More on Blackwood Microtonal Etudes

Well, I'm kinda curious as to how Blackwood *recorded* his
_Microtonal Etudes_ so I will try to write to him (I have his e-mail
address). I presume he "overdubbed" the entire thing rather than
using a sequencer... they weren't much in use with computers in
1980... Also wonder about the way he used his *greater than 12*
scales on the *physical* keyboard.

Getting to the *esthetic* part of this, though, I feel after
listening and thinking about this for a while that Blackwood is
primarily intent on viewing these various octave-division scales
through the prism of our traditional harmony and diatonicism.

There's nothing particularly wrong with that, but I feel it is a
clear bias. Hence, many of his comments in the CD liner that such
and such a scale has "bad" triads or "bad" linear scales and so on,
so he'll work around them or direct the piece a different way...

And, this means more than just using sonorities that follow the
overtone series as 12-tET does... I think he's even intent on
following traditional *functional harmony* to as great an extent as
is possible in any given scale.

For this reason, I believe a listener will find that the scales that
*allow* the greatest traditional harmonic manipulation, such as 19-
tET get the *most* conservative treatment of them all... in this case
the piece sounds like Bach...

It's basically like looking at ETs with "traditional 12-equal
functional harmonic" glasses.

Nothing particularly wrong with that, but it certainly contrasts with
somebody who finds all the particular *strengths* of a tuning, be it
traditional or not, and "runs with it" to make something entirely new.

Blackwood is also *very* light on the metric variation end (makes
some of my *own* music, incredibly, seem like Elliott Carter or some
such.. :) and he's also very light on timbral variation, when
compared to any of our *real* electronic composers, not that that is
what he's after.

So, in the end, the works seem more like fascinating *studies* than
as fully developed and competent works of microtonal music.

Of course, maybe that's why they're called "Etudes!"

Very enjoyable and interesting, though.

Anybody else have a similar "take?"

Joe Pehrson

Hi Joe,

I concur about Blackwood's etudes. I teach them every other year in my alternative tuning class because there's little other non-12 ET music I have scores for, but I find them extremely timid in conception. We end up calling him Professor Blackwood at the Mighty Wurlitzer at the 19-tone Resort. And I don't think there's much logic to his accidentals, he was just trying to make them analogous to flats and sharps, enharmonically speaking.

I will be thrilled, however, to see California music reign supreme for the next 100 years.

Kyle

In a message dated 12/22/02 6:52:34 PM Eastern Standard Time,
kgann@earthlink.net writes:

> I will be thrilled, however, to see California music reign supreme
> for the next 100 years.
>
> Kyle
>
>

How do you mean this, Kyle?

Johnny Reinhard

Johnny,

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Afmmjr@a... wrote:
> In a message dated 12/22/02 6:52:34 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> kgann@e... writes:
>
> > I will be thrilled, however, to see California music reign
> > supreme for the next 100 years.
>
> How do you mean this, Kyle?

See this message:

/tuning/topicId_41612.html#41612

It's all tongue-in-cheek...

Cheers,
Jon

Hi, Johnny,

>>In a message dated 12/22/02 6:52:34 PM Eastern
>Standard Time, kgann@earthlink.net writes:

>>I will be thrilled, however, to see California music reign
>>supreme for the next 100 years.
>
>How do you mean this, Kyle?

Better California than Germany any day.

You do know that Schoenberg, the day he wrote his first 12-tone row, wrote in his journal, "I have discovered today something that will ensure the supremacy of German music for the next 100 years."

The son of a bitch.

Yours,

Kyle

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Kyle Gann <kgann@e...> wrote:

/tuning/topicId_41615.html#41621

> Hi, Johnny,
>
> >>In a message dated 12/22/02 6:52:34 PM Eastern
> >Standard Time, kgann@e... writes:
>
> >>I will be thrilled, however, to see California music reign
> >>supreme for the next 100 years.
> >
> >How do you mean this, Kyle?
>
> Better California than Germany any day.
>
> You do know that Schoenberg, the day he wrote his first 12-tone
row,
> wrote in his journal, "I have discovered today something that will
> ensure the supremacy of German music for the next 100 years."
>
> The son of a bitch.
>
> Yours,
>
> Kyle

Hey Kyle!

Yes, nothing like modesty... obviously...

The irony being, of course, that Schoenberg lived in California
during the entirety of his stay here... :)

best,

Joe Pehrson

>I presume he "overdubbed" the entire thing

Correct.

