The brilliant visionary genius Arnold Schoenberg

> From: <xed@...>
> To: <crazy_music@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Sunday, July 15, 2001 11:45 PM
> Subject: [crazy_music] The arrogant incomepetent
> ignoramus Arnold Schoenberg
>
> ...
>
> As a result, I can say from hands-on musical experience
> that regardless of how Joe Monzo interprets Schoenberg's
> words about "the prototype" (viz., 4:5;6) chord, Schoenberg's
> claims are ignorant and false, since the 4:5:6 chord is
> irrelevant to and unimportant in real music in the real world.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. This demonstrates how poorly you
understand Schoenberg's theory.

Schoenberg himself said in different words exactly what you
say here: "the 4:5:6 chord is irrelevant to and unimportant
in real music in the real world [which Arnold Schoenberg
is composing in 1910]."

From Schoenberg 1911, _Harmonielehre_, p 356-357;
Schoenberg 1978, _Theory of Harmony_, p 318-319:

>> Thus, for example, Heinrich Schenker ... as when he speaks
>> of the 'mysterious number five', beyond which (if I remember
>> correctly) we are not to go. A poetic thought, certainly,
>> yet somewhat too poetic in the bad sense, since the real poet
>> recognizes the truth; for that five is already far behind us.
>> But this fact does not bother him. He wants the number
>> five to remain mysterious. Holding to this aim, he is not
>> only blinded to reality, he also lets pass false and
>> inexact observations; for otherwise this 'mysteriousness'
>> cannot be maintained. The number five is of course, in
>> itself, no less mysterious than all other numbers, nor
>> is it any more mysterious. And, after all, such secrets
>> as we uncover are either not secrets, or we' have not
>> uncovered hem. Whatever nature wants to hide from us,
>> she conceals better than that. Aside from all that,
>> however: the number five is supposed to be remarkable
>> in that it shows up everywhere in music as a kind of
>> boundary, for example (I don't remember everything),
>> as the fifth overtone, and as the fifth tone of the scale,
>> as the _Quint_. Yes, but who says then that the _Quint_
>> has anything at all to do with five. Because we have given
>> it the name, _Quint_? It is not really five on that account.
>> In the overtone series, for example, it is the sec
>> ond tone. In the triad it is the third tone, and in the
>> chromatic scale it comes in seventh place. That we name
>> the interval c - g, five, does not mean that c - g is
>> actually, in every context, five; our usage comes
>> from the fact that in our present scale - *our* scale
>> - exactly three tones come between c and g. But what
>> if there had been four or two? And there could have
>> been, and it would have been right, too; for nature
>> lends herself to a far greater variety of interpretations
>> than [do] our secrets.
>> Such errors result whenever one merely searches out
>> reasons enough to explain what is known, instead of
>> providing a surplus of reasons to embrace cases that
>> do not yet exist. Such errors result whenever one takes
>> the known phenomena to be the only ones there are, to
>> be the ultimate and immutable manifestations of nature,
>> and explains only these, instead of contemplating nature
>> comprehensively in its relation to our feelings and
>> perceptions. If the latter viewpoint is taken, these
>> phenomena will reveal that they are not conclusive,
>> not final, not definitive; rather that they are a small
>> part of an immense, incalculable whole, in which the
>> number five is just as interesting as, but no more
>> mysterious than, all other numbers, be they prime numbers,
>> products, or powers.

That is hardly a polemic from someone who feels that the
5-limit 4:5:6 triad is "the one true chord of nature".

So 'Schoenberg's words about "the prototype" ' never refer
only to a 4:5:6 chord, but always include higher overtones;
he himself specified 11-limit in this book. See below.

