Re: Counterpoint?

On Wednesday 28 January 2004 09:19 am, Carl Lumma wrote:
> Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 02:34:09 -0800
> From: Carl Lumma <ekin@lumma.org>
> Subject: Re: Re: Just diminished 7th chords
>
> > /tuning/topicId_51743.html#52166
> >
> >> But within a contrapuntal atom, I can't think of an
> >> example that's more tonal than your average Bach.
> >
> >***Mozart??
> >
> >JP
>
> Any particular piece? There are Praeludium and Fugue in C, K394
> and Fugue 'Eruditissima' in Gmin, K401 -- both outstanding but
> neither any more tonal than Bach to my ear. The fugue from the
> last movement of the Jupiter might fare better...
>
> I'm thinking... what if 'tonal composition' is in some sense
> mutually exclusive with counterpoint? It almost seems that
> by definition if we have tonality we are loosing some independence
> of parts... or does it?

How would you explain extremely independent voice -part writing in the
renaissance masters like Josquin?...in the Agnus Dei of one of the 'L'Homme
Arme' masses, he uses a very primitive diatonic chordal framework, but each
voice moves in absolute freedom.

Bach's counterpoint also lies on a varying harmonic-complexity spectrum. Take
WTC book 2 D major fugue vs. WTC book 1 b-minor fugue, which is as wild and
gnarly as the Baroque can get!!!

I think you are sort of conflating harmonic simplicity with rhythmic
simplicity....we could have awesome rhytmic counterpoint on one chord!!!
(e.g. James Brown) At least if we allow a definition of counterpoint that
extends beyond the narrow confines of Fuxian species, but even then, what I
say applies, no?

Best,
Aaron. (the Krister Johnson one...)

P.S. I regret not having the time to be as active on this list anymore. I'm
mixing a demo CD with my percussionist friend, Andy Hasenpflug. Yes, the
tuning gets wacky at times, so you'd be interested....and, sometimes, the
tuning is irrelevant to what we do (e.g. when portamento on the synth matters
more to the gesture, or a stong FM patch makes it sound like the overtone
structure wouldn't 'care' if a particular keyboard mapping were equal, just,
or whatever). But at our more tonal moments, I've used Paul Hahn's
32-consonance scale, and Grady's "centaur" to good effect....

Cheers!

>> > /tuning/topicId_51743.html#52166
>> >
>> >> But within a contrapuntal atom, I can't think of an
>> >> example that's more tonal than your average Bach.
>> >
>> >***Mozart??
>>
>> Any particular piece? There are Praeludium and Fugue in C, K394
>> and Fugue 'Eruditissima' in Gmin, K401 -- both outstanding but
>> neither any more tonal than Bach to my ear. The fugue from the
>> last movement of the Jupiter might fare better...
>>
>> I'm thinking... what if 'tonal composition' is in some sense
>> mutually exclusive with counterpoint? It almost seems that
>> by definition if we have tonality we are loosing some independence
>> of parts... or does it?
>
>How would you explain extremely independent voice-part writing in
>the renaissance masters like Josquin?

Not tonal.

>Bach's counterpoint also lies on a varying harmonic-complexity
>spectrum. Take WTC book 2 D major fugue vs. WTC book 1 b-minor fugue,
>which is as wild and gnarly as the Baroque can get!!!

This discussion was about tonal music, which Bach sat on the advent
of, but is not usually considered to be a part of. I happen to think
his fugues are among the most tonal counterpoint I've heard, and this
was the item of debate -- is there any counterpoint more tonal than
Bach?

>I think you are sort of conflating harmonic simplicity with rhythmic
>simplicity....we could have awesome rhytmic counterpoint on one chord!!!
>(e.g. James Brown)

Yes of course, but that's precisely what we're trying to avoid in
this thread. We're looking for awesome rhythmic counterpoint *and*
tonal chord motion.

>At least if we allow a definition of counterpoint
>that extends beyond the narrow confines of Fuxian species, but even
>then, what I say applies, no?

