Recap for Bob, busy schedule and all

Hi Bob,
On 3/22/02 1:13 AM, you said:
>
> Hi, Jerry. Well, I don't remember the experiment you suggested for my
> choir, so feel free to remind me, please.

I'm aware of your press for time,Bob, so it is likely you simply missed this
post. It is so important to our conversation, however, that I'll paste it
here in its entirely (apologies to others for the long scroll). The
"experiment" is about five responses down.

-----------------

On 3/18/02 6:10 PM, I responded to Bob's post:

> Message: 16
> Date: Mon, 18 Mar 2002 22:44:08 -0000
> From: "robert_wendell" <rwendell@cangelic.org>
> Subject: Re: Jerries: a conclusion or two
>
> Hi, everyone! My apologies for not hanging around here lately, but
> I've been terribly busy with music and life in general. Paul E. had
> once mentioned to me in an offline email something about this fellow
> with the jazz choir that likes high thirds. I will call them "supra-
> ET" thirds.

Hi, Bob. Nice to be acknowledged, even in third person. I guess you didn't
see my posts directly intended for you. Welcome back. Good timing!
>
> I agree that the best renaissance a cappella choirs sing just thirds.
> The ones that don't are simply demonstrating relative incompetence
> vis-a-vis those that do. Renaissance a cappella music is very triadic
> in its harmonic strucuture; meantone temperaments with pure or quasi-
> pure thirds were the order of the day; so it is natural to sing that
> music with just thirds.

Here's the issue, Robert. Suppose a "best" choir responsibly and knowingly
sings JI thirds, but "less hip" ears *hear* those JI thirds as "high"
thirds. Does that make the listeners "incompetent"? Suppose those listeners
sing in other choirs and attempt to tune carefully as they re-create the
music of the Renaissance; and in the process those choirs sing the high
thirds they "think" they heard upon listening to the "best" choirs.

Suppose you were able to go back to the Renaissance and actually *hear* what
sort of thirds choirs were singing then. Is it completely out of the realm
of possibility that some of those sixteenth century ears heard a difference
between a third sung with root and third sounding and one sung with root
alone? How would you know? Would you ask them? Would you assume that *they*
would know? Are you sure historians would know for sure?
>
> My reaction to the "supra-ET" thirds in the jazz chorus and the
> renaissance choirs' contrast with that is simple:

Be careful of the word "simple." Simplicity can sometimes be just as
illusive as a the truth about high thirds. I used to think high thirds were
"simply" the only ones anyone used. I don't think that anymore. And, as we
all now know, the world is not "simply" flat.
>
> Jazz harmonies contain harmonic extensions such as 7ths, 9ths, and
> 13ths (sixths if in close-voiced "6th-9th chords"). Many such chords,
> especially the "6th-9th" chords just mentioned, can be voiced open
> in "stacked fourths" and variations of them such as stacked fourths
> with a third on top or an augmented fourth on the bottom (which is
> the 7th with resepect to the root, the latter of which is generally
> on top in this kind of voicing (e.g. Bb, E, A, D, G, C, which in
> close-voicing with the root at the bottom is C, E, G, Bb, D with an A
> thrown in somewhere, but this voicing is not conducive to the
> presence of the A as "sixth" or "thirteenth").

Sounds like a hypothesis worth discussing sometime. Actually, it has nothing
to do with the high third we're talking about here. Here's the set up:

Play a low C and ask the basses to match it. Then ask the women to tune
a tenth above it. Once tuned, compare it to the piano's E and notice that it
is as one would think--slightly below. No surprise.

Then play a low C and ask the basses to match it and ask the tenors to
tune a perfect fifth above it. When the perfect fifth is in evidence, again
ask the women to tune a tenth above the bass. Note that their "third" will
be higher than the piano's third. *Big* surprise!

It works *every* time. I've demonstrated it with my choirs, other people's
choirs, and on the road with choral festival choirs I've never met.

No 7ths, 9ths and 13ths. No 6-9 chords. Just a simple major triad. Just like
in Renaissance endings.
>
> Now we all know that fifths (and fourths, by implication) and thirds
> are not mutually compatible in terms of just tuning. They must be
> traded off with each other. In the renaissance, the tradeoff
> sacrificed the fifths and fourths for the thirds and sixths.

Tradeoff? Huh? Clearly, we *all* don't know this. How do *you* know this?
Makes no sense to me at all. But, I'm all ears! Enlighten me.
>
> In stacked fourth voicings and any other voicings in jazz harmony
> with equivalent or similar harmonic extensions, a series of fourths
> or fifths that are 5+ cents flat sound terribly flacid, wimpy and
> unconvincing, with none of the sought-for jazzy "bite" and sonority.
> This means the thirds in this context want to get sacrificed for the
> fourths and fifths, so ET works well here.

I found that ET didn't work at all for jazz chords. That's why I asked my
rehearsal pianist to stop playing chords while the singers were *seeking*
their tunings. Only when he simply provided bass roots did our hot vocal
chords find their jazzy "bite." By the way, our thirds were not ET; they
were "high." Always! Just like our Renaissance endings.

Whether they were high because they were *sung* high or because they
*sounded* high is what this discussion is all about.

So, there you have it, Robert. Welcome to the discussion.
>
> However, I think the spread of ET as an almost universal tuning
> standard in our culture is partially responsible for the evolution of
> these harmonies in the first place.

I believe ET is the curse of fine tuning in our culture. Train a choir to
sing "piano pitch" and I assure you it will be flat within two minutes
unless the piano is there to bolster it.

> There were some influences from
> impressionism in France that pushed this evolution, but those
> influences had not just a little 12-tET behind them, too.

