KEYED OFF: Stuart Isacoff responds to Kyle Gann. (from the Village Voice letters section)

Check it out.

* David Beardsley
* http://biink.com
* http://mp3.com/davidbeardsley

KEYED OFF

I just finished reading Kyle Gann's review of my book,
Temperament: The Idea That Solved Music's Greatest
Riddle ["Leaving Well Enough Alone," February 5],
and I couldn't resist responding, especially to his
silly notion that if I disliked equal temperament I
would "probably have had to settle for a much smaller
publisher." Does Gann really believe my editor at
Knopf said, "Hey, listen, we want to publish a book
about musical temperament, but only if it supports
the modern system"? Conspiracy theories abound
at the Voice, but this one must set some kind of record for ridiculousness.
Gann admits that I present "plenty of evidence" in
support of the value of older tunings. Indeed, though
he claims my book "brushed aside" the uniqueness
of different approaches, I actually celebrate their
variety. For example, I call them the musical
equivalents of poet Robert Frost's notion of a sentence,
in which "notes strung as melodies and harmonies
became suffused with particular shades and shapes."
But, since I also value equal temperament and the
"exquisite music" that resulted from that system, Gann,
a narrow-minded purveyor of the new, politically hip,
anti-equal-temperament movement in music, feels the
need to attack. Unlike Gann's review, my book is not a
polemic, but the history of an idea. It presents the
evolution of that idea by demonstrating links between
developments in music, art, science, philosophy, religion,
and societal mores. Along the way, it explores why
people fought over these issues, and how we got to where we are.
I end Temperament with a question, bringing the
narrative full circle to the tuning ideas of Pythagoras
in the sixth century B.C.E. Gann thinks that means I
should have gone back to the beginning and rewritten
the whole thing. He misses the point, because he is an
ideologue for whom only one way of doing things
can be correct. I intentionally preserve the mystery
inherent in this subject-the inability of anyone to arrive at a final
answer.

Stuart Isacoff
Bedford Hills, New York

db,

Like Johnny, I'd be curious to know where SI's rebuttal was posted. I
especially liked his put-down:

"Gann, a narrow-minded purveyor of the new, politically hip, anti-
equal-temperament movement in music..."

New? Harry Partch, dead a 1/4 century and writing 3 times that far
back, could hardly be considered new or politically hip! But he'd be
labeled an idealogue along with Gann...

What an up-tight loser.

Cheers,
Jon

--- In tuning@y..., "David Beardsley" <davidbeardsley@b...> wrote:

> But, since I also value equal temperament and the
> "exquisite music" that resulted from that system, Gann,
> a narrow-minded purveyor of the new, politically hip,
> anti-equal-temperament movement in music, feels the
> need to attack.

Of course this book couldn't possibly be a polemical response to a movement he clearly dislikes, because...

Unlike Gann's review, my book is not a
> polemic, but the history of an idea.

He's not in the least tendentious, and we know that, because he told us so.

It presents the
> evolution of that idea by demonstrating links between
> developments in music, art, science, philosophy, religion,
> and societal mores.

I'm still waiting for my library to get around to me. This sounds like bullshit, but I wouldn't want to review a book I haven't read.