> Joe Monzo further reveals his ignorance when he claims:
>
> "Schoenberg thought of the higher overtones as a paradigm for
> the chromatic pitches of the 12-tET scale, and as they fit
> into a harmonious structure in the single tone, he saw no
> reason why they could not fit into chords in the same way.
> But he still referred to them as "dissonances", which is how
> the term had been and was still being used by most *other*
> theorists and composers. This is why Thomson missed the
> boat on this subject, and apparently you too are still on
> the dock with *him*."
>
> Joe Monzo's statement is ignorant because it is
> meaningless to speak an overtone by itself as "consonant"
> or dissonant."
> Schoenberg tried to claim that the 12-equal system
> was an approximation of a 19-limit system,

Wrong, wrong, wrong. See below.

I sure hope you enjoy the crow you must now eat after
saying "Joe Monzo further reveals his ignorance". If
anyone here is revealing his ignorance, it's *you*, and
it gets continually worse over the next few paragraphs.

And since you just love to see ignorance refuted by
evidence, keep reading... and start fasting from your
regular diet, to leave room in your stomach, because
there's lots more crow coming to your plate.

> and indeed the approximation of a 19-limit JI tuning
> 1/1 17/16 9/8 19/16 24/19 4/3 24/17 3/2
> 38/19 19/12 16/9 32/17 [2/1]
> to 12-equal is better overall than the 5-limit
> diatonic syntonon.

What you say here is true, but the latter tuning has no
real bearing on Schoenberg's 1911 theory of rational
harmonic implications, and the former has absolutely
nothing at all to do with it. See below.

> But Schoenberg made the foolish and ignorant error
> of claiming that "a higher overtone" *by itself* is
> "consonant" or "dissonant."

Citation, please.

> That is foolish and shows
> us clearly Schoenberg's appalling ignorance of mathematics
> as well as his shocking incompetence at music theory.
> Because the simple fact remains that context, in music,
> is all. Moreover, Schoenberg never bothers to tell us whether
> he is talking about prime numbers, or musical intervals
> measured from the 1/1, or successive intervals in the
> overtone series, or what.

Wrong again. In _Harmonielehre_, Schoenberg clearly lays
out his entire system of rational harmonic implications.
See below.

> Now, notice that by taking powers
> and ratios of ANY given overtone, whether high or low, you
> can obtain ANY desired musical interval. Moreover, you
> M*U*S*T specify the _context_ in which an overtone
> occurs.
> Thus, the 19/18 is a rough interval, but the
> 19/16 is a smooth interval. The 17/16 is a rough
> interval, but the 24/17 is a smooth interval.
>
> <Reference to Bulgarian Women's Choir snipped as
> having no relevance whatsoever to this discussion.>
>
> The question is meaningless. For the question can ONLY
> be answered if we known in what context the prime number
> 19 occurs -- is it the 19 on top in a 19/18? Or is it the
> 19 on top in 19/16?
> And in what context does that 19/16 occur? In what
> context does that 19/18 occur?

Wrong, wrong, and wrong again.

Brian, after the voluminous and caustic words you wrote in
this post blasting me for my lazyness and "poor scholarship",
I can barely stop laughing over the unfathomable absurdity
of this monstrous _faux pas_!

You have a 1998 copy of my book [Monzo 1998, _JustMusic:
A New Harmony_], in which I detail the rational implications
of Schoenberg's harmonic theory as described by Schoenberg
himself in _Harmonielehre_ [1911], and in "Problems of
Harmony" [1934].

Since you're responding to *me* regarding Schoenberg, one
would think that you'd take the trouble *reach over to
YOUR OWN BOOKSHELF* to read what *I've* published about him.

Had you done that, or for that matter if you had really
studied Schoenberg's own book (of which everyone here knows
you have access to a copy of the 1978 Roy Carter English
translation, since you've cited it here numerous times), you
would know that your description of his harmonic system as
given above is totally erroneous. And it's interesting to
me that you presented it without a citation. If Schoenberg
did indeed write this (about 17- and 19-limit ratios) and
I haven't seen it, then by all means please correct me.

AFAIK (which on this topic is quite a considerable amount),
Schoenberg never wrote a single word about any 17- or
19-limit ratio, or any other prime-limit higher than 13.
And 13 was only included in his system of rational implications
in "Problems of Harmony" [Schoenberg 1984, _Style and Idea_,
p 268], written as a lecture in 1927 and revised and first
published in 1934.

