Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup tuning Re: FAQ: What is microtonality? What is paucitonality?

Hello, there, everyone, and thanks to all the people who shared their
insights, encouragement, criticism, and suggestions on my FAQ draft
"What is microtonality, what is paucitonality?"

Jeff Scott, thank you for giving me, to paraphrase Robert Burns, the
gift to see my post as others see it, so that I can emend a phrase
written in a moment of joyful exuberance that you've convinced me is
all too likely to be read in the opposite of the intended meaning and
emotional tone.

Why don't I first state the change, then add a bit of commentary which
maybe might reveal a bit about my idiosyncracies and subcultural
language idioms as well as the risks of ambiguities of tone --
especially unrecognized ones! -- in e-mail (and FAQ drafts).

For my phrase:

self-proclaimed microtonalist Brian McLaren

please substitute:

master microtonal composer and historian Brian McLaren

[FAQ keepers and advisors: if simply reposting a corrected draft is the
best way to accomplish this, then I'll do it quickly -- if e-mailing a
draft with Pine to a different address, or ftp'ing it to some site would
be more bandwidth-efficient or appropriate, I could do that
also.]

When I was writing the phrase "self-proclaimed microtonalist Brian
McLaren," I was basking in the excitement of showing my esteem and
admiration by giving his history pride of place as the first citation
in my essay. At that time, the passage came immediately after a
discussion on the point that not all tuning pluralists call themselves
"microtonalists," but many happily embrace the term.

In this discussion, I had used phrases such as "self-identified
microtonalist" and "self-declared microtonalist."

Coming now to my citation of Brian, I say to myself: "Not all tuning
pluralists refer to themselves as microtonalists, but here's one who
certainly _does_, and exemplifies that term the whole nine yards, and
more!" Trying to put my exuberance into words, I might call my phrase
"self-proclaimed microtonalist" a playful understatement on a
Gargantuan scale.

Unfortunately, my feelings at that moment didn't get embedded into my
FAQ draft, and more unfortunately, in the excitement of that moment, I
didn't reflect on a feature of my subculture which might be anything
but obvious to readers of the FAQ, or even initiated members of this
List.

In my cultural circles, these are all positive, joyful, and laudatory
phrases:

"a self-proclaimed anarchist/radical/microtonalist, etc."
"a card-carrying abolitionist/17-tET'er/xenharmonicist..."
"a notorious subversive"

To say that someone is a "self-proclaimed X" has the implications:

1. Of course we know that s/he dares to say "I'm X."
2. That X is a good thing, needless to say!
3. We know that X is controversial, and revel in it.
4. S/he _is_ X, to the highest power, as we all know.

The problem, of course -- so glaringly obvious once you called it to
my attention! -- is that for readers not part of my subculture,
"self-proclaimed microtonalist" could and likely would be read as a
"condescending-sounding term with inappropriate implications." In
other words, it would carry implications just about exactly the
opposite of those intended.

Especially in an e-mail or similar situation of this kind, if it
_sounds_ wrong, it _is_ wrong! Thanks for alerting me now, so that I
can prevent needless misunderstandings.

Your most timely words, Jeff, also give me the opportunity to clarify
my intentions for people on this List, not all of whom may share my
subcultural idiom of "self-proclaimed" as having the most positive
connotations.

People here already "in the know" may not find it too hard, especially
once I point it and explain it, to see that one theme of this FAQ
draft is a tribute to Brian McLaren and Ivor Darreg.

For example, when I compare Ivor Darreg to Nicola Vicentino, that is
about the highest compliment I can pay to any musician. It's also a
compliment by association to Brian as Darreg's disciple and
colleague.

A point which only I could know, and which this occasion at least
provides an opportunity to share, is that Brian McLaren is the person
who called 20-tET to my attention as a possible neo-Gothic tuning -- a
wonderfully Darregesque touch, a temperament for neo-Gothic where the
fifths are 18 cents from pure! I tried it, and I love it -- using a
"puff pipes" timber which seems delightfully Setharian for this
tuning.