>rather than using a sequencer...

Actually, he still had to sequence everything
in advance (yes, by hand) since he found that
he could not reproduce a given timbre exactly
on the polyfusion synth (due to it being a
finicky analog thing). Therefore, if a certain
timbre was to appear throughout a piece, it had
to be recorded at once, without the other parts
present, before the synth could be re-patched
for the next timbre. IIRC he used ye olden
Click Track.

> 1980... Also wonder about the way he used his
> *greater than 12* scales on the *physical* keyboard.

IIRC it was just a halberstadt, but the lines are
all monophonic (in fact, I think the synth was
monophonic -- anybody know, off hand?).

> Getting to the *esthetic* part of this, though, I feel after
> listening and thinking about this for a while that Blackwood is
> primarily intent on viewing these various octave-division scales
> through the prism of our traditional harmony and diatonicism.
>
> There's nothing particularly wrong with that, but I feel it
> is a clear bias.

There's nothing wrong with it, but I beat my wife...

Bias in the evil, multiculturalist sense? Or bias in the 'even
I, Joe Pehrson, can't avoid' sense?

If elements of diatonic music are good, then generalizing to
microtonal tunings seems like a Good Idea. I do think that
Blackwood generalized too rigidly in many respects, and so I
think we agree... but he was one of the first to try, so the
etudes still make my list of 20th-century essential listening.

>but it certainly contrasts with somebody who finds all the
>particular *strengths* of a tuning, be it traditional or not,
>and "runs with it" to make something entirely new.

I think I can agree here.

>Blackwood is also *very* light on the metric variation end (makes
>some of my *own* music, incredibly, seem like Elliott Carter or
>some such.. :) and he's also very light on timbral variation, when
>compared to any of our *real* electronic composers, not that that
>is what he's after.

I think he did a tremendous job. It's tremendously difficult to
get some of those tunings to sound as smooth as he did, and it's
also very hard to keep analog timbres from getting too thick in
polyphonic solo work. He got about as much timbre variation as
you can do and still have an 'orchestra'.

>So, in the end, the works seem more like fascinating *studies*
>than as fully developed and competent works of microtonal music.

Ouch.

>Of course, maybe that's why they're called "Etudes!"

Sort of like Chopin's etudes?

-Carl

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma <clumma@y...>"

/tuning/topicId_41615.html#41630

>
> > 1980... Also wonder about the way he used his
> > *greater than 12* scales on the *physical* keyboard.
>
> IIRC it was just a halberstadt, but the lines are
> all monophonic (in fact, I think the synth was
> monophonic -- anybody know, off hand?).
>

***Hi Carl,

Well, that might be quite a trick, remembering which Halberstadt
keyboard notes went with which of his written pitches, yes? I use
*stickers* on my keyboard for Blackjack, but I'm only working with
that *one* tuning at the moment...

> > Getting to the *esthetic* part of this, though, I feel after
> > listening and thinking about this for a while that Blackwood is
> > primarily intent on viewing these various octave-division scales
> > through the prism of our traditional harmony and diatonicism.
> >
> > There's nothing particularly wrong with that, but I feel it
> > is a clear bias.
>
> There's nothing wrong with it, but I beat my wife...
>
> Bias in the evil, multiculturalist sense? Or bias in the 'even
> I, Joe Pehrson, can't avoid' sense?
>

***I'm thinking more the latter. Personally, the emphasis on this
kind of orientation puts the pieces more in a "theory-composer" camp
rather than an "original-composer" camp... but there's *my* bias! :)

> If elements of diatonic music are good, then generalizing to
> microtonal tunings seems like a Good Idea. I do think that
> Blackwood generalized too rigidly in many respects, and so I
> think we agree... but he was one of the first to try, so the
> etudes still make my list of 20th-century essential listening.
>

***Well, I agree, and I find them *extremely* interesting.

> >but it certainly contrasts with somebody who finds all the
> >particular *strengths* of a tuning, be it traditional or not,
> >and "runs with it" to make something entirely new.
>
> I think I can agree here.
>
> >Blackwood is also *very* light on the metric variation end (makes
> >some of my *own* music, incredibly, seem like Elliott Carter or
> >some such.. :) and he's also very light on timbral variation, when
> >compared to any of our *real* electronic composers, not that that
> >is what he's after.
>
> I think he did a tremendous job. It's tremendously difficult to
> get some of those tunings to sound as smooth as he did, and it's
> also very hard to keep analog timbres from getting too thick in
> polyphonic solo work. He got about as much timbre variation as
> you can do and still have an 'orchestra'.
>

***Well, still, his work is more "instructive" than a finished
product. If we listen to a MIDI master such as Jacky Ligon, the
difference is quickly shown... there really is no "final processing"
on his electronics, not even minimal reverb.