Defining counterpoint would be a good idea before proceeding further,
I agree. And looking for it in jazz and pop seems like a good idea.
There's some amazing counterpoint in Yes' later works, but I'm not
sure it's tonal in the classical sense. Bebop can actually be quite
contrapuntal, and bebop *is* tonal....

>I'm mixing a demo CD with my percussionist friend, Andy Hasenpflug.

Well let us know when it's available, Please!

-Carl

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Aaron K. Johnson" <akjmicro@c...>
wrote:

> But at our more tonal moments, I've used Paul Hahn's
> 32-consonance scale,

Out of curiosity, which one? You're aware, of course, that his 32-
consonance proposal was not a single scale, but 48 different scales?

Hi all, I was just curious -- being the geek of common-practice theory that I am, I was wondering if anyone has tried writing "neo-Baroque" pieces using traditional non-harmonic devices (i.e., suspensions, passing tones, neighbor tones, etc.). For example, I recently wrote a chorale in six voices based on Bach's "Es ist genug" where the principal harmonies are subsets of Otonalities and Utonalities within the Monophonic Fabric, but all voices contain traditional non-harmonic devices. I would have gone on to write more music in this fashion (i.e., fugues, chorale preludes, etc.), but I was on a sequencer where I had to go in and place the pitch bend values manually for every single tone, which was just a major pain. I thought about using Scala to retune these MIDI files, but I can't seem to figure out how to use this feature (I tried to retune a MIDI file into 1/4-comma meantone, but the result ended up sounding like cows dying, so I must be doing something wrong.) Any thoughts on any of this? Also, if anyone could e-mail me privately about good graduate schools where people on the composition faculty understand JI and other alternative tunings, I'd really appreciate it. Most people here at Bowling Green State University in Ohio look at me funny and say it just all sounds out of tune (I had people literally running from my grad office screaming when I played the Otonal hexad -- especially when I started with it in 12-tET and then "fixed" it). Thanks! Eric Knechtges
Master's student, Music Composition, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio

>Hi all,

Heya!

> I was just curious -- being the geek of common-practice theory
that
>I am, I was wondering if anyone has tried writing "neo-Baroque"
pieces
>using traditional non-harmonic devices (i.e., suspensions, passing
>tones, neighbor tones, etc.).

Many have attempted common-practice, tonal microtonal music, though
I don't know of anything Baroque in particular.

>For example, I recently wrote a chorale in six voices based
>on Bach's "Es ist genug" where the principal harmonies are subsets
of
>Otonalities and Utonalities within the Monophonic Fabric,

Sounds AWESOME. Can we hear it?

>but all voices
>contain traditional non-harmonic devices. I would have gone on to
write
>more music in this fashion (i.e., fugues, chorale preludes, etc.),
but I
>was on a sequencer where I had to go in and place the pitch bend
values
>manually for every single tone, which was just a major pain.

Joe Monzo has done some very nice work with this method in Cakewalk.
Check out his website. Esp. "3+4" and "Invisible Haircut".

>I thought about using
>Scala to retune these MIDI files, but I can't seem to figure out how
to
>use this feature (I tried to retune a MIDI file into 1/4-comma
meantone,
>but the result ended up sounding like cows dying, so I must be doing
>something wrong.)

When you say "1/4-comma meantone", were you using a 12-tone subset of
this temperament, or a 19-tone one, or...?

Basically, if you can define a mapping between the intervals in your
piece and the intervals in the desired tuning, you can, with some
trickery, probably retune it with Scala and MIDI. However, if you
don't know of any rigid mapping in advance (ie, you want to make
decisions based on a subjective balance of concert-pitch stability
and local common-tone matching on a case-by-case basis throughout
the piece) by-hand is the only way to do it.

Sorry if this isn't answering your question, which may be more of
a tech support for Scala sort of thing. Can you list exactly the
steps you're using to get the dying cows?

