number games and music

[Jon Southwood, TD 168.3, in the Rosati-Grady academia debate]
>"Number games", as you put it, have been a part of music since
> the very early Renaissance (or even ancient Greece, for that
> matter--the Pythagorean tuning, as well as any tuning system,
> could easily be characterized as a "number game").
> [etc. - the rest of this post could be quoted here]

Anything quantifiable in the known universe can be analyzed and
manipulated in terms of numbers, and music is just one thing.

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with characterizing the
creation or playing of music as 'number games'. The numbers
occur and react in patterns, and those patterns are what give
us pleasure in listening to, creating, or even just contemplating
music.

These patterns can be found in many different aspects of music,
be it melody, harmony, rhythm, meter, form, volume, location
('panning'), timbre, tuning, etc.

The fact that music usually requires *time* as a dimension
in which to unfold adds greatly to its amenity to numerical
manipulation, and to the theorizing about how that numerical
manipulation works (and this applies to all the different aspects
of music listed above - and probably others).

Time is less understood than the three ordinary spatial dimensions,
so therefore theories abound and they are less easy to prove.

This is one of the reasons I have likened recent work in tuning
theory (including my own) to that of quantum physics and
modern astronomy. All three disciplines seem to me to be dealing
with the same kinds of concepts and perceptual/cognitive processes.

> Are there any good references out there that deal with this sort
> of application of serial techniques to the pitches/intervals of a
> Just Intonation tuned system?

Steven Elster wrote a magnificent analysis of the JI and serial
techniques used masterfully by Johnston in his 6th Quartet.
'A Harmonic and Serial Analysis of Ben Johnston's String Quartet
No. 6',
_Perspectives of New Music_, v 29 # 2, Summer 1991, p 138-165.

Joseph L. Monzo monz@juno.com
http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/homepage.html
|"...I had broken thru the lattice barrier..."|
| - Erv Wilson |
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