My entire focus here has been on Schoneberg's harmonic
theory around the time he wrote his first "atonal"
compositions and his _Harmonielehre_, c. 1907-10.
In _Harmonielehre_, he elaborates an 11-limit system
of pitches derived from the 2nd thru 11th partials of
the Tonic note, the 2nd thru 12th partials of the
Subdominant and Dominant notes, and also including the
16th partial of the Subdominant. I would describe this in
a simplified mathematical form as (2...12,16) / 3^(-1...1) .

Here's a quote from a post I sent to the tuning-math list,
which provides a detailed *ACCURATE* assessment of
Schoenberg's 1911 theory of the rational implications
of the 12-tET chromatic scale as he used it in his
compositions of the period.

(In fact, Brian, you might find this to be an intriguing
tuning to try in your own compositions.)

> </tuning-math/message/44>
> From: "monz" <joemonz@y...>
> Date: Sun May 27, 2001 5:55 pm
> Subject: Re: Fwd: optimizing octaves in MIRACLE scale.
>
> (My quotes of Schoenberg are from the English translation
> of _Harmonielehre_ by Roy Carter, and the page numbers
> refer to that edition.)
>
>
> Schoenberg [p 23] posits the existences of two "forces", one
> pulling downward and one pulling upward around the tonic,
> which he illustrates as: F <- C -> G and likens to resistance
> against gravity. In mathematical terms, he is referring to
> the harmonic relationships of 3^-1 and 3^1, respectively.
>
>> [Schoenberg, p 24:]
>>
>> ...thus it is explained how the scale that finally emerged
>> is put together from the most important components of a
>> fundamental tone and its nearest relatives. These nearest
>> relatives are just what gives the fundamental tone stability;
>> for it represents the point of balance between their opposing
>> tendencies. This scale appears as the residue of the properties
>> of the three factors, as a vertical projection, as addition:
>
>
> Schoenberg then presents a diagram of the overtones and the
> resulting scale, which I have adaptated, adding the partial-numbers
> which relate all the overtones together as a single set:
>
> b-45
> g-36
> e-30
> d-27
> c-24
> a-20
> g-18 g-18
> f-16
> c-12 c-12
> f-8
>
>
> f c g a d e b
> 8 12 18 20 27 30 45
>
>
>> [Schoenberg:]
>>
>> Adding up the overtones (omitting repetitions) we get the seven
>> tones of our scale. Here they are not yet arranged consecutively.
>> But even the scalar order can be obtained if we assume that the
>> further overtones are also in effect. And that assumption is
>> in fact not optional; we must assume the presence of the other
>> overtones. The ear could also have defined the relative pitch
>> of the tones discovered by comparing them with taut strings,
>> which of course become longer or shorter as the tone is lowered
>> or raised. But the more distant overtones were also a
>> dependable guide. Adding these we get the following:
>
>
>
> Schoenberg then extends the diagram to include the
> following overtones:
>
> fundamental partials
>
> F 2...12, 16
> C 2...11
> G 2...12
>
> (Note, therefore, that he is not systematic in his employment
> of the various partials.)
>
>
> Again, I adapt the diagram by adding partial-numbers:
>
> d-108
> c-99
> b-90
> a-81
> g-72
> f-66
> f-64
> (f-63)
> e-60
