Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup tuning Ives on tuning

Johnny Reinhard wrote:

>I'm satisfied to end this thread, only to present a full case in the coming
>chapter. Personally, I think people have always sold Charles Ives short and
>that this condition continues. Perhaps it seems like simple audacity for any
>individual to presume to read into another's words things that were missed by
>others. But that's all it takes for the idea and understanding to spread.
>
>For Ives to imagine the "Universe Symphony" is for Ives to imagine pure
>tuning as given by the cycle of fifths, the basis for the theory of keys.
>Just as one shouldn't review a book or a movie without reading or viewing it,
>perhaps one should hear the difference that the tuning adjustment in
>performance makes before pronouncing judgment. By connecting the
>circumstantial evidence, I believe we can get to the core of Mr. Ives's
>imagination.

Although I am not at all familiar with the music of Ives, I've been
following this thread with interest. I've been wondering if you've written,
or plan to write, a paper or a book on the topic. I hope so. I suspect that
you probably already cited examples of recordings of his music with various
tunings, but if so I haven't kept the references. Would you tell me what
they are, so that I could introduce myself to his work and hear for myself
the difference made by various tunings?

John Link

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🔗D.Stearns <stearns@xxxxxxx.xxxx>

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🔗D.Stearns <stearns@xxxxxxx.xxxx>

[Johnny Reinhard]
>Regarding non-quartertone, finely-tuned Ives - outside of 24TET - I
do knot know of any others performances. Are there?

I don't know of any (other) commercially available recordings of Ives
where the possible intonational implications of his note spellings was
the emphasis.

Dan

FWIW - I've reworked a number of Ives pieces for my rock group
PRIVATEWORLD (_West London_, _The Indians_, and _The Housatonic at
Stockbridge_ for example), which use a variety of tuning systems - I
believe Jeff Collins' now deceased site used to have a reworking of
_Serenity_ I did for soprano, piano, viola and bells that mixed JI and
20, 19, and 12e (which was there primarily to offer some examples of
the 144e notation I used)... And I wouldn't be at all surprised if
others elsewhere (inspired by the implications of Ives'
poly-everything approach) have tried similar things.

🔗Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@anaphoria.com>

Johnny!
Things like this make it impossible for some of us to really take these
institutions seriously. i have a friend who was getting his Ph.D. in composition
there and they almost wouldn't give it to him because he used brakedrums. This
was in the 70s. For the most part these "scholars" are not interested in
promoting new ideas as much as nipping as many of them in the bud as possible.
Only when they get stabbed with a thorn do they "concede" any value to things.

Afmmjr@aol.com wrote:

> Same with discussions of Renaissance
> music when I was at Columbia U.: no discussion about tuning.

-- Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island
http://www.anaphoria.com

🔗D.Stearns <stearns@capecod.net>

[Kraig Grady:]
>If Partch who had little, had the guts to take the leap
into new tunings, why waste the time on the those who lack this
commitment.

Kraig, this seems like such a negative (not to mention incredibly
oversimplified) view! But hey, your welcome to it.

>Compromisers to the lions!

Who's to say that ones own idea of compromise is not another's
heartfelt passion... maybe you, I don't know? But with an attitude
like this the lions sure wont go hungry... Maybe I got it wrong, but
it sure sounds to me like some variation on, "those who don't measure
up to my likes and dislikes, my standards - off with their heads!"

Dan (lion food) Stearns

🔗Zhang2323@aol.com

🔗Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@anaphoria.com>

"D.Stearns" wrote:

>
>
> [Kraig Grady:]
> >If Partch who had little, had the guts to take the leap
> into new tunings, why waste the time on the those who lack this
> commitment.

> Kraig, this seems like such a negative (not to mention incredibly
> oversimplified) view! But hey, your welcome to it.

It is that simple isn't it, you either write in a microtonal tuning or not.
If you write in 12et while thinking something else, why should i my time
trying to guess what you want. Debussy thought in a 36 tone system, is he
next. This type of thinking can easily lead to the opposite. What about
anyone writing in a tuning based on any 12 tone matrix. One could argue
that although the work was written in lets say a 7-limit tuning it can be
played in 12ET because the composer was thinking in a 12 tone matrix.

>
>
> >Compromisers to the lions!

I refuse to accept any composer as working in alternative tunings who only
thinks in that tuning. Do You really?

>
>
> Who's to say that ones own idea of compromise is not another's
> heartfelt passion... maybe you, I don't know? But with an attitude
> like this the lions sure wont go hungry... Maybe I got it wrong, but
> it sure sounds to me like some variation on, "those who don't measure
> up to my likes and dislikes, my standards - off with their heads!"

This exist beyond my own likes and dislikes. We are not talking about value
judgments upon great works of art ,we are talking about writing music in
alternative tunings. either a piece is or isn't. Personally I like Ives. I
give him credit for writing Quartertone pieces. I see no reason to include
him along side a composer such as Partch beyond that ( in relation to
being someone working in alternative tunings).
Once again I object to putting old wine in new bottles as a MAIN thrust of
our endeavors. Even though both the subjects of Bach tunings and Ives
tunings stem from Johnny's work, I acknowledge ( and everyone else should
too) his contribution as a whole which has presented many new works or
rarely heard works that exist along side these i must say inspired
excursions. Frankly I think it would be better to concentrate on the
former. In the time it takes to present an Ives work we could be hearing
something from someone on this list for instance or some other living
composer. I see no reason why anyone seriously working in alternative
tunings should have to compete with composers who only think in a different
tuning.

-- Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island
http://www.anaphoria.com

🔗D.Stearns <stearns@xxxxxxx.xxxx>

[Kraig Grady:]
> It is that simple isn't it, you either write in a microtonal tuning
or not.

Well (IMO), not exactly... and the Ives is a good (and pretty tangled)
case in point.

>If you write in 12et while thinking something else, why should i my
time trying to guess what you want.

Assuming that you left out "waste," or "spend" in the above sentence:
well of course you shouldn't if you see no reason to, but that doesn't
mean that others might not see it as a real worthwhile endeavor. I
think in this case there is enough tantalizing evidence to make it a
pretty interesting line of inquiry, but that of course is just my
opinion.

>This type of thinking can easily lead to the opposite. What about
anyone writing in a tuning based on any 12 tone matrix. One could
argue that although the work was written in lets say a 7-limit tuning
it can be played in 12ET because the composer was thinking in a 12
tone matrix.

Yes, I understand (and agree with) your point, and I've said right
along that I hope that what is the case here and what is not the case
here will both get a fair shake.

>I refuse to accept any composer as working in alternative tunings who
only thinks in that tuning. Do You really?

You mean who only thinks in 12? Well I've said from the start that I
think it is an exaggeration of the evidence to suggest an extended
Pythagorean conversion of all (or most) of Ives' music based on what
he wrote (etc.). But I did *not* say that it is "a mistake," or "a
waste of time."

> we are talking about writing music in alternative tunings. either a
piece is or isn't

I disagree.

>Personally I like Ives. I give him credit for writing Quartertone
pieces. I see no reason to include him along side a composer such as
Partch beyond that ( in relation to being someone working in
alternative tunings).

I agree.

>Once again I object to putting old wine in new bottles as a MAIN
thrust of our endeavors.

By "our endeavors," do you mean microtonalities endeavors, or
something along that line (like as a "movement" so to speak)? I guess
I agree with that (in an oblique way anyway), but really, if "old wine
in new bottles" is what is exciting and interesting to somebody else's
work in tuning; I either like it or I don't (or I'm interested in it
or I'm not), but I don't really see any need to "object" to it... And
in a broader sense I really don't seem to see any reason why the past
can't help push the present forward or vice versa (I guess what I'm
saying is that the isolated concept of "old wine in new bottles"
doesn't bother me the least; could be terrible, could be great...).

>Frankly I think it would be better to concentrate on the former. In
the time it takes to present an Ives work we could be hearing
something from someone on this list for instance or some other living
composer. I see no reason why anyone seriously working in alternative
tunings should have to compete with composers who only think in a
different tuning.

While I understand your points (and think they're good ones), it is
after all Johnny's prerogative to do as he sees fit with his festivals
and his tuning endeavors, no?

Dan

🔗Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@xxxxxxxxx.xxxx>

"D.Stearns" wrote:

> And
> in a broader sense I really don't seem to see any reason why the past
> can't help push the present forward or vice versa (I guess what I'm
> saying is that the isolated concept of "old wine in new bottles"
> doesn't bother me the least; could be terrible, could be great...).

Joyce referred to the Past as "A nightmare from which we may never
awaken".It seems that the past is acting more like a wall preventing any
future development. I guess the bottom line as I find microtonality of no
interest if not reactionary, while the idea of alternative tuning is. It is
this term that groups me in with a majority I have little to share with
either musically or philosophically. I don't know how to deal with this
situation. If this is the case though, might it be saying something about
just what the term in practice omits or ends up in the background. I would
prefer some option besides signing off . i just a composer, building
instruments, attempting to construct as many bridges to the other cultures
of humans as possible. What Eugenio Barba has done with theater with his
notion of "theater anthropology" is something Partch would resonate with
and you would hope those that followed him would also. But in all fairness
maybe what I would like is everyone to express what they see the goals of
microtonality might/could or should be!

> While I understand your points (and think they're good ones), it is
> after all Johnny's prerogative to do as he sees fit with his festivals
> and his tuning endeavors, no?

of course Johnny will do what is does as I will do what i do, from the
point of view as a "composer" I makes these objection. As a programmer in
new york, it might be true that this is what he needs to do to draw an
audience to other newer work.

>
>

-- Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island
http://www.anaphoria.com

🔗Afmmjr@xxx.xxx

More on Ives: Peter Yates, an important writer on music this century, wrote"

"Charles Ives, Carl Ruggles, and Bela Bartok extended the equal temperament
scale by eliminating the key-signature and using both sharps and flats to
indicate microtonally distinct tones, which can be sung or played on flexibly
pitched instruments, thus giving a scale of more than 12 notes. Ives
notates, both D# and Eb in a passage for the voice of his song, "Like a Sick
Eagle.""

Peter Yates (1976, American Society of University Composers, Proceedings of
the 2nd Annual Conference, April 1969, published by the ASUC 1976, p. 85)
...............

Yet Ives Society Secretary Philip Lambert, who has published more thany any
other on the "Universe Symphony" wriote that a particular ending chord of
Section B would have had all 12 tones in the chord except there is a written
D# and a written Eb. Mr. Lambert suggests that the D# is an error by Ives.

The issue of D# and Eb in the "same time beat" in the letter by wife Harmony
for her husband Charles regarding the need for keeping these distinctions for
an "acoustic plan" is being ignored.

Question: why would Ives discuss in his Memos that a B# is an eighthtone
higher than a C in a