> >So, in the end, the works seem more like fascinating *studies*
> >than as fully developed and competent works of microtonal music.
>
> Ouch.
>
> >Of course, maybe that's why they're called "Etudes!"
>
> Sort of like Chopin's etudes?
>

***I'm thinking more compositional Czerny... :)

Still like listening to them, though!

Joe

>Well, that might be quite a trick, remembering which Halberstadt
>keyboard notes went with which of his written pitches, yes? I use
>*stickers* on my keyboard for Blackjack, but I'm only working with
>that *one* tuning at the moment...

Sure. I find it very difficult to use non-12-tone tunings on
the Halberstadt.

>***I'm thinking more the latter. Personally, the emphasis on this
>kind of orientation puts the pieces more in a "theory-composer"
>camp rather than an "original-composer" camp... but there's *my*
>bias! :)

Your earlier statement about being a composer with theory on the
brain made an impact on me... can't remember if that was in ref.
to Blackwood, but I wouldn't disagree. His 12-tone stuff can be
a bit shlocky. Still, I'm so impressed by stuff like the 15-tone
guitar suite that I have a hard time criticizing him for anything.

>***Well, still, his work is more "instructive" than a finished
>product. If we listen to a MIDI master such as Jacky Ligon, the
>difference is quickly shown... there really is no "final
>processing" on his electronics, not even minimal reverb.

It's hard to compare Ligon's stuff to the microtonal etudes, since
MIDI didn't exist when Blackwood did them. Nevertheless, I'll
say that I don't find Ligon's stuff impressive in the least.

>>Sort of like Chopin's etudes?
>>
>
>***I'm thinking more compositional Czerny... :)

Oh, that's not fair.

-Carl

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma <clumma@y...>"

/tuning/post?act=reply&messageNum=41638

>
> Your earlier statement about being a composer with theory on the
> brain made an impact on me... can't remember if that was in ref.
> to Blackwood, but I wouldn't disagree. His 12-tone stuff can be
> a bit shlocky. Still, I'm so impressed by stuff like the 15-tone
> guitar suite that I have a hard time criticizing him for anything.
>

***He's amazing with 15. In fact, it's my favorite of the "Etudes!"

> >***Well, still, his work is more "instructive" than a finished
> >product. If we listen to a MIDI master such as Jacky Ligon, the
> >difference is quickly shown... there really is no "final
> >processing" on his electronics, not even minimal reverb.
>
> It's hard to compare Ligon's stuff to the microtonal etudes, since
> MIDI didn't exist when Blackwood did them. Nevertheless, I'll
> say that I don't find Ligon's stuff impressive in the least.
>

***I mean specifically the "post processing" sound angle. But you
have a good point that some of that hardware/software stuff wasn't
around then. Still, it seems the *tuning* is really Blackwood's
major emphasis.

After all we can't emphasize *everything* equally! Perhaps that's
even a mistake... cf. our recent discussion of super complex rhythm
vs. complex microtonality...

> >>Sort of like Chopin's etudes?
> >>
> >
> >***I'm thinking more compositional Czerny... :)
>
> Oh, that's not fair.
>

***OK, that was a bit harsh. As I mentioned, I enjoy the Etudes and,
in fact, find some of them quite memorable.

J. Pehrosn

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma <clumma@y...>"
<clumma@y...> wrote:

> If elements of diatonic music are good, then generalizing to
> microtonal tunings seems like a Good Idea. I do think that
> Blackwood generalized too rigidly in many respects, and so I
> think we agree...

i can agree with this too . . . for example, the traditional diatonic
scale with 5-limit harmony doesn't work well in 22-equal, and hence
blackwood's piece in 22-equal sounds like soggy corn flakes . . . but
there are other, "generalized diatonic" scales, also based on "just
intonation" or "harmonic series" harmony, which are much stronger in
22-equal, and it's too bad blackwood missed out on those . . .

>***He's amazing with 15. In fact, it's my favorite of the "Etudes!"

Mine too!

-C.