Re: [crazy_music] This 'n that

> From: <xed@...>
> To: <crazy_music@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Thursday, July 05, 2001 8:03 PM
> Subject: [crazy_music] This 'n that
>
>
> In modern times, Bill Wesley has done a series of 1/4-comma
> meantone piano pieces. In some of these he uses the wolf fifth
> deliberately as a vibrant discordance, to add musical excitement and
> verve. The effect proves musically striking.

Not a bit surprised about that! If anyone absolutely *loves*
"vibrant discordance", it's Bill! Those who think they know
what the phrase "a sound that grates on the ears" means,
need to listen to Bill's Rectifier pieces. ;-)

> However, I hear a radical and complete Grand Canyon chasm between
> the systems of equal temperaments a melodic modes and all that other
> stuff Dan posts about, and the actual sound-world of his music, which
> hits me more like an LSD overdose at the bottom of a swimming pool
> while inhaling helium and doing the backstroke through psychedlic
> Jell-O.

Whew! I think I need some air after that one! More great imagery,
Brian.

> For that matter, Joe Monzo, why don't you give us a detailed step-
> by-step description of how you compose your music?

OK... I'm game. But it will have to wait a day or two. It's
necessary that I put my paper on Dowland's tuning into proper
form for publication so's I can mail it off pronto, or it won't
appear in print.

Hey Brian, since you're not on the "Alternative Wanking List"
(and others here also may not be), you don't know about my
update to my Dowland page. Now there's an mp3 of the first
section of Downland's famous _Lachrimae_ (which a friend I was
explaining this to last night likened to the "Stairway of Heaven"
of its time because of its popularity). You're going to *love*
the wild discords Dowland gets from some wolf intervals (one
typical "5th" is ~682 cents - ouch!), and even from some
~20-cent near-misses of octaves!
http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/fngrbds/dowland/dowland.htm

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

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I wrote:

> ... the "Stairway of Heaven" of its time

Oops! Sent that one off too fast... Of course,
that's "Stairway *to* Heaven", by Led Zep,
in case anyone wasn't sure.

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

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Dan,

Well said.

I know what you mean.

GZ

"D.Stearns" wrote:

> Just a quick thought about music and math, or as I'd like to call 'em,
> sounds and numbers.
>
> One poor analogy that still might work would be to imagine a
> hypothetical baseball player with a natural, if unconventional, talent
> who is given to waxing poetically about the game and excitedly pouring
> over the many numbered nuances of stats...
>
> What would the hypothetical common thread be?
>
> I'd say a love of the game, and maybe a "love of the game" that
> happens to manifest itself as an unusually many faceted interest.
>
> I go about writing music mostly by just setting down to do it... it's
> pretty much that simple. But I'm also constantly thinking about it,
> dreaming about it, and trying to allow other things in my life to flow
> in that direction.
>
> So for me sounds and numbers are rooted in the same place inasmuch as
> they are the raw materials of a creative endeavor, and I personally
> don't have much of a problem hitching them together... that just
> happens to work for me in an easy and natural way. But others of
> course are bound to have completely different sets of skills,
> inclinations, and all the rest.
>
> --Dan Stearns
>
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