AW.: Re: missed by the unimaginative (Ives on tuning)

Johnny Reinhard:

I don't think you read what I wrote very carefully. I registered no complaint
about any single performance of Ives' works, and that naturally includes
yours which I have heard with great interest, if not total conviction. My
only complaint would be that, based on Ives' own record, one can not claim
any single performance to be intonationally definitive. For the record: I am
ethusiastic about having as many performances as possible, and with a
diversity of approaches.

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10. Believing Ives to be "vague" and "incomplete" is contrary to getting his
work out and about. >>

Ives wrote (in Memos p. 190)
"Thus, when a movement, perhaps only a section or passage, is not
fundamentally based on a diatonic (and chromatic) tonality system, the marked
notes (symbol for natural, #, b) should not be taken as literally
representing those implied resolutions, because in this case they do not
exit."

This would seem to indicate that the actual usage of 12-tone equal
temperament for Ives's music was the minority of his tuning intention. Only
a movement or smaller ("perhaps only a section or passage") used enharmonic
identities, wherein the symbols are not tonal in implication.

On page 195 of Memos, Ives afirms that his general purpose for this chapter
on the Concord Sonata was to provide an "explanation of why certain notes
have been written as they have in the [Concord] Sonata, and other music."

Ives follows the above, actually closing the Memo chapter on the Sonata by
saying unequivicably: "Then, to my way of hearing and thinking, a sharp is a
kind of underlying sign of, or senses and reflects or encourages, an upward
movement, tonal and more perhaps spirtual, at a thing somewhat more of
courage and aspiration-towards than the flat carries or seems to-the flat is
more relaxing, subservient, looking more for rest [and] submission,
etc.-often used as symbols as such, when they're not needed as the signs of
tonality in the usual way."

So not only is the sharp higher than the flat for Ives, but he considers this
approach "the usual way."

The "usual way" meant the # is higher than the b. Only through the circle of
fifths is the # higher than the b. The reverse, a # lower than a b, occurs
at the fifth harmonic of the overtone series, indicating a completely
different tuning model. Ives could not be more clear, if taken at his word.

Unfortunately, Ives is not often taken at his word. Editors change his
accidentals agains his wishes all the time.

FWIW, it hasn't escaped me that the 2 tunings - Just and Pyth - are part and
parcel of each other. The 2 hemisphere metaphor is fully realized by their
working together as "the brain." That's why I feel these two tendencies for
pitch organization are the musical equivalent of "being of 2 minds."

Johnny Reinhard
AFMM

[Johnny Reinhard:]
> On page 195 of Memos, Ives afirms that his general purpose for this
chapter on the Concord Sonata was to provide an "explanation of why
certain notes have been written as they have in the [Concord] Sonata,
and other music."

Just for the record (or for anyone who's really really interested), I
posted a quick follow up to the TD 359.23 post: "missed by the
unimaginative (Ives on tuning)," in TD 360.12, under the title: "why
certain notes have been written as they have (Ives on tuning)." That
post includes this whole section (i.e., pp. 193-95 of the _Memos_).

Dan

Another source for Ives and tuning is in Memo 38 which is specifically titled
with the Universe Symphony. As per tuning, Ives includes "Some perfectly
tuned correct scales, some well tempered little scales, a scale of overtones
with the divisions as near determinable by acousitcon, scales of smaller
division than a semitone, scales of uneven division greater than a whole
tone, scales with no octave, some of them with no octave for several octaves"

Untempered Pythagorean would fit the "perfectly tuned correct scales." Just
Intonation follows later with "a scale of overtones." 12TET fits the bill
of "well tempered little scales" since there are less notes per octave in
12TET than there is in the extended Pythagorean landscaping.

"Scales of smaller" includes the quartertones. There are further tuning
experiments with non-octave based tunings offset by eighthtones in Section B.
And "scales of uneven division greater than a whole tone" are compound
intervals.

Johnny Reinhard
AFMM