Thus my 20-tET reference in that draft is a very personal tribute to
Brian, but even the most initiated and attentive reader scanning
"between the lines" with an electron microscope would have no way of
knowing this -- so I'm saying it now.

In trying to "translate" the phrase "self-proclaimed microtonalist
Brian McLaren" into something that will carry my intended meaning,
I've decided on "master microtonal composer and historian Brian
McLaren." For a FAQ reader unfamiliar with Brian, my admiration for
him and Darreg, or my subcultural sense of humor, that may be at once
more informative and safer, and at the same time communicate the
superlative compliment intended.

Face-to-face, at a dinner party in Brian's honor hypothetically filled
with people of my own sociopolitical subculture, I might say,
"joyfully self-proclaimed microtonalist Brian McLaren" -- that opening
adverb reinforcing the festive tone.

Maybe one lesson is that while a FAQ should be entertaining, it is not
necessarily a dinner party.

Jeff, thanks for your other feedback, too, of course.

Joseph Pehrson, thank you for your encouragement, and now you have me
considering some curious "panmodalist" ideas which I might yet get
into order -- or creative chaos -- and actually translate into some
music.

Jon Szanto, your point about more information on microtonal music of
the last century suggests to me a closely related FAQ item something
like this:

Q. What are some examples of microtonal music over the last century?

This also, of course, could be done as another answer to the question
"What is microtonality?" -- for this kind of questions, lots of
viewpoints and voices may be the best approach to the reality of the
music and the diverse constituency of this List.

In writing my contribution, I found it most natural and convincing to
write about some of the composers, theorists, and styles most shaping
my own musical life -- which should be an invitation for others to do
the same, especially in defining something like "microtonality" which
has so many aspects.

What an honor it is to be discussing this with people like yourself
who have played such a role in preserving and expanding the tradition;
needless to say, you have some very special things to contribute on
Harry Partch and much else -- another "understatement of the decade."

While there are "touches" of 20th-21st century history in my draft --
the 24-tET references, 20-tET, Ivor Darreg -- I warmly agree that this
era needs filling in: as the saying goes, it takes a community to make
a FAQ!

Also, to my best knowledge, "paucitonal" may be new -- although having
been surprised on this score concerning more than one of my "newly
(re-)discovered tunings," I'd want to be cautious about assuming that
my knowledge is complete.

Daniel Wolf, thank you for bringing your scholarship and lucid
discourse into play in your caution regarding Brian McLaren's
connection between reported anti-24-tET prejudices in the Vienna of
1917 and the musical politics of the Third Reich.

My intended point was a general one: that viewing other musics and
cultures as on "a lower level" can lead to the "lower level" concept
of a term like "subhuman." At this point I am inclined to add a remark
to Note 2 clarifying this, and noting your caution about any possible
inference of a direct equation between Nazism and antimicrotonality,
as well as your observation about antiserialism.

Of course, I would seek your feedback to be sure that I have stated
your views correctly.

Although mostly tangential to usual discussions here -- apart from
this kind of question, where they are most relevant -- the mixed
implications of "barbaric" or "barbarian" in German, or sometimes in
English, are a very important point, and here your linguistic and
cultural expertise adds perspective. Around the early 1960's, as I
recall, there was a book published called _The New Barbarians_ dealing
with mostly peaceful counterculturists -- "Beatniks" may have been
then the term. The book was sympathetic, and whatever the exact
implications intended, I didn't take them as necessarily at all
pejorative.

We're much in agreement on pluralism with room for serialists (12-tET
or otherwise) and everyone else: "If I can't compose or improvise in
whatever scale I choose, then it's not a true revolution!"

Most appreciatively,

Margo Schulter
mschulter@value.net

Re: FAQ: What is microtonality? What is paucitonality?

🔗M. Schulter <MSCHULTER@VALUE.NET>

🔗jpehrson@rcn.com