> d-54 d-54
> c-48 c-48
> b-45
> b-44
> (bb-42)
> a-40
> g-36 g-36 g-36
> f-32
> e-30
> (eb-28)
> d-27
> c-24 c-24
> a-20
> g-18 g-18
> f-16
> c-12 c-12
> f-8
>
>
> (eb) (bb)
> c d e f g a b c d e f g a b c d
> [44] [64]
> (28) (42) [66]
> 24 27 30 32 36 40 45 48 54 60 63 72 81 90 99 108
>
>
> (Note also that Schoenberg was unsystematic in his naming
> of the nearly-1/4-tone 11th partials, calling 11th/F by the
> higher of its nearest 12-EDO relatives, "b", while calling
> 11th/C and 11th/G by the lower, "f" and "c" respectively.
> This, ironically, is the reverse of the actual proximity
> of these overtones to 12-EDO: ~10.49362941, ~5.513179424,
> and ~0.532729432 Semitones, respectively).
>
>
> The partial-numbers are also given for the resulting scale
> at the bottom of the diagram, showing that 7th/F (= eb-28)
> is weaker than 5th/C (= e-30), and 7th/C (= bb-42) is weaker
> than 5th/G (= b-45).
>
> Also note that 11th/F (= b-44), 16th/F (= f-64) and 11th/C
> (= f-66) are all weaker still, thus I have included them in
> square brackets. These overtones are not even mentioned by
> Schoenberg.
>
>
> Schoenberg does take note of the ambiguity present in this
> collection of ratios, in his later article _Problems of Harmony_.
> I won't go into that here because this is focusing on his
> 1911 theory.
>
>
> Here is an interval matrix of Schoenberg's scale
> (broken in half to fit the screen), with implied
> proportions given along the left and the bottom,
> and Semitone values of the intervals in the body.
>
> Because Schoenberg's implied proportions form an
> "octave"-specific pitch-set in his presentation
> (not necessarily in his theory), this matrix has
> no "bottom" half.
>
>
> Interval Matrix of Schoenberg's implied JI scale:
>
> 108 26.04 24.00 23.37 22.18 21.06 19.02 17.20 16.35 15.55 15.16 14.04
> 99 24.53 22.49 21.86 20.67 19.55 17.51 15.69 14.84 14.04 13.65 12.53
> 90 22.88 20.84 20.21 19.02 17.90 15.86 14.04 13.19 12.39 12.00 10.88
> 81 21.06 19.02 18.39 17.20 16.08 14.04 12.22 11.37 10.57 10.18 9.06
> 72 19.02 16.98 16.35 15.16 14.04 12.00 10.18 9.33 8.53 8.14 7.02
> 66 17.51 15.47 14.84 13.65 12.53 10.49 8.67 7.82 7.02 6.63 5.51
> 64 16.98 14.94 14.31 13.12 12.00 9.96 8.14 7.29 6.49 6.10 4.98
> 63 16.71 14.67 14.04 12.84 11.73 9.69 7.86 7.02 6.21 5.83 4.71
> 60 15.86 13.82 13.19 12.00 10.88 8.84 7.02 6.17 5.37 4.98 3.86
> 54 14.04 12.00 11.37 10.18 9.06 7.02 5.20 4.35 3.55 3.16 2.04
> 48 12.00 9.96 9.33 8.14 7.02 4.98 3.16 2.31 1.51 1.12 0.00
> 45 10.88 8.84 8.21 7.02 5.90 3.86 2.04 1.19 0.39 0.00
> 44 10.49 8.45 7.82 6.63 5.51 3.47 1.65 0.81 0.00
> 42 9.69 7.65 7.02 5.83 4.71 2.67 0.84 0.00
> 40 8.84 6.80 6.17 4.98 3.86 1.82 0.00
> 36 7.02 4.98 4.35 3.16 2.04 0.00
> 32 4.98 2.94 2.31 1.12 0.00
> 30 3.86 1.82 1.19 0.00
> 28 2.67 0.63 0.00
> 27 2.04 0.00
> 24 0.00
> 24 27 28 30 32 36 40 42 44 45 48
>
>
> ---
>
> 108 12.00 10.18 9.33 9.06 8.53 7.02 4.98 3.16 1.51 0.00
> 99 10.49 8.67 7.82 7.55 7.02 5.51 3.47 1.65 0.00
> 90 8.84 7.02 6.17 5.90 5.37 3.86 1.82 0.00
> 81 7.02 5.20 4.35 4.08 3.55 2.04 0.00
> 72 4.98 3.16 2.31 2.04 1.51 0.00
> 66 3.47 1.65 0.81 0.53 0.00
> 64 2.94 1.12 0.27 0.00
> 63 2.67 0.84 0.00
> 60 1.82 0.00
> 54 0.00
> 54 60 63 64 66 72 81 90 99 108
>

Your plateful of crow is served.

