Re: [tuning] Question for Johnny Reinhard/JoJo

In a message dated 6/7/01 3:47:33 PM Eastern Daylight Time, JoJoBuBu@aol.com
writes:

> 1. Where you music is available - I'm new to this thread so I'm not aware.
>
My compositions are on "Raven" on the Stereo Society label
(stereosociety.com). Printed music is distributed by me directly.

> 2. I , guessing, assume you write your notation to the nearest cent. Is this
> true or do you write more or less exact?
>
True, and I will indicate each -1 and +1 deviation.

> 3. Just curious about this one. Do you have any guess, or better yet
> evidence, as to the exactness that your players hit the exact frequencies
> you
> are asking for? Have you done any research on this? My own guess would be
> at
> least 6-10 cents off for any given and maybe much larger if its a fast
> passage, but this is by no means a tested theory. I'm curious if you have
> tested in performance about this sort of thing?
>
Yes, a player can be accurate to a single cent. If one sings a just 5/4
interval of 386 cents melodically, it can be done accurately to the cent. I
have worked my life to be as accurate as possible in pitch, and have known
people even more accurate. It is not too much to accept that the top
professionals can hear accurately to a cent. And decades of concerts confirm
this.

> 4. Were you the first one, to the best of your knowledge, to use this
> performance notation?
>
I don't really know. It just makes the most sense. I'd had to have a
particular tuning bias which limited the usage of a previously unfamiliar
tuning.

> 5. Have you tried putting the number of cents, +/- next to the note like a
> normal accidental, as opposed to up above the note, or have you found that
> it
> just becomes harder to read for performers?
>

There are several considerations: first off consistency is important, but
making the right decisions right off prevents lots of misery later. The
"macro" accidental (which includes basic quartertone accidentals) are read
first from left to right, with the "micro" fine tuning right above. This is
a path that is easier to apprehend, based upon my experiences with the AFMM.

The AFMM concerts have been a wonderful laboratory for discovery. It
substituted for composition lessons, putting me in autodidact context. There
are lessons to be learned that are not in any book.

Thanks for asking!

Johnny Reinhard