Microfest 1 UK

Well,

for a time I believed that I could make a valid contribution to the most fundamental problem of alternate EDOs. But as everyone considers my work derivative and unoriginal - never mind.

Sadly, from personal experience of the UK microtonal scene, I shall not be attending the UK Microfest 1. Unfortunately, the Microfest does not promote an inclusive and integrative approach to microtonality. Instead it somewhat resembles a Society for Mutual Admiration.

Personally, everyone in the UK should boycott an event so biased to one UK composer and their own biased view of microtonality (i.e. 1/4 tones). Such a monopoly of microtonality should be avoided. I also think that it is a crying shame that they could not be bothered to include others in their event.

As I said, the pluralist view is not on their agenda.

Of course I am on the outside of the little club, and perhaps this is all pique. That said, take a look at their program and form your own opinion.

Mark Gould

Mark Gould wrote:
> Well,
> > for a time I believed that I could make a valid contribution to the > most fundamental problem of alternate EDOs. But as everyone considers > my work derivative and unoriginal - never mind.

There are problems with alternative EDOs? I wonder what they could be. I'm back to the belief that we have all the theory we need to about EDOs, but I'm sure I'll change my mind when somebody does come up with something new. I remember your paper back when we were doing a lot of work on tuning-math. As you didn't join in the discussions, of course you didn't contribute anything. Gene's looking at alternating generators, as you've seen, so maybe he's coming round to your way of thinking. I can't see the point of it myself :-S

> Sadly, from personal experience of the UK microtonal scene, I shall not > be attending the UK Microfest 1. Unfortunately, the Microfest does not > promote an inclusive and integrative approach to microtonality. Instead > it somewhat resembles a Society for Mutual Admiration.

And there's a UK microtonal scene? Well, that's more news to me! I didn't think anything was happening until this festival was announced. I mean, it's not like the list's been weighted down with concert notices and links to British music, is it? But little did I know that not only is there enough of a scene to get together a one and a half day festival, but there's also a whole load of other microtonal music that they left out! Well, surely a cause for celebration!! Where is it?

> Personally, everyone in the UK should boycott an event so biased to one > UK composer and their own biased view of microtonality (i.e. 1/4 > tones). Such a monopoly of microtonality should be avoided. I also > think that it is a crying shame that they could not be bothered to > include others in their event.

Wow, that's two "biased"s in one sentence. It's run by Donald Bousted, who uses 19-equal, so I'm sure the 1/4 tone bias can't be from that direction.

Basically, you're saying that because you feel it's biased towards one group, nobody else should attend? That sounds like a guaranteed way to make sure the mutual admiration society remains a society for mutual admiration. It makes about as much sense as all the people who leave this list after years of silence because the things they're interested in don't get discussed.

Wouldn't it make more sense for the neglected masses of British microtonalists to organize a fringe event to showcase the riches that are being ignored? Maybe you could hold it on the Sunday, to catch the people who are staying overnight.

> As I said, the pluralist view is not on their agenda.

They reject 12-note meantone, yes. And 12-equal for that matter. I know that 12-equal is considered microtonal in some parts. They cover pretty much everything else.

> Of course I am on the outside of the little club, and perhaps this is > all pique. That said, take a look at their program and form your own > opinion.

I looked at the programme[1] and I can't see your problem. Not knowing how much time should be assigned to each different tuning system, I can't say if there's a bias towards quartertones. Not knowing who belongs to their clique (seeing as I didn't even know there were enough of us to form a clique) I can't say if they're looking outside of it or not. Finally, not knowing who they didn't ask, I can't say how grevious the omission was.

I am somewhat surprised that all the thanks they get for organising the thing is griping about what wasn't included. But then obviously, not only not being part of the clique but not even being part of the clique that's excluded from the clique, I don't know anything about the politics that might be behind it.

Still, I wish you luck with all the work you must be about to do.

Graham

[1] Yes, that's how we spell it in the UK.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Graham Breed <gbreed@g...> wrote:

>Gene's looking at alternating
> generators, as you've seen, so maybe he's coming round to your way
of
> thinking. I can't see the point of it myself :-S

One use for it is as a way of indentifying interesting structures in
a MOS. When you consider Pajara/Diaschismic[10], and want to study it
deeply, one of the things you ought to know is that it has a cycle of
major and minor thirds. It has worked for me to indentify some
interesting scales I hadn't given much attention to; consider for
instance Rodan[31].

Rodan is the temperament with generators of 8/7 such that three
genertors give the fifth and 17 generators the 5. Because of the
complexity of 5, and the low complexity and error of 3 and 7, it
starts out as a good no-fives system, with some nice MOS if you dig
that scene. However, when we get to 31 we see that a 5/4 takes 17
generators, and a 6/5 takes 3-17=-14 generators. Most of the time a
scale step will be the root of either a utonal or an otonal tetrad,
but not both; in this respect it is quite like the diatonic scale. We
have three wolf fifths which actually invoke the 13-limit resources
of rodan, being pretty good 13/9s, and so we get screwy 9:11:13
chords at three places without fifths. All of this, tuned for example
in 128edo, gives some decent harmonic resources, but it's less
obvious than Meantone[7] or Schismatic[17].