Now, back to quoting mclaren:

> Joe Monzo goes on to claim
>
> "While what you say here is true enough, especially in light of
> your own experiments, it's a ridiculous refutation of what
> Schoenberg wrote, because it has nothing to do with any of
> Schoenberg's concepts. He was thinking of high-limit ratios
> as *overtones*, not as ratios _per se_, which is how you present your
> argument here." [Monzo, Joe, op cit.]
>
> How does Joe Monzo know what Schoenberg was thinking?
> Does Joe Monzo have a degree from the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's
> College of Telepathy?

No. This answer is obvious: I've studied everything about the
man's work that I've had the time to read, listened to other
people's recordings of *and* made my own MIDI-files of many
of his compositions, and drawn a lot of my own new conclusions
from a consideration of the cultural and musical milieu in which
Schoenberg was immersed. Please see, for an example of this
latter, my webpage "A Century of New Music in Vienna":
<http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/schoenberg/Vienna1905.htm>.

> Schoenberg seems to be speaking of the prime numbers
> themselves.
> But, as I have already pointed out above, it is musically
> meaningless to speak of the "consonance" or "dissonance"
> or indeed of the sound of a *prime number*.
> Prime numbers are quite meaningless except when embodied in
> RATIOS. You cannot hear the prime number 19 -- you can only hear a
> RATIO such as 19:1, 19/16, 19/18, etc.

Again, unless I somehow missed it, 19-limit ratios have absolutely
nothing at all to do with Schoenberg's harmonic theory, rendering
all of this entirely superflous and beside the point in a
debate about Schoenberg's harmonic theory.

(Some crow for desert too, eh?)

> By mixing up the realm of abstract mathematics (in which
> overtones exist) with the realm of actual musical intervals
> (in which ratios exist), Joe Monzo follows his cult guru
> into the tarpit of confusion.
>
> Joe Monzo claims that "the `dissonances' were always
> being measured from 1/1 and its `octaves.'" [Monzo, Joe,
> op cit.]
>
> If that were true, then Schoenberg's claims are obviously
> and clearly foolish and false, since the octave of 1/1 closest
> to 19 is 16 and therefore the 19th overtone should be 19/16,
> a thoroughly smooth minor third -- yet Schoenberg claims that the
> higher overtones are "dissonances," which cannot be the case if Joe
> Monzo is correct.
> Accordingly Joe Monzo's claim cannot be true. Schoenberg must
> have been talking about the abstract numbers themselves, or possibly
> about the intervals twixt successive overtones, not about the ratio
> of the overtone with the closest octave of 1/1.
> If Schoenberg spoke about the intervals twixt successive
> overtones, then our ears tell us that the 7/6 and subsequent
> nearby intervals sound rough because they all fall within the
> critical band.
> But this is a problem, for Schoenberg elsewhere discusses
> 12-equal as a 19-limit system, and if we are speaking of
> successive intervals in the overtone series, we cannot get
> the 24/19 and 24/17 and 19/16 Schoenberg uses to approximate > 12-equal.
> Bottom line?
> Schoenberg's "theoretical" discussion of overtones
> is a complete mess. Even a not-very-bright undergraduate in
> one of today's Top 10 Party colleges could do better, with
> less self-contradiction, fewer incoherent undefined terms,
> and fewer foolish musical old wive's tales fobbed off as
> unquestioned axioms of the musical universe.

Again, where is this "elsewhere" where Schoenberg "discusses
12-equal as a 19-limit system"? Unless you can produce it,
your description is wrong, wrong, and wrong, in addition
to being itself "a complete mess".

(Crow for a midnight snack too, huh?)

