Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup tuning Re: [tuning] Re: 72-tone Notation revisited.joe.2

In a message dated 3/2/02 4:58:50 PM Eastern Standard Time, jpehrson@rcn.com
writes:

> They just learn a 33 cent deviation and a 17 cent deviation from any
> given pitch! That's a *very* limited universe that people can
> PRACTICE.
>
> I say that *that's* where the musicianship lies, in *practicing.*
>
Really, why? I stopped practicing years ago. Ted Mook never practices and
brags about it. I only learn new music.

> PRACTICING 1200 per octave is just too much! Where do you start?
> What intervals do you have them practice? You can't do everything at
> once!
>

You are thinking that all 1200 "intervals" have to transversed. What piece
of music is in 1200 ET? Think, 1200 gives all one needs (up to the + or - of
.5 cents) for a performer to negotiate tuning specificity on their feet.

> My pieces now come with a CD so that the player can PRACTICE the
> deviations of 33 cents and 17 cents from the 12-tET notes. That's
> all they have to do.
>

So, continue sending the CD; it has nothing to do with notation. It has for
translating the notation into pitch. You must be concerned because I think
it unnecessary for the performer who will likely just pass it by.

> Where's the math in that? It's totally *real* musicianship, real
> playing. It would take *years* to develop the same ability
> throughout the entire 1200 spectrum. I wouldn't even know where to
> start.
>

This is a misperception. 72 points within 1200 cents does not change a
single pitch for performance. The ear training is the same, except that
there are differences of a few cents from JI intervals, further from other
tunings.

> Then, you wouldn't have to go past 25 from any given quartertone.
> And even *that* isn't enough, since you're saying they should be able
> to hit *every* cent. I'm exhausted, already, thinking about it!
>

This whole topic is exhausting. But I continue it so that you guys don't
theorize the success of cents out of the ascent in notation.

> Frankly, that also is the "problem" with the incipient microtonal
> composer. We don't know where to start after quarter tones. At
> least, I will speak for my humble self.
>

It is necessary for the composer to hear intervals in their heads before for
them to communicate them to musicians. This is additional and separate from
the presentation of the music itself. Music rarely arrives unattended for
its performance (meaning the composers are involved in rehearsals). If you
try to hear cents you will undoubtedly improve your microtonal ear.

> When I started working with microtonality seriously, about one or two
> years ago... well, I'd done pieces for years before, as you know, but
> not as intensively, the only thing I could think to do were quarter-
> tones.
>
> What else would I do? I didn't know. I imagined the most reasonable
> thing to do in an alternate tuning was to try to do *pure*
> intervals. This wasn't just my *own* idea, some other people also
> came up with it... :)
>

Surely, Joseph, you are on the right track now. Maybe preaching what to do
is beside the point. Now that all different tunings are available to you,
you could choose quite judiciously. You better hope that when musicians are
playing in 72-tone notation that it is accurate to the cent.

> In any case, given this fact, I needed a *known universe* as a
> composer to work with. Working with 72 does, indeed, limit my
> options, but they are the "near just intonation" options that I have
> been looking for to offset 12-tET and 24-tET and with 72-tET you can
> do *both* of these things at the same time, in a *very* easy and
> systematic way!
>

I have never said anything negative about 72-tone equal temperament tuning,
in any of its compositional forms and usages. I have only focused on
notation for performers.

> When Partch comes in ratios, my violist writes it out in cents (not
> 72).
>
> ***You should talk to Ted Mook, then, about this, since he *swears*
> by the 72-tET notation for easy performance of Partch. And he's
> done, apparently *lots* of it, with several recordings out. Several
> examples of his work with Partch in the 72-tET notation are shown
> here:
>
Maybe that's why Ted uses lots of vibrato in his Partch, it covers a few
cents here and there. It goes a long way to explain Meredith Borden's need
for vibrato for her soprano. Maybe if they trained with cents they would be
less automatic in their smudging over of exact pitch. There are other vocal
issues that we are not talking about, but I think vibrato masks pitch.

> http://www.webcom.com/~tmook/lipo.html
>

I bet the singer preferred the cents. (Kalm has perfect pitch). As I said,
3 cents is too big to consider for me.

> ***It would be an interesting test to have average performers read 72-
> tET intervals to a pitch counter and then read random 1200 pitches
> from number notation and see who would be the most accurate.
>

Try it with Julie. Tell us about your experiences.

> My personal feeling is that the players who have practiced 33 and 17
> over and over and over again would be the most accurate, insofar as
> getting at least *those* pitches right.
>

But then if the pitches are right, the intervals will be wrong.

> People trying to pick out up to 25 or even 50 (as in *your* system)
> cents deviation from a quartertone might be "lost at sea."
>
> I'm saying, of course, to the *average* fine performer new to
> microtonality, not the ones that you have specially trained...
>
You might as well distrust your surgeon. No one is lost at sea. You just
have to set up the right communication.

