Re: [tuning] Digest Number 3484

Hello Neil!
Congrats on your new CD and review.
It seems that many harmony books start with a discussion of the harmonic series but the problem is that such things are forgotten when students don't get a chance to actually hear the series or have it pointed out to them, as one hears the harmonic series all the time , yet many don't recognize it by that name.
Personally , i have concentrated on the fact that other cultures more often than not use different tuning because one can easily play examples of such and impress people with the fact that these other systems can and do produce some very beautiful music. We live in a culture where most of us use things all the time that we do not understand why and how they work, so in one sense we cannot blame the hordes for not understanding what lies in front of them.
Immediately one runs across problems with showing the acoustical basis of 12 ET cause as soon as one gets on a list such as this, such assumptions for the construction of scales are considered invalid where any ET under the sun is considered as good as any other. Not that they shouldn't be tackled for many of them are useful to composers who have little or marginal interest in pitch as a basis of their music.
i applaud and appreciate your own work with taking a few tunings and really exploring them in countless ways.

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>Message: 1 > Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2005 11:36:23 -0600
> From: "Neil Haverstick" <microstick@msn.com>
>Subject: Tuning knowledge
>
> Interesting how little folks know about tuning...that's no big news here, >I guess, but I did a couple of seminars in the last few months, one at >Berklee and one at Metro State here in Denver, and when I asked the question >"Why do we have 12 equally spaced notes in the Western system," absolutely >nobody knew. Yeah, at each class one person ventured that it has something >to do with the harmonics, but it was a guess, not a statement. And, when you >think about it, that's pretty sad...here we are, millions of folks playing >instruments, and virtually no one has a clue why we use the tuning we do. Of >course, I think we on the forum would like to see that change, but boy, it's >an uphill climb, that's for sure. I think music would be so much richer if >the 12 tone conspiracy was overturned. If I was designing classes for high >schools/universities, or whatever format, the study of tuning would be the >first thing we talked about, to give all musicians a basic understanding of >why we have a 12 tone tempered system, how we arrived at it, and the >incredible variety of other tuning possibilities available. Especially these >days, with tunable keyboards, and the low cost of getting guitars refretted, >as well as easy access to music from all over the world, it's a good time >for people to become aware of the vastness of the world of tuning. Music >would be much the better if we were able to hear a multiplicity of >tunings...here's to that happening, and I'm grateful for the efforts of all >the folks here for trying to help that happen...best...Hstick
>www.microstick.net
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--
Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>
The Wandering Medicine Show
KXLU <http://www.kxlu.com/main.html> 88.9 FM Wed 8-9 pm Los Angeles

Kraig wrote...
> Personally , i have concentrated on the fact that other cultures
>more often than not use different tuning because one can easily play
>examples of such and impress people with the fact that these other
>systems can and do produce some very beautiful music. We live in a
>culture where most of us use things all the time that we do not
>understand why and how they work, so in one sense we cannot blame the
>hordes for not understanding what lies in front of them.

That's a good point. I'm reminded of the fact that many drivers do
not have the slightest clue how a car works.

In one of the earlier episodes of Star Trek the Next Generation,
they come across a seeming utopia. Everything is run by this
computer built so long ago, nobody remembers how it works. The
problem is, the utopians are becoming sterile, so they kidnap
the children onboard the Enterprise. The rest of the crew figures
out that the computer emits radiation that, over the course of
generations, made the utopians sterile. They convince the utopians
to shut down their computer and give back the kids. But now the
utopians must learn how to do everything for themselves again.

-Carl