Gershwin would likely agree with you. But then you should hear what Gershwin
can sound like when sung by pitch-sensitive singers.
>
> Now, in a flexibly pitched ensemble such as an a cappella jazz choir,

The LA Jazz Choir sang with piano, bass and drums. However, the pianist was
always instructed not to comp when the choir was singing harmony and never
to play the same melodic lines the choir was singing. It worked fine. But
you are correct that the vocals were "flexibly pitched," and certainly not
ET (which you suggested above is conducive to jazz tuning).

> even the other side of ET toward Pythagorean may sound better still
> to many ears,

last year, we explored the possibility that the Pythagorean third was the
preferred "high third." We all seemed to agree that it was not. Way too
high.

> trading off even further in favor of the fourths and
> fifths. But then, barbershop quartets often sing very complex jazz
> harmonies that still tend toward JI when the quartet is really good
> and well-steeped in that tradition, a tradition that largely went for
> very pure, sweet harmonies. Here, I would say, in stark contradicton
> to opinions I have expressed in other non-medieval contexts, I have
> to agree that it is a matter of taste.

That's what I thought when I left the list last year. I was pretty much
convinced that taste was all there was to it. I'm no longer convinced. There
is too much agreement among listeners of the jerries to ignore the
possibility that there is a specific "high third" that is learned from
hearing the illusionary high third that generates from the JI triad. Didn't
you say, upon initially hearing jerry00, that you experienced "an apparent
slight drop in pitch when the root and fifth drop out"? Don't look now, Bob,
but I think you may be "in there" with the rest of us.

Jerry

-------------------------(end of 3/18 quote)

--------------------------------------

Some important background, Bob, in case you didn't see it.

Posted on 3/19, 1:26pm:

Last year, during the time I was discussing this topic on the list, I ran
into a list member at the American Choral Directors Association convention.
Having observed the exchange on list, he offered that he "prefers" the JI
third and urges his choir to sing it. We agreed to make somewhat of a
"sport" of listening for high and JI thirds performed by the dozens of
choirs we would hear over the next few days.

I asked him to predict which third would win the talley; and he thought the
high third would. (So, evidently he was confident that he could tell the
difference.) We agreed later that he was right. We both said we heard many
more high thirds than JI ones.

A few months later, I listened to a recording of his choir and noted a
plentiful scattering of high thirds. I thought at the time that perhaps some
of those simply "got past" him.

Now, after hearing Paul's jerry00 as a "high" third, I suspect that we may
have been hearing JI thirds and perceiving them as "high" thirds, just as I
did here. Perhaps we both had been fooled by the "illusion" of a high third
while hearing a JI one.

I could probably leave it there and go one with my life, except that I and
many other singers consciously and intentionally sing thirds higher than ET.
To my ear, there is a "right" place to tune such a third. Upon singing "my"
high third into the JI jerry, I found I could tune it to sound "consonant"
(but not beatless). Of course, when the root and fifth dropped out it
sounded very dissonant to the sustaining JI third.

-------------(end of 3/19 post)

There was a lot more on that one that you should see, Bob. If this doesn't
look familiar, it would be helpful to me and to our clear communication if
you could look it up and review it. GRE)

------------------------------------------(end

Bob, here is a *CRUCIAL* post, I believe. Since you haven't responded to it
(as far as I know), I'll assume you didn't see it so I'll paste it here:

------------(posted on 3/20)

Bob had said:

> OK, here we go! I absolutely cannot understand this statement:

>> "The exercise took a significant turn for me when I
>> realized that jerry00 was JI and yet sounded like the "high third."
>
> It was clear to me from the get-go that Jerry00 was JI. It sounds
> substantially lower to my ear than the truly high thirds in all the
> following Jerries. As stated earlier, I DO notice the subjective
> tendency to perceive a pitch drop when the third is left alone.
> However, *THIS IN NO WAY IMPLIES TO ME OR MY EAR* that the third in
> context with the full chord was "high". It merely sounds to my ear as
> if a good, just third suddenly went *FLAT*, but as also stated
> earlier, attention focused on that specific pitch throughout clearly
> reveals this to be an "aural illusion". This is objectively confirmed
> by matching the pitch with my voice and noting that there is no shift
> in pitch with respect to my rock-steady sung pitch.
>
Jerry resonded:

Suppose I had said that I had heard the naked third in jerry00 clearly as a
4:5 third (in relation to my imaginary extension of the root). Therefore,
since Paul wouldn't have intentionally changed the actual pitch as it
emerged, and because the sounding triad was quite beatless, I concluded that
jerry00 was JI. Yet the third sounding in the triad appeared higher than the
naked one. *That* was my moment of insight. My whole world (well, *this* one
anyway) changed.

Bob, you call the naked third "flat." Okay, but it *is* JI. (Otherwise, why
would the triad be beatless.) You're very reluctant to acknowledge it, but I
think we're pretty much hearing the same thing. You're just describing it
differently. To you, evidently, the third in the triad is the *true* JI, and
the *real* one is "flat." Think about it. (I knew your involvement here
would be valuable.)

Incidentally, most of the other jerries sound rather high to me, as well
they should, since they are somewhat "out of "tune." Since my vocalized
*intentional* high third (as opposed to the JI one) sounds rather good with
jerry00, I'm curious as to whether a "well-tuned" real high third might also
sound "right," if not "consonant." Maybe the damn thing works backwards, as
well.

----------------(end of 3/20 post)

I hope this is helpful, Bob. Your input here is critical, I feel. Please
hang in there and try to catch all the pertinent posts. I don't think we are
far from some kind of resolution--be it positive or negative.

Gratefully,

Jerry