Re: [crazy_music] Details on the 28-note 37-limit JI piece, also MOS caveats

> From: <xed@...>
> To: <crazy_music@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, July 03, 2001 9:21 PM
> Subject: [crazy_music] Details on the 28-note 37-limit JI piece, also MOS
caveats
>
>
> Robert Valentine gave in to the fatal temptation to inject a
> controlled substance into the list. To wit, numbers. That good ole
> fix of pure uncut pharmaceutical grade math exerts a potent addictive
> pull.
> But before we all tie our arms off with rubber hoses and
> start slapping our veins frantically while heating up numbers in
> dirty spoons, several caveats.
>
> ...
>
> As examples of the radical difference which composition style can
> make in the overall "sound" of a tuning, compare the very short mp3
> files IVOR53.mp3 with MCL53.mp3.
> This 53-tone equal composition remains one of the most savage and
> brutal pieces that ever appeared univited in my studio and started
> knocking over lamps and spray-painting the walls with graffiti. By
> contrast, Ivor Darreg's 53-tone-equal composition sits on a velvet
> cushion and licks its paws while purring mellifluously -- housebroken
> yet. Oy gevalt. Such a kitten.

Brian, your metaphorical imagery is just irresistable!

Thanks for the details on your 37-limit piece, even without the
dreaded math, and for the other sound files illustrating your thoughts.

-monz
http://www.monz.org
"All roads lead to n^0"

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Hi Brian,

<snip of lots of good tidbits>

I would like you to elaborate on the idea of a relationship
between rhythm and modal material. I feel like my own experience
doesn't "click" with what uoui suggested. I find that I will
freely use harmony melody and rhythm to "contradict" each other
(to provide "balance") or "agree" (to provide "exageration").

(Melody, rhythm and harmony are my fundamental ingredients.
I am trying to get away from harmony and more into
multi-melodic writing, and for whatever reason, I don't deal
too much with timbre in the composition process, as that is
usually a performance issue for me).

> Hands-on musical experience shows that MOS procedures can
> lead to dead ends. MOS theories can produce musically unproductive
> results in prime numbers of tones per octave. Alas, some of the more
> interesting equal divisions of the octave remain prime numbered
> divisions.

Why do you find "prime numbers of tones per octave" any more
"musically unproductive" than non-prime?

> In any case, even in composite numbers of equal tones per
> octave, Erv Wilson's MOS scales should be thought of as tools, not
> monuments. The problem with making a cult out of Erv's ideas is that
> Erv offers provocative speculations intended to spark the
> imagination, not edifices for pilgrims to worship at. Erv's ideas
> serve best as starting points, not termini. In my own experience, my
> compositions have not benefited from using Erv's ideas about MOS
> subsets as modes. My modes (and those of many others I've made music
> with) tend to involve quirky asymmetrical oddball subsets. And as Erv
> himself has remarked, "Excessive symmetry can become a fetish."

Sure. There are tons of good scales that are not MOS. If we look
at scales that have been used successfully while being mapped to
12-eq, melodic minor and harmonic minor (and related modes) are
not MOS.

My interest in MOS came from trying to come up with what I called
"transposable systems" (with perfect preservation of intervals after
applying a single "alteration") which naturally led back to there.

Applying the "alteration" to the "wrong note" in a MOS does seem
seem to be a path (or coincidence) to other interesting scales. Such
a relationship exists with those I mentioned, at least when mapped
into 12 equal. I have seen this to be true of some others I have
looked at.

> In Ludwig Wittgenstein's "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus," L. W.
> makes a remark in his penultimate proposition. Wittgenstein points
> out that the entire book serves as a ladder which the adroit
> philosopher will, having climbed it, throw away. Erv has said as much
> to me about his various musical systems. The same probably applies
> to anyone who hopes to create worthwhile music in any realm, whether
> xenharmonic or not.

Absolutely. The common phrase among jazz musicians is something like
"learn all your scales, then forget about 'em and play". There is
some zen adage like "first you see the forest, then the trees, and
then the forest". In the music that I am most comfortable, I feel
like I'm in the "second forest" stage. For that which I am not
so experienced (including but not limited to microtonal composition),
I am somewhere between seeing the first forest and the trees.

> ------------
> While various folks effused over the earlier post discussing the
> "sound" or "sonic fingerpint" of various 1/3-tone tunings, not one
> single person has yet demanded proof.
> Skepticism.
> A word to the wise, folks.
> The first question you should ask is: "Oh yeah? Prove it!"

Comparison of two compositions in 53 deleted. It is probably even
simpler to compare many of the different musics performed in 12.

There may well be some tunings that are so inflexible that they
have a one-true-character that can only be massaged by individual
composers intent, perhaps some of the very low ETs. I dunno.

A question of terminology, what do you mean by 1/3-tone in this
context?

> However, if (as usual) no one else bothers to post MP3 examples
> of the remaining 1/3-tone tuning 15 and 17 and 19 equal here, it will
> once again fall to me to do so in the near future.

Bob Valentine