The decadisarticulation system

The rules are as follows:

(1) Each instrument in a piece is assigned to a note group, and may only play notes allowed by that group.

(2) There may be no more than ten notes allowed in any group; this does not mean ten with octave equivalence, but simply ten notes. That's all.

(3) An exception is made for keyboard instruments, where the left hand and the right hand may be assigned to separate note groups. If this is done, only the left hand may play left hand notes, and only the right hand may play right hand notes.

(4) The notes of each group are disjoint--if a note may be played by one group (the first violins, for example) it may not be played by another (the second violins, or the oboe and clarinet group, for example.)

(5) With this system I have ensured the supremacy of California music for the next 100 years.

(6) Is this any more or less artificial than serialism? Why or why not?

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Gene Ward Smith <genewardsmith@j...>"

/tuning/topicId_41612.html#41612

<genewardsmith@j...> wrote:
> The rules are as follows:
>
> (1) Each instrument in a piece is assigned to a note group, and may
only play notes allowed by that group.
>
> (2) There may be no more than ten notes allowed in any group; this
does not mean ten with octave equivalence, but simply ten notes.
That's all.
>
> (3) An exception is made for keyboard instruments, where the left
hand and the right hand may be assigned to separate note groups. If
this is done, only the left hand may play left hand notes, and only
the right hand may play right hand notes.
>
> (4) The notes of each group are disjoint--if a note may be played
by one group (the first violins, for example) it may not be played by
another (the second violins, or the oboe and clarinet group, for
example.)
>
> (5) With this system I have ensured the supremacy of California
music for the next 100 years.
>
> (6) Is this any more or less artificial than serialism? Why or why
not?

***Hi Gene,

I believe composers Tom Johnson and Jonathan Kramer (among others)
have done things entirely along these lines...

Generally some of this stuff can be *more* interesting than
serialism, since it seems that cycling through *fewer* notes than 12
can leave a more lasting aural impression, so it seems...

Joe

Joseph Pehrson wrote:
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Gene Ward Smith <genewardsmith@j...>"
> >>(2) There may be no more than ten notes allowed in any group; this > I believe composers Tom Johnson and Jonathan Kramer (among others) > have done things entirely along these lines...
> > Generally some of this stuff can be *more* interesting than > serialism, since it seems that cycling through *fewer* notes than 12 > can leave a more lasting aural impression, so it seems...

On another list about a year or so ago, someone made a comment in referencce to a study he had just read about how the human mind likes to group things into small units, and it is somewhere around 7 where the mind reaches its limit (look at the resistance to 10-digit phone numbers).

I have wanted to track this article down myself (I have since deleted the refernce to the article), as I have wondered how something such as this "Limit" concept has played a part in how our scales have been created over the ages. From what I have read about on the history of scales seems to indicate that as time passed, more and more notes were added to the "western" traditional scale, but it stopped at 12. Is the reason for this due to the "average" human being able to "deal" with 12 notes in an octave? (Key word here is "average", and I assume that most people on this list are NOT average when it comes to the number of "notes" they can decern within an octave).

My curiosity here might also have a relationship to the "acceptance" of serial techniques (in a limited way). In general, I do like the serial music of Messian and Stravinsky. They both used these techniques in different ways from how Schoenberg set down.

Stravinsky created tone rows that were of shorter length, and did not use all the notes of the chromatic scale. How does this "limiting" contribute to the (relative) success of these works? (I wish that I could remember the names of some of these works, but most all his later works are in this vain).

Messian seemed to have extended the idea of "serialism" to include an entire phrase. Look at the opening to "Quartet for the end of time", he layers several unrelated phrases. This might be considered a "strick" serialism, but it could also be considered an early example of tape-loops...

How about a strick canon? Is that not a strick form of serialism? I don't think serialism per se, is new. JS Bach used it (in a sense) with his use of cantus firmus. I think the only rule that Schoenberg added was that no note may appear a second time until all others have been used (he was not the only one with that idea either). Other composers started to apply the "serial" techniques to other parameters, ad inifinitum/nauseum/absurdity...

I also wonder about how the relation between strick serial techniques and its "polar" opposite of "aleatory" or chance music (as in some of the piano works of Cage). These works seem to have many aural similarities.

Just a couple of sparks from my synaspes... for what its worth...

Mike

>(6) Is this any more or less artificial than serialism? Why
>or why not?

Arguably more, since a random selection of 10 pitches on
each instrument is bound to have a higher average discordance
than a random ordering of all 12 pitches from the equal-
tempered scale on each instrument.

Arguable, because it's not clear that concordance adds
anything to the perception of serial music.

But still arguably more, since 12 total pitches is fewer
than 10*[parts] pitches.

Still arguable, since it's not clear that pitch-tracking
in short-term memory adds anything to the perception of
serial music.

It actually isn't clear what the serial technique adds to
the perception of music it's used to create. Which means
it [the technique] probably sucks rocks.

Which I think is the answer you were looking for.

-Carl

>On another list about a year or so ago, someone made a comment
>in referencce to a study he had just read about how the human
>mind likes to group things into small units, and it is somewhere
>around 7 where the mind reaches its limit (look at the resistance
>to 10-digit phone numbers).

That person was probably me. I've mentioned both the 'Miller'
and 'subitizing' limits several times on these lists, which are
both discussed in George Miller's seminal paper "The Magical
Number Seven".

The 10-digit phone number example seems dubious because:
() The area code is 'chunked' away into nothing, since
there are seldom more than 3 in a given local area.
() Working memory seems less important for phone numbers
than long-term memory.

