snotty microtonalists

I just met a fellow who went to the Microfest in LA in May, and he
related a story which I want to pass along, about his perceptions of the
musicians he encountered. Sadly, what he had to tell me doesn't make the
LA boys look too hot. Basically, when this man attempted to chat with
some of the performers after the show, he felt that they were
uninterested in talking to him, and seemed rather elitist...he said they
kept to themselves, and were not interested in talking about their music
or the tunings involved. He said he left depressed, and with a bad
feeling about the scene in LA. And this is a man who has a real interest
in learning about the world of tunings, the type of guy who wants to be
involved as a performer (he is a musician, with an involvement in
Chinese music).
Remember, this is his opinion, formulated on his experience at the
Microfest...I don't feel he had any axe to grind; he genuinely was
disappointed at the response he got. This bums me out immensely...first,
elitism of any kind, in any field, sucks...second, I hate to hear of
such an occurrence in the small world of microtones because we need all
the help we can get to make this happen on a wider scale. And, if this
dude was depressed, it's likely that others have had the same sort of
experience as well. Too bad.
Also, a smaller point...he said no one talked about the tunings they
used, or any of the theory behind why they did what they did...he was
interested in learning about what was happening, but came away with
little new knowledge. I put this post up as a public service to my
fellow microtonalists, so perhaps we can avoid alienating people in the
future at our gigs...Hstick

I wasn't in LA but all the Microtonalists I know in California
have been good to me. They return email, are very helpful
and real nice people.

--
* D a v i d B e a r d s l e y
* xouoxno@virtulink.com
*
* J u x t a p o s i t i o n E z i n e
* M E L A v i r t u a l d r e a m house monitor
*
* http://www.virtulink.com/immp/lookhere.htm

>From: Neil Haverstick <stick@uswest.net>
>
> I just met a fellow who went to the Microfest in LA in May, and he
>related a story which I want to pass along, about his perceptions of the
>musicians he encountered. Sadly, what he had to tell me doesn't make the
>LA boys look too hot. Basically, when this man attempted to chat with
>some of the performers after the show, he felt that they were
>uninterested in talking to him, and seemed rather elitist....
> Also, a smaller point...he said no one talked about the tunings they
>used, or any of the theory behind why they did what they did...

I'm sorry your friend had this experience, but mine was quite different. At
the first concert, I hung around and talked to several composers and
performers. They were quite friendly and happy to answer questions. I
remember a group of people asking questions of John Schneider until he had
to excuse himself to pack up. After the second concert, I talked to several
interested people, and I saw that the other composers did as well. I am
genuinely perplexed because, even allowing for my involvement and
acquaintance with some others involved, I could hardly have had a more
different impression than your friend.

As far as the details of the tunings, program notes were more extensive
than many concerts that I attend. Writers of program notes walk a line
between turning off the layperson by being too technical (or giving the
false impression that that's what the music is "about") and satisfying the
curiosity of the specialist or curious novice.

Personally, I prefer to err on the side of the former, in part because I
don't want people to think I'm snooty or elitist! A impenetrable series of
numbers and technical words just give many people more reason to think
we're a self-ordained priesthood churning out esoterica from arcane
formulas. And why just tuning? There are at least as many technical details
I could talk about in my music in terms of rhythm, mode, non-West
influences, etc.

For the specialist, I have already written about the tuning and other
particulars associated with the piece of mine that was performed. That info
can be found at: http://www2.hmc.edu/~alves/pleng.html. Kraig has also
posted much information about his music, and John Schneider published the
details of his experience with Barstow. If your friend has any questions or
would like to discuss my piece, I would be more than happy to correspond
with him. If you or anyone else has any suggestions about how to avoid
giving such false impressions or improving microtonal concerts, I would be
happy to discuss those as well.

Bill

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^ Bill Alves email: alves@hmc.edu ^
^ Harvey Mudd College URL: http://www2.hmc.edu/~alves/ ^
^ 301 E. Twelfth St. (909)607-4170 (office) ^
^ Claremont CA 91711 USA (909)607-7600 (fax) ^
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