Re: Reply to Monz -- regrets for any misunderstanding

Hello, there, and I'd like very much to emphasize my non-accusatory
intentions in a recent installment of an ongoing dialogue with Joe
Monzo and Paul Erlich.

While these discussions can be both educational and invigorating for
all concerned, I want to counteract any suggestions of an "accusation"
which might have been perceived in the post which Monz quotes
below. In fact, I much appreciate his wording which asks if my two
paragraphs in question may have been a juxtaposition rather than a
connected "accusation." Indeed, only the second paragraph was directed
to Monz, the first being a general statement about traditions of music
history far more conventional than Monz's (and I mean that as a
definite compliment to Monz!):

>[Margo Schulter, TD 209.19]
>
>> Here I do not wish to make invidious comparisons, since each
>> theory nicely fits the style of a beautiful music. However,
>> I do wish to counteract the common view of "progress" in which
>> the 18th-century harmonic system becomes a kind of directive
>> goal for all previous practice and theory. The 3-limit harmony
>> of the 13th century is very beautiful, and very non-18th-century.

(Here I might have also quoted Joseph Yasser's _Medieval Quartal
Harmony_, to show that this has been debated for over 60 years.)

>> Monz raises the question as to whether medieval theorists
>> described Pythagorean tuning because they did not have available
>> the mathematics to describe anything else, theory's tools
>> "improving" between 1300 and 1500.

> I'm not sure if the accusation I perceive here was intended
> or just a result of the juxtaposition of those two paragraphs.

It was indeed a juxtaposition, and had I anticipated the possibility
of this kind of misunderstanding, I would have explicitly made some
disclaimer of such a reading.

> I certainly do believe that music theory's tools 'improved' between
> 1300 and 1500, as mathematical knowledge increased and the printing
> press was invented, etc.

As discussed later in my article, I certainly agree that the emerging
mathematics of irrational quantities made possible Renaissance
theories of temperament which would obviously have been impossible
using only integer ratios. Also, the printing press indeed permitted a
freer sharing of knowledge in this and many other areas.

At the same time, one might argue that in some ways medieval theory could
be considered more "sophisticated" on questions such as concord/discord --
as I did elsewhere in my post.

> However, I want to make it clear that *I* do *not* hold the view
> that 'the 18th-century harmonic system becomes a kind of directive
> goal for all previous practice and theory'.

Again, I would emphasize, as your response itself suggested, that the
first paragraph you quoted addressed this view as a general theme of
much music history, with only the second paragraph taking up your
opinion regarding questions of medieval theory.

Most appreciatively,

Margo Schulter
mschulter@value.net