> Frankly, I don't believe it is fair to complain
> > about which is harder when we have a living culture of musicians
> that play cents (and which therefore includes all others).
> >
>
> ****Well, and, apparently, there's an underground culture of 72-tET
> players around too, both in New York and Boston. I'm finding out
> more about this every day!
>

And they have all switched to cents except maybe Ted Mook, maybe.

> > As to covering JI intervals, 23 x 16.666 = 383.318. That sucks as
> a just major third. The JI composers would never accept that
> interval as a JI major third.
>
> ***Well, I don't know. Kraig Grady even seems to accept 72-tET and
> he's a kind of "litmus test" as it were. That's the only ET he'll
> even CONSIDER. And, yes, I admit, the thirds are 3 cents off. That
> subtle distinction is, most probably lost on *me* personally,
> regrettably.
>

They were not good enough for Dean Drummond. They are not good enough for me
or my performances.

> Besides, it is the 12-tET major third that is best represented.
> > There is no real JI 383 cent interval. I have had personal
> experience retraining a 72-trained musician with difficulty for this
> reason, who now composes in Werckmeister III (which would be a total
> waste in 72).
>
> ***Yes, it is true that many of the temperaments are not well
> represented by 72-tET. But most of them aren't notated in CENTS.
>

Joseph, though we can use cents, or Savarts, or any single logrithm or
monochord illustration, it's all about imagining sounds to be reproduced.
Cents are fine enough to capture the essence of any tuning. Why would one
want to ghettoize a notation (except, of course, that is what the Early Music
movement did by declaring their to be A=415, for distinction).

> > Now, I'm not a musician, but dividing 12 into 1200 is mentally very
> > comfortable.
>
> ****I wouldn't sell yourself short, Johnny! You are a very *fine*
> musician!

You caught be there...really, I am not a mathematician.

> You meant, of course, *mathematician...* Well, I can't see where all
> the math is, frankly. All I can see is the routine practicing of 33
> cents 17 cents deviations over and over and over again, just like we
> have to practice ANYTHING to get it right. EVENTUALLY, it *will* be
> accurate. But to practice the full spectrum? Or to practice up to
> 25 cents (or 50?) away from a quartertone??\

These are pitches you are describing and there is nothing routine about them.
33 cents from where? The last perfectly placed place? Doesn't a shift of
3 cents for the major third distort the pitch that will follow, and so on?
We need the anchor of A=440 and a cents filter connects all of the tunings.
Having +25 is as clear as any symbol. It doesn't require an awareness of +24
cents. It would be more likely heard in another piece as it would be foreign
to any given piece with +25.

> What kind of exercises for musicians *are* there for this
> practicing? Do *you* have them? Are they available in the way that
> the Maneri ear training exercises are available for musicians to
> practice??

Joe, have you every thought to ask any of the many musicians that you know
whom I work with? Certainly we have all be trusting my ear. We do not use a
machine.

> I've never seen such exercises. If we *train* people, we need
> exercises, so it seems to *me!*
>
> I'm not *doubting* this is possible, I've just *never* seen the 1200
> ear training procedures as of yet. Maybe they are around.
>

You have the results right before your ears and you haven't even noticed.
Manuel, is this amazing?

> I don't know if I can buy the thought that such practicing can come
> in play by just playing *pieces!* There's not enough reiteration of
> the same *intervals* in playing pieces.
>

You cannot confuse the pedagogical aspect of apprehending a tuning and then
composing within it with the objective performance of another. You have not
rights to reiterating anything, only a simple legend.

> It's like using Czerny to gain piano finger dexterity. Not great
> music, not too much fun, but it develops the *technique!*
>
Actually, maybe that is our concept difference. You imagine music as digital
buttons to push while I seen it as a continuum.

> Quartertones are big in microtonal music, particularly in size.
> > Shaving it down into half and quarters is no harder than shading
> by 14 cents for an accurate 386 cent JI major third.
>
> ***I think for many players it would be hard to shade down by exactly
> 14 cents. Why more than 17? Well, simply because the player has
> been playing so *many* 17 deviations. Unless there is more such
> training for 14 shadings, I'm not sure I can buy that...

Then you would be foolish. 14 cents from an equal tempered pitch is exactly
14 cents flat (to the cent). If one cannot play a perfect 5/4 major third of
386 cents repeatably and always convincingly there is no room for them on an
AFMM concert. Every musician in the AFMM can play this interval. Each does
it in a different way and you with certainly hurt your noggin trying to
figure out how each and everyone does it. More important than not
understanding how they play the music is that they do!

> > Please understand, I am excited for the activity in Boston, know
> well both Ezra and Joe, and realize that some (like soprano Meredith
> Borden) can proceed naturally to a JI world of intervals. But I bet
> they never go back.
> >
>
> ***You mean once we've gone into Just there is no turning back?
> That's *scary* Johnny. It's a little like the "Night of the Living
> Dead..."

Please don't misrepresent me. JI are some of nature's essence of intervals.
They are not the only ones. But once the genie is let out of the bottle...

best, Johnny Reinhard

Re: [tuning] Re: 72-tone Notation revisited.joe.2

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