John Chalmers mentioned about a year ago some matter from a
talk given by Balzano and company at UCSD (IIRC) on how all
musical themes are usually 7 _seconds_ or less. I didn't
attend the talk, but noted that this sounded like nonsense
to me.

Brian McLaren and Stephen Soderberg have both discussed the
Miller limit in the past on this list, in dubious contexts
as far as I was concerned.

>Is the reason for this due to the "average" human being able
>to "deal" with 12 notes in an octave?

Miller suggests that the diatonic scale may have been limited
to 7 notes because of the limitations of human working memory.
12 is too far beyond the limit for this kind of reasoning, and
indeed, very few memorable tunes use 12 distinct tones (not
including ornaments, commatic variations, etc.).

-Carl

Carl Lumma wrote:
>>On another list about a year or so ago, someone made a comment
>>in referencce to a study he had just read about how the human
>>mind likes to group things into small units, and it is somewhere
>>around 7 where the mind reaches its limit (look at the resistance
>>to 10-digit phone numbers).
> > > That person was probably me. I've mentioned both the 'Miller'
> and 'subitizing' limits several times on these lists, which are
> both discussed in George Miller's seminal paper "The Magical
> Number Seven".

Thanks Carl, but I know who this other person is, and he is not you,

But... you also probably saw the same things as he did. So thanks for the reference.

> > The 10-digit phone number example seems dubious because:
> () The area code is 'chunked' away into nothing, since
> there are seldom more than 3 in a given local area.
> () Working memory seems less important for phone numbers
> than long-term memory.

While, yes, it is a pretty lame example of what I was driving at, but it sure did cause quite a stink here in Chicago until everyone realized that a) they had no choice, and b) it was not a big deal.

> > John Chalmers mentioned about a year ago some matter from a
> talk given by Balzano and company at UCSD (IIRC) on how all
> musical themes are usually 7 _seconds_ or less. I didn't
> attend the talk, but noted that this sounded like nonsense
> to me.

While I don't think that 7 is a magical number as when measuring an absolute time, but a phrase of 7 different pitches (or with some repeated) seems to be well within the "average" persons ability to remember. How many pop songs (and I am not advocating pop music as any standard of excellance, but as a point of musical memory) do you remember simply because they have a memorable hook (or phrase) be it musical, rhythmic, or lyrical. These things are generally short and catchy.

A case in point in "western" classical music, look at each of the inventions by Bach, each presented a short (well some do) phrase of limited resources, which goes on to be subjected to several types of tranformations. I would venture to say that the ones that are based on shorter, smaller number of elements, are the more memorable one due to having fewer elements to deal with. I would imagine that Bach wrote these pieces knowing that they would be played by 2nd or 3rd year students, so they needed to have simple "hooks" that could be easily picked up.

I am in no way suggesting that to get music to be more "acceptable" that it needs to be dumbed down, but I do question the levels of complexity that some composers seem to strive for. While in concept, I agree with the "Futurist Manifesto", I am not really thrilled with music produced using those philosophies... I agree that an "artist" should be free to explore their "art", but how self-indulgent do we have to be.

> Brian McLaren and Stephen Soderberg have both discussed the
> Miller limit in the past on this list, in dubious contexts
> as far as I was concerned.

While it does have some concerns, I don't know how easily it applies in all "contexts". Just like the concept of "Total Serialism" reaches absurdity in practice, I would imagine that trying to apply this "7-limit" (and I don't mean the tuning 7-limit) to all factors of music would produce just as an absurd music as 12-tone or serial techniques.

While I do like some serial music, I do admit that I like it more for the effect that it produces while I am listening to it more than how memorable it is, or if I can whistle it the next day. I can remember some recordings of complex soundscapes in my head almost as if I were listening to them (or at least I seem to delude myself into thinking this), and I think this is because in my mind, I am hearing each of the complex groups as separate elements, which (may or may not) come down to a set of 7 elements. But trying to whistle a simple 12-tone tune (even one as simple as the chromatic scale) is difficult for some trained musicians.

>>Is the reason for this due to the "average" human being able
>>to "deal" with 12 notes in an octave?
> > > Miller suggests that the diatonic scale may have been limited
> to 7 notes because of the limitations of human working memory.
> 12 is too far beyond the limit for this kind of reasoning, and
> indeed, very few memorable tunes use 12 distinct tones (not
> including ornaments, commatic variations, etc.).

Well, now that I read down this far, it would appear that we are both saying the same things...

Thanks,

Mike

Michael McGonagle wrote:

> I have wanted to track this article down myself (I have since deleted > the refernce to the article), as I have wondered how something such as > this "Limit" concept has played a part in how our scales have been > created over the ages. From what I have read about on the history of > scales seems to indicate that as time passed, more and more notes were > added to the "western" traditional scale, but it stopped at 12. Is the > reason for this due to the "average" human being able to "deal" with 12 > notes in an octave? (Key word here is "average", and I assume that most > people on this list are NOT average when it comes to the number of > "notes" they can decern within an octave).

Try this:

http://www.well.com/user/smalin/miller.html

The average human being can cope with a decimal numbering system, so it must be possible to work with sets that lie outside 7+/-2 if you're familiar enough with them. A 12 note scale is the simplest one in which you can describe a diatonic scale with large and small steps. As such, it's been around a long time -- even the Greeks thought about equal semitones. Equal tempering is the modern idea, but it looks like one reason 12 won out over 19 is that people were already thinking in terms of a 12 note gamut.

There are plenty of ways you can break the 12 note octave down into comprehensible chunks:

- Use subset scales (7 for major, 9 for minor)

- Think in terms of tetrachords (5 notes) or pentachords (7 notes)

- Use symmetrical tone rows (Webern did a lot of this)

Graham