Re: [tuning] Brian McLaren's "Introduction to Microtonality" take aways...

> HOWEVER, THESE are the significant "take aways" that remained in my
> mind:
> 1) The importance of experience in and participation in a VARIETY of
> different tunings.

That's a case where I have an agree/disagree reaction. Fundamentally, I think he's
absolutely right; you really can't understand any tuning without putting it into the
perspective of other tunings. I agree with that.

As with a lot of things though, Brian overdoes it (or he does in his commentary at
least; I don't know to what degree he really believes his opinionated commentary).
He once told me something of the nature that only four people in the world are
qualified to lecture about microtonality because they are the only ones who have done
a lot of composition in wide variety of tunings. He then followed that up with a
comment that you can't become a linguist by studying the letter E.

I think a better analogy would be that each tuning is a language rather than a single
letter. I would then agree that you can't become a master linguist without studying
lots of languages, but you can become an expert on a single language and make
significant expressions in that language.

> I believe this is an area where McLaren and Paul Erlich differ
> strongly. McLaren views all music as a process of "acculturation"
> and doesn't feel that just ratios are particularly significant as an
> audible "stopping point" other than their establishment in a
> cultural sense.

Brian and I have been discussing this topic over the past few days, and it appears
that he and I largely agree on the topic, although he takes a contrarian's attitude
toward JI, whereas I take a more positive angle on the topic.

I believe, and I think Brian agrees, that beatless consonance is a clearly-audible
phenomenon in sustained chordal harmony. "Sustained chordal harmony" here includes
typical SATB chorales or sustained melodic-accompaniment chords, for example.
However, we also agree that although that tuning ideal has a clearly-audible effect
under such circumstances, there's no clear evidence that peoples' ears actually
prefer the sound of beatless of consonance, and there are clearly many other
influences on what gives us the impression of pitch being right. Examples include
the desire to make two identical sized intervals in melodic sequence the same size,
wanting to raise a leading tone to make a stronger lead to the tonic. Probably more
importantly though, there are only so many sustained chords in real-world music, and
when notes move by at normal speed, beatless consonance is a heck of a lot harder to
even detect, much less prefer. And of course vibrato complicates the question even
further.

So when Brian gives you the impression that the JI concept is all a load of
meaningless tripe, what he probably means is that it is audibly significant in
sustained block chords, but as music departs from that pardigm, its meaningfulness
rapidly gets overwhelmed by other tuning ideals.

> That seems contradictory, Joseph. When you first heard pure 4:5:6:7 chords on the Tuning Lab,
> did you like them because of your "Western Civ." background?

Hearing a 4:5:6:7 chord is a lot better than just babbling endlessly about it, but
listening to that one chord alone says very little without considering its context.

--- In tuning@y..., Gary Morrison <mr88cet@a...> wrote:

> > I believe this is an area where McLaren and Paul Erlich differ
> > strongly. McLaren views all music as a process of "acculturation"
> > and doesn't feel that just ratios are particularly significant as an
> > audible "stopping point" other than their establishment in a
> > cultural sense.
>
> Brian and I have been discussing this topic over the past few days, and it appears
> that he and I largely agree on the topic, although he takes a contrarian's attitude
> toward JI, whereas I take a more positive angle on the topic.
>
> I believe, and I think Brian agrees, that beatless consonance is a clearly-audible
> phenomenon in sustained chordal harmony. "Sustained chordal harmony" here includes
> typical SATB chorales or sustained melodic-accompaniment chords, for example.
> However, we also agree that although that tuning ideal has a clearly-audible effect
> under such circumstances, there's no clear evidence that peoples' ears actually
> prefer the sound of beatless of consonance,

Some people do, some people don't. So overall, there is no clear "consensus preference" on
total beatlessness. So I agree with what you think Brian thinks (but not with what Joseph thinks
Brian thinks).

> and there are clearly many other
> influences on what gives us the impression of pitch being right. Examples include
> the desire to make two identical sized intervals in melodic sequence the same size,

Boy do I agree with this.

> wanting to raise a leading tone to make a stronger lead to the tonic.

Or many other expressive effects that make grammatical sense within various scales other than
the diatonic.

> Probably more
> importantly though, there are only so many sustained chords in real-world music, and
> when notes move by at normal speed, beatless consonance is a heck of a lot harder to
> even detect, much less prefer.

Very true.

> And of course vibrato complicates the question even
> further.

You got it! So the reputed "strong disagreement" between McLaren and myself on this issue
has completely disappeared!
>
> So when Brian gives you the impression that the JI concept is all a load of
> meaningless tripe, what he probably means is that it is audibly significant in
> sustained block chords, but as music departs from that pardigm, its meaningfulness
> rapidly gets overwhelmed by other tuning ideals.

Still, _integer ratios_, whether in JI or up to 20 cents off, are important in harmony. That is, our
brains seek to interpret chords as one or multiple harmonic-series subsets. The degree of
success or failure of our brains in making this interpretation without ambiguity . . . is a major factor
influencing the perception of "consonance" or "dissonance".

--- In tuning@y..., "Paul Erlich" <paul@s...> wrote:

/tuning/topicId_24879.html#24881

> Some people do, some people don't. So overall, there is no
clear "consensus preference" on total beatlessness. So I agree with
what you think Brian thinks (but not with what Joseph thinks
> Brian thinks).
>

Now I don't know *what* to think. Is there something wrong with my
thinking? What does Brian think? I don't think I know what he
thinks...

Just tell me what I'm *supposed* to think.... [hi Jon Szanto!]

___________ _______ _____
Joseph Pehrson

> Now I don't know *what* to think. Is there something wrong with my
> thinking? What does Brian think? I don't think I know what he
> thinks...
> Just tell me what I'm *supposed* to think.... [hi Jon Szanto!]

:-)

Personally, I'm more interested in what to compose than what to think.

--- In tuning@y..., Gary Morrison <mr88cet@a...> wrote:
> > Now I don't know *what* to think. Is there something wrong with
my
> > thinking? What does Brian think? I don't think I know what he
> > thinks...
> > Just tell me what I'm *supposed* to think.... [hi Jon Szanto!]
>
> :-)
>
> Personally, I'm more interested in what to compose than what to
think.

Don't think anything until you've composed in at least every equal
temperament from 13 to 144. Don't think anything until you've
composed in a phi-based or root-of-any-n-other-than-two temperament.
Don't think of anything until you've composed with harmonic, non-
harmonic, and mixed harmonic-non-harmonic timbres. Don't think of
anything until you've composed in total microtonal polyphony with one
tuning to each channel. Don't think of anything until you've produced
at least a dozen cds. Only then can you even think about thinking
about micrtonality on a respectable level. mcl.