Re: Reasons to avoid JI

Dear Gene,

>Sorry, I don't play that game. I'm not an
>advocate and I prefer not to take
>sides in a conflict which plainly makes no
>sense....

>Did you get my CD? Can you explain what the big, fat difference is between the
>JI music, the et music, the linear temperament music and the planar >temperament
>music on it?

Well, we're in complete agreement, which is pleasant. But you had started out by suggesting that Toby Twining's Chrysalid Requiem might be better off in ET, based only on my superficial description of it, and I thought that was too facile, as well as being dismissive of what Toby accomplished. The value of a tuning method is not only in how the music sounds, but how the process of composing it operates and feels. I'm sure someone could make a version of my Custer and Sitting Bull in 31tet, or 53tet, or 7200tet, that I wouldn't be able to tell from the version I made myself. But I wouldn't have enjoyed composing it in an ET, wouldn't have come up with the same ideas, wouldn't have stumbled across the same weirdly unequal scales, nor would the resulting notation be as clear an expression of the way I conceived the music as the JI notation is. Perhaps you compose exactly the same way in ET as in JI, but for me and some people, the way the pitch space is set up has a pervasive, if subtle, impact on the way one thinks compositionally. I think Toby's score itself is an amazing achievement, and the Johnston accidentals show you not only what frequencies to play, but what harmonic relationships Toby was composing with. I haven't had the opportunity to analyze the piece yet to learn whether his accidentals "accumulate" because of progressive moves away from the tonic, or for some other reason. Certainly the mathematical problems you enumerated don't occur in my own music, which never keeps up a uni-directional or regular rate of harmonic change. At least, you might listen to Chrysalid Requiem before deciding that Toby did it wrong. No one who gets his music as widely performed and recorded as Toby can be considered impractical.

I don't have your CD, and I would love to get it, especially since I teach an alternative tuning course and don't have very many convincing examples of high-numbered ET music on CD. If you wouldn't mind sending me a copy, I'll e-mail you my address off-line.

Thanks,

Kyle, still snowed in with nuthin' to do but get on the internet, and not feeling sorry for Jon Szanto :^)

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

> Well, we're in complete agreement, which is pleasant. But you had
> started out by suggesting that Toby Twining's Chrysalid Requiem might
> be better off in ET

I was suggesting that praising it for having a lot of accidentals made no sense. In any event "might" is not the same as "would be".

based only on my superficial description of it,
> and I thought that was too facile, as well as being dismissive of
> what Toby accomplished.

I have no idea what he accomplished, but having a lot of accidentals is not part of it, since that to my mind at least is not an accomplishment.

The value of a tuning method is not only in
> how the music sounds, but how the process of composing it operates
> and feels.

I agree. One can start out in JI and then convert it, of course, which
is how my 171-et piece "Clinton Variations" was composed. In that I way tried to have the best of both worlds.

> Certainly the mathematical problems you enumerated don't occur in my
> own music, which never keeps up a uni-directional or regular rate of
> harmonic change.

I often do; that can lead to a different perspective, I imagine.

At least, you might listen to Chrysalid Requiem
> before deciding that Toby did it wrong.

I didn't decide he did it wrong, you decided that I decided that he did it wrong. :)

> I don't have your CD, and I would love to get it, especially since I
> teach an alternative tuning course and don't have very many
> convincing examples of high-numbered ET music on CD. If you wouldn't
> mind sending me a copy, I'll e-mail you my address off-line.

Have you checked your mailbox at Bard? I sent it there.

You teach an entire course on alternative tuning? Way to go, Bard College!