Theory under practice again!

I thought i would try to make a few things clearer since sometimes ones
post somehow get placed in some black and white
category that works well with war propaganda but distorts the actual
viewpoint of the poster!
I am not anti theory, I have dealt with the theory of tunings over
25 years and have gained widely by it and most of all have
applied theory in actual working situations over long periods of time.
My continued frustration is the misapplication of theory, or not even
theory, just math divorced of sound.
I attempt to point out that math works well in those cultures where
mathematical relationships where there at the beginning. I
listed those. I also attempted to point out that it fails, SO FAR, to
deal with those tunings outside these cultures. Now the purpose
of theory it seems would be to notice generalities within the specifics
we have. From here with the utmost care we can then
speculate as to the next step. Now this is one direction theory might be
applied and i am sad that few treat it that way or shy away
from the vast unknown we haven't found a way to get to. I would like to
point out that Yasser attempted to explain how scales
evolve and built a system upon that. regardless of how it failed to pan
out, he did give us some good insights into pentatonic
harmony and in hindsight one can see how 17 and 22 was just a zag in a
slightly different direction than his 19. The principle is
still there. What this tells me is that as we evolve we want to do more
than just an elaboration of what we did before, but also
aspects that are not so easily exploited, on this ground both myself and
Paul ended up with a version of 22, which i think is more
than coincidence, it is a post-Yassarian move. I sense as we break
through the tuning ice of other cultures speculation along
these lines might prove useful. On the other hand as more than one
person has pointed out that pelog forms a good cycle at 9 places,
the Indonesians seem to find it musically not of interest. It is
important we learn to understand such things also. Myself i have
been working with a Meta Slendro tuning of 12 pitches and have listened
to versions of the 17, 22,27,32,37 tones Constant
structures next in line. I have found at this time, it fails to provide
me with anything more that isn't already there and actually
Make some obvious perks obscured.
More than one composer has shown how music can be written in any ET
for instance, but that is not the end of the question.
When a musician walks up to an instrument they want it to omit sounds
and combinations of sounds that inspire them to play
more. Partch also by his instrument designs showed also how arrangements
also play a part in this. Put the diamond in a room and
people will play it, because it nourishes the player. Yes one can write
in 15 ET but if we grew up in a culture that used such a
thing this list would be the majority in no time. I think this scenario
is a good speculative test for a tuning. If we were brought up
in a culture using this tuning would we seek change or not or would we
be satisfied and why.
Let's take one observation. In examining the tunings of various
cultures one will notice that despite what might be translated in
a few cases, people tend to like tunings where the sizes are not equal
and vary in size from pitch to pitch. This is not to say that the
basic gestalts (i would use archetype) these scales does not lie with
Moments of Symmetry or ET both which satisfy our desire
for interval integrity (an interval having the same number of
tonesin-between when played on different parts of the scale) but it
appears human beings find the variation of intervals musically
meaningful. One finds such things in even 12 ET with modal
transpositions.
Its time to raise the stakes and aim higher than. We need to exploit
the magic that inspires players and composers and listeners.

-- Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria island
http://www.anaphoria.com

The Wandering Medicine Show
Wed. 8-9 KXLU 88.9 fm

-- Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria island
http://www.anaphoria.com

The Wandering Medicine Show
Wed. 8-9 KXLU 88.9 fm