AW.: Re: Re: Pythagorean tuning and Ives

I disagree with Dan Stearns here a bit. The chorale texture of the strings
in _The Unanswered Question_ is can be easily heard as a single coherent
unit, with a tonal, triadic character. A tuning in either pythagorean
(Johnny Reinhard's choice -- where the triadic resolutions will never really
resolve) or 5-limit JI (which I'd like to hear someday) is completely
plausible.

In some of his most visionary works (esp. TUQ, the 4th Symphony, the Second
Orchestral Set), Ives uses several topoi simultaneously, suggesting
alternative intonations as a means of better projecting the individual topoi.
(This projection is paralleled by the spatial assignments in TUQ). In many
cases, the material in a given topos strongly suggests a particular
intonation, in others, particularly the more chromatic, the possibilities are
much wider. I isolate the chromatic materials here because Ives' usage of
chromaticism is quite varied. In some cases, he uses a total chromatic in an
atonal or proto-atonal way, in others more traditionally as a melodic
diminution of basically diatonic music, and in still other cases, his
chromaticism suggests an extended harmony implying representions of
ever-higher partial tones.

Pythagorean is Ives's choice, no one elses. Wanting to hear Ives in Just
Intonation or even 22-tone equal temperament would be a choice. To say that
C# is higher than Db is key to Ives's tuning conceptual model.

Question: how would a B# be an eighthtone higher than a C natural in just
intonation?

Johnny Reinhard
AFMM

Johnny Reinhard wrote:

>Pythagorean is Ives's choice, no one elses.

>Question: how would a B# be an eighthtone higher than a C natural in just
>intonation?

Answer: Pythagorean is a subset of just intonation.