> Joe Monzo then engages in further garbled reasoning and
> scrambled logic when he claims:
>
> "So it's quite pointless to invoke ratios like 8192/6561 or
> 19683/16384 here. Sure, they occur in Pythagorean tuning, but what
> does that have to do with Schoenberg or the audible
> overtone series? Not a thing."
>
> What these ratios have to do with the audible overtone
> series, obviously, is that we don't know whether Schoenberg
> was talking about successive ratios of the harmonic series,
> or powers of abstract prime numbers, or what.
> Scohenberg was so incoherent and his writing is so unclear on the
> subject that we must take account of the fact that we can equally
> well deal with powers of those "higher
> overtones" as the primes numbers themselves. And since
> Schoenberg never bothers to make clear exactly what he means (a
> chronic problem -- G. B. Shaw once wittily remarked that "The English
> language occasionally descends into incoherence, just as the German
> language occasionally emerges from it") we must take account of all
> possibilities.

That's simply a cop-out from someone who doesn't want to
grapple with Schoenberg's difficult prose style and complex
logic.

> Joe Monzo then goes on to mix apples and oranges when
> he claims:
>
> "...Schoenberg's compositional practice refutes what
> you say here. He was well aware that dissonance
> is a function of musical context, and *his* style after 1907
> recognized these `more remote relationships' as consonances while the
> rest of the *theoretical* world continued to view them as
> dissonances." [Monzo, Joe, op cit.]
>
> Notice that Joe Monzo, finding himself in trouble
> when going by Schoenberg's text, suddenly jumps to
> Schoenberg's compositional practice.
> If Schoenberg writes about music, we must stick to what
> he wrote, and not go gallivanting off claiming "Oh, well, he
> wrote music later that makes everything okay."
> That the classic fallacy of the non sequitur argument.
> "UFOs must be abducting people, because if they don't,
> what happened to my brother Clem who's still missing?"

There's no non sequitur here at all. If it was indeed me
and not you who introduced commentary about Schoenberg's
compositions into this debate, you certainly have not
refrained from writing about his compositions yourself:

> </crazy_music/topicId_unknown.html#258>
> From: mclaren
> Date: Tue Jul 10, 2001 3:48 am
> Subject: Monzo's dreary effort to defend the indefensible
>
> ...
>
> Schoenberg, of course, was too arrogant and too ignorant
> of music and too incompetent as a composer to recognize
> any of this, ... All of Schoenberg's music has died in
> the concert halls and largely vanished from the record
> shelves courtesy of dismal sales

> </crazy_music/topicId_unknown.html#309>
> From: mclaren
> Date: Thu Jul 12, 2001 6:33 am
> Subject: month-old roadkill
>
> ...
>
> As a result, Schoenberg's music sounds boring and trivial,
> it lacks audible organization, and the audiences hears only
> incoherent spatters of notes and spasmodic random-sounding
> dissonances.

I'm simply responding to you, and citing both his theory and
his compositions in substantiation of what I say about both
aspects of his work.

Incidentally, something else you wrote in the post of
Tue Jul 10, 2001 3:48 am bears scrutiny:

> People compose music in order to enter strange and mysterious
> sound-worlds which they typically didn't even know existed
> before they started to compose that piece of music.

This is nearly a word-for-word mirror of what Schoenberg
himself wrote in his letter to Busoni of 24 August 1909,
regarding his struggle at that time to express his feelings
in a new style of music which had no connection with any
type of rational or formal structural procedures.
[Citation: _Briefwechsel zwischen Arnold Sch�nberg und
Ferruccio Busoni 1903 -1919_, ed. Jutta Theurich.]

And, from Schoenberg, Arnold. 1911. _Harmonielehre_, p 16-17;
English translation: Roy Carter, 1978, _Theory of Harmony_, p 19:

>> Perhaps it is indefensible to try to derive everything
>> that constitutes the physics of harmony from one of the
>> components, say, just from the tone.
>>
>> ...
>>
>> One of the three factors, however, the world of our feelings,
>> so completely eludes precisely controlled investigation that
>> it would be folly to place the same confidence in the few
>> conjectures permitted by observation in this sphere that we
>> place in those conjectures that in other matters are called
>> "science".

> The issue here is the overall accuracy or inaccuracy of
> Schoenberg's claims about the overtone series. Your citation
> here is irrelevant to my point that Schoenberg's claims about
> the overtone series are pervasively false.

Well, this goes a long way towards explaining why we're
*still* arguing this thread here even after we *both* "lied"
and agreed that we would stop, because for me "the issue here"
is the overall inaccuracy of your entire understanding of
Schoenberg's theory.

You are picking one small point out of his entire theory,
and debating the validity of it, and proving by your posts
that you have very little understanding of how that
particular point fit into Schoenberg's whole conception.

I've attempted over and over again to explain aspects
of Schoenberg's work to you which are important for a
proper understanding of how he viewed the overtone series,
quoting his own words.

And you continue to quote from Schoenberg only small
excerpts which have been presented by you out of context
in such a way as to make it appear that they substantiate
the specific point you are debating ("that Schoenberg's
claims about the overtone series are pervasively false"),
and then quoting page after page from the work of others
in support of your contentions. You really are missing
the point of all this.

> In response to my point that Joe Monzo has not yet released
> even one (1) CD of his microtonal music, Joe claims:
>
> "In fact I have produced a CD of my music, but it's still
> not finished to my liking and so I haven't yet released it."
> [Monzo, Joe, op cit.]
>
> Joe, releasing a CD is like being a virgin.
> Either you is or you ain't.
> You ain't.
> Stop typing all this meaningless trivia and get crackin',
> boy. Release that CD.

Brian, please, either you're demonstrating scholarly
incompetance once again by accidentally misquoting yourself,
or you're deliberately misquoting yourself to insistently
and inaccurately prove your point:

> From: <xed@...>
> To: <crazy_music@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Monday, July 09, 2001 8:48 PM
> Subject: [crazy_music] Monzo's dreary effort
> to defend the indefensible
>
> Joe Monzo has produced no CDs of his music

I answered your original charge truthfully and accurately
to the contrary of what you claimed.

> Joe Monzo claims
>
> "I found this to be *really* amusing, because *just the
> night before I read it* I composed a brand-new choral piece
> (inspired by Margo Schulter's recent MIDI-file <http://value.
> net/~mschulter/20tgz002.mid>) in 12-tET and sent it to John
> deLaubenfels to hear what retunings he could come up with!"
> [Monzo, Joe, op cit.]
>
> Okay -- I should have said "microtonal music."

Well, now that deLaubenfels has retuned it into 11-limit
adaptive JI, it *is* microtonal. I'll post the details
of the tuning to the Files section to accompany the mp3
if necessary.

And (again) hopefully I can finish my end of this debate now.

About my long post responding to mclaren's of
Monday, July 09, 2001 8:48 PM,

> From: monz <joemonz@...>
> To: <crazy_music@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, July 10, 2001 6:34 PM
> Subject: Re: [crazy_music] Monzo's dreary effort
> to defend the indefensible

I wrote in a footnote to a post on tuning-challenges:

> Which, in reality, is not a defense at all but simply
> a clarification for Brian's benefit. The substance of my
> long responses to him on the crazy_music list can be boiled
> down to this: Brian, your understanding of Schoenberg's
> thoeretical writings and compositions is negligible, yet
> you continue to criticize them and quote lengthy citations
> in support of your criticisms. Despite my clear presentation
> of the gist of Schoenberg's beliefs and ideas c. 1910, for
> primarily your benefit, you continue to present a summary
> of Schoenberg's work which is filled with errors and
> misinterpretations. So I will no longer bother to chase
> down all the citations which correct your mistakes, because
> you don't take the time to understand them fully, instead
> simply tearing thru your own library finding more citations
> which support your conclusions, which are still erroneous
> as applied to Schoenberg.

-monz
http://www.monz.org
"All roads lead to n^0"

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