
animation composition software. He imagined that pitches glissandoing up
and down with the vertical height of the corresponding dot would create the
same sort of harmonic "resonance" points as the points of symmetry that
resulted in his visual composition.

Though I was looking for funding to try out his idea, I suggested to him
that a closer analogue might be a 3:1 ratio for an image with tripartite
symmetry for example, and that a mass of sweeping sine waves would not
result in the kind of harmonic resonance points he was imagining. He simply
responded that this was an art in its infancy and that many possibilities
should be experimented with. Unfortunately, that kind of realtime synthesis
was far out of the reach of desktop computers of that era. I did finally
get funding to create a 3-d version of his composition system, but he died
almost at the same time.

LB: I sense that some folk who venture into the "conversion of other sensory
or even fractal media into music or sound are wary of imposing human
cultural coordinates (eg major scale or even 12notes of whatever persuasion)
onto raw "discovered" natural form. I both understand this, and find it
untenable personally. I know an extremely keen fractal musician/composer who
was very keen to only use scales of 12 (not 7) notes (less human filtered he
felt). I think in fairness to JW sr that a very slow mass of sweepimg sines
would gradually go in and out of harmonic resolution (it of course depends
whether it is set up to resolve at chords of harmonics of a fundamental or
at equal power divisions in a frequency space- , although when I tried this
in 1984 (with the former) I found it less interesting than JI scales with
Harmonic math generated melodic systems, or than the sound mandalas I
described. I would like to share with you my (and your) work in audio,
visual and AV media.

BA:I have since created some animation with that and other software and with
corresponding JI scores. Examples can be seen at
http://www2.hmc.edu/~alves/hiway70.html and
http://www2.hmc.edu/~alves/static.html.

LB:I have Static Cling on the Iota compilation video/s which I enjoy
(particularly its humour) very much. I can see the JW sr elements clearly
and would be interested to know what you'd make of my forays into
visual/harmonic spaces.

BA:On the topic of "sound mandalas," I created a kind of continuous mandala
in
which harmonics are faded in and out with the same kinds of ratios as in
Whitney's differential dynamics, creating points when all pitches are
present at correspondingly important points in the visuals.

LB: I'd love to hear this Bill - I have CSound for the PPC Mac. Any chance I
could see the design or see or have the gen for that? Or perhaps a quality
recording?

BA: I did it as a
Director/Shockwave presentation, but unfortunately it doesn't work well
over the internet. If you want to try it out anyway and see how the visuals
reflect Whitney's ideas as well, go to
http://www2.hmc.edu/~alves/webmandala.html.

LB: Do you have a multi-standard machine (to play PAL videos (GB standard))
or must I send NTSC. I have multi-standard here.

looking forward to exchanging further ideas and work with you if you're
amenable.....

very best thoughts

Lawrence