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WHY can't anyone get the technology right? Prime example: why is
stereo output and not quad- or octophonic the standard on soundcards?
The Vista Cruiser overboiled and I ended up overnighting it in Fresno
while the mechanics put things in order. At least the Basque Hotel
on F Street is still a good deal, if you can handle the rooms without
baths and fried sweetbreads in tomato sauce. Why do I need more than
two channels? EASY -- if you want to really have audibly
polymicrotonal electronic music, then you've got to put each tuning
in its own channel. (That's the kind of idea that'll come to you
while dreaming off a stomach full of sweetbreads). Here's my dream 8-
channel setup ---- one pair of in-the-ear plugs, one set of over-the-
ear headphones, the quad speakers from the Vista (four speakers but
only stereo input), and a pair of bone conductors. (Is it just me, or
is the cochlea SERIOUSLY overrated as an input device for music?)
I'll put the coarser tunings in the bones and the cruiser and the
more micro in the headphones. Shared tones in the tunings can go left-
right, up-down, forward-back, or to the pairs of headphone/speaker
types. At the moment, I'll try it with two stereo cassette tapes and
the stereo outputs from a notebook computer and a keyboard, played
live, with macrotonal scales assigned to halves of the keyboard, each
output on a separate channel. SIMULTANEOUS: 7, 11, 33 and 35 ETS, 7th
root of 7:5 and 10th root of 11/7 non-octave scales!!!! It's
provisional, but it's real, and I can hear it all without theoretical
assistance, but a quick trip to the oxygen bar may be in order. -mcl.

I've mentioned the spatial collage music of Henry Brant before as a
good example of an existing model for combining tunings.

In his massive collages he goes for maximum separation and often
employs elaborate spatial designs to help insure something like a
maximum opportunity for clarity amongst all the various stylistic
(etc.) forces.

Anyway, it's easy to see how this same approach could be carried over
to combining tunings. And your idea here reminds me of this.

Brant himself does this as well to a degree, but not by formal design.
It's simply an interesting byproduct of some of the wild combinations
that he employs (gamelan and bluegrass ensembles for example!) all
speaking in their native tongue.

--Dan Stearns