Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup tuning wow!!

>Not only has he been discussed here (I discussed this very piece as
>performed by Bang on a Can on this list a couple of years ago) but he
>has actually *posted* to this list. You can probably find his post
>(I can't remember what he was looking for, but I think it was
>something MIDI related) if you search for it.
>
>Yes, he is spectacular, I agree...

Below are some of those posts. Notes:

() The singers get their pitches from headphones! Ah-ha!

() The thing is scored in Johnston notation, with up to 20 accidentals
on one note! What kind of tools is he using to do that scoring, and
then get pitches tracked out to headphones!?

In his post he asks for tools advice, but any further correspondence
between him and Daniel Wolf must have taken place off-list. Toby,
Daniel, anyone -- know how this was done?

-Carl

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Date: 11 Feb 2000 06:44:02 -0000
From: tobytwiningmusic@mindspring.com
Subject: seeking advice for software from other microtonal
composers or performers

Hello,I'm seeking advice regarding software to interface my computer
with my synthesizer and tune it in real time through a lot of 7 limit
modulations in Just Intonation. I'm working on a choral piece for
which the synth will provide an accompaniment. The modulations happen
very quickly sometimes and their are some passages with 12 different
simultaneous pitches. I'm not new to composing or tuning, but still
pretty green with using the computer. Anybody?

Toby Twining

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Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2000 11:00:42 +0100
From: "Daniel Wolf" <djwolf@snafu.de>
Subject: Re: seeking advice for software from other microtonal
composers or performers

First, it's useful to know what computer, operating system, and
synthesizer you have. Also, if your computer has a decent sound card,
that may well be more immediately useful than an external synth.

Daniel Wolf

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Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2000 22:41:43 -0500
From: "Toby Twining" <tobytwiningmusic@mindspring.com>
Subject: Re: seeking advice for software from other microtonal
composers or performers

Thanks for your response. I'll get back to you.

Toby Twining

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Date: Sun, 14 May 2000 14:18:26 -0400
From: Joseph Pehrson <josephpehrson@compuserve.com>
Subject: Toby Twining's big new piece at BOC

Last night great performance produced by Bang On A Can at Columbia
University's Miller Theatre featuring Toby Twining's "new" CHRYSALID
REQUIEM. (He's been working on it for 5 years). Nice piece. Rather
lengthy, a full-length requiem... probably 40 minutes, but interesting
in that the entire chorus of 12 (6 men, 6 women) wore headsets and took
their pitch cues from a laptop computer onstage. The purpose was to
create a work in just intonation... or some workable system thereof
(adaptive?? whoknows). Nice sounds of the overtone series behind the
singing added, at times, to the "ethereal" effect. Some people left,
expecting the traditional Bang on a Can "rock" offerings. Not that
those type pieces have been bad... it's just that BOC seems to be
expanding its "palette" these days, going back a bit more to the
earlier times before the big Lincoln Center "commercial" expansion...
Twining, as many list members probably know, posts here from time to
time.

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Date: Thu Jun 13, 2002 5:04 pm
From: "Jonathan M. Szanto" <JSZANTO@A...>
Subject: Anybody know about this concert / music?

List,

Just looking through the latest New Yorker that came today (hey, I
sometimes get the feeling that a well-trimmed palm tree is considered
a Cultural Asset in the little town I live in!), and I saw this in
the concert listings:

Toby Twining Music
"This exotic vocal sextet, prominent in the downtown scene of the
nineties, hasn't given a new York concert in two years. They return to
perform excerpts from Twinings' "Chrysalid Requiem", a pure, liturgical
Latin requiem sung in just intonation and influenced by Tibetan overtone
singing, the music of Harry Partch, and a thousand years of Western
vocal tradition."
[Joe's Pub, 425 Lafayette Street, 239-6200, June 13 at 7:00]

Well, crap, it's already an hour into the concert as I'm writing this,
but I hope if anyone went they'll report on what it was like!

Cheers,
Jon

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From: David Beardsley <davidbeardsley@b...>
Date: Fri Jun 14, 2002 7:34 am
Subject: Re: [tuning] Re: Anybody know about this concert / music?

----- Original Message -----
From: "jonszanto" <JSZANTO@A...>

> In any event, I found their website and might order the CD, which
> has just been released.

I got the cd a few days ago...it's ok. I've heard more interesting
Harmonic singing other places.

---

From: Kyle Gann <kgann@e...>
Date: Thu Jan 2, 2003 7:58 am
Subject: Re: Corporealism vs. Abstraction

Alison,

>As my work this year will involve soloists,
>chorus and microtonal
>instruments any leads on this fascinating trail would be most helpful.

Are you (or the rest of youse guys) aware of Tony Twining's Chrysalid
Requiem that was recently recorded on the Canteloupe label? It's an
astonishing hour-long vocal work in extremely extended JI, with
sometimes more than 20 (!) Johnston accidentals on each note.
Incredibly complex and very beautiful, and his group recorded it (had
to) by listening to a computer tape over headphones that gave them
the pitches as they were singing. It's by far the most amazing tuning
feat I've ever heard in a vocal composition. The score is
unbelievably complex, but the music doesn't give any hint of the
amount of work. I notice there was a litle buzz on the list about the
piece some months ago, but no one seems to have heard it at the time.

Cheers,

Kyle

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Date: Fri Jan 3, 2003 8:07 pm
From: Kyle Gann <kgann@e...>
Subject: 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 :^)

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wow!!

🔗Carl Lumma <ekin@lumma.org>

🔗Joseph Pehrson <jpehrson@rcn.com>

🔗Carl Lumma <ekin@lumma.org>