> Any thoughts on any of this? Also, if anyone could e-mail me
>privately about good graduate schools where people on the composition
>faculty understand JI and other alternative tunings, I'd really
>appreciate it. Most people here at Bowling Green State University
>in Ohio look at me funny and say it just all sounds out of tune (I
>had people literally running from my grad office screaming when I
>played the Otonal hexad -- especially when I started with it in
>12-tET and then "fixed" it).

This is an awesome story! [*laughs*]

I think Tenney accepts grad students at UC Davis. Did I get that
right? I'm sure others here are better equipped to answer this
question.

-Carl

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <ekin@l...> wrote:

> > Any thoughts on any of this? Also, if anyone could e-mail me
> >privately about good graduate schools where people on the composition
> >faculty understand JI and other alternative tunings, I'd really
> >appreciate it. Most people here at Bowling Green State University
> >in Ohio look at me funny and say it just all sounds out of tune (I
> >had people literally running from my grad office screaming when I
> >played the Otonal hexad -- especially when I started with it in
> >12-tET and then "fixed" it).
>
> This is an awesome story! [*laughs*]
>
> I think Tenney accepts grad students at UC Davis. Did I get that
> right? I'm sure others here are better equipped to answer this
> question.

Tenney's at CalArts again now. Larry Polansky, another just-intonationist, is in the grad program at Dartmouth, which is more of a sound technology program than music. Some of the people we bring to the summer MFA program at Bard are into tuning (Polansky, David Rosenboom) are into tuning, and I'm around but not officially involved. There aren't many.

Cheers,

Kyle Gann

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <ekin@l...> wrote:
> I think Tenney accepts grad students at UC Davis. Did I get that
> right? I'm sure others here are better equipped to answer this
> question.

Isn't Tenney still at Cal Arts?

Cheers,
Jon

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Eric T Knechtges" <knechtge@m...> wrote:

> I was just curious -- being the geek of common-practice theory
that I
> am, I was wondering if anyone has tried writing "neo-Baroque" pieces
using
> traditional non-harmonic devices (i.e., suspensions, passing tones,
neighbor
> tones, etc.).

Not neo-Baroque, but certainly neo-Medieval, are pieces by
musicologist Margo Schulter:

http://66.98.148.43/~xenharmo/coll.htm

For example, I recently wrote a chorale in six voices based
> on Bach's "Es ist genug" where the principal harmonies are subsets of
> Otonalities and Utonalities within the Monophonic Fabric, but all
voices
> contain traditional non-harmonic devices.

If you could upload a version of this--for instance, as a midi
file--it would be nice! I'd definately like to hear music along the
lines you seem to have in mind.

I would have gone on to write
> more music in this fashion (i.e., fugues, chorale preludes, etc.),
but I was
> on a sequencer where I had to go in and place the pitch bend values
manually
> for every single tone, which was just a major pain. I thought about
using
> Scala to retune these MIDI files, but I can't seem to figure out how
to use
> this feature (I tried to retune a MIDI file into 1/4-comma meantone,
but the
> result ended up sounding like cows dying, so I must be doing something
> wrong.)

On my xenharmony website you will find a huge number of retuned
pieces, so I'm here to tell you it can be done. The least problematic
method is to retune twelve notes to the octave, and so you might start
with that. Another approach is to start from Scala and not a
sequencer; a Scala score file, with file extension .seq, is
convertable via Scala into a midi file, and this gives you control
over tuning, tempo, and midi control commands.

You might want to subscribe to Make Micro Music. There was some
discussion about starting a resource for people wanting to know how to
do these sorts of things, and I would be an obvious person to
contribute if I could figure out where and how. Maybe we could use
this to get the ball rolling.

As far i as i tell. one of the main composition teachers

Jon Szanto wrote:

> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <ekin@l...> wrote:
> > I think Tenney accepts grad students at UC Davis. Did I get that
> > right? I'm sure others here are better equipped to answer this
> > question.
>
> Isn't Tenney still at Cal Arts?
>
> Cheers,
> Jon
>
>
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North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island
http://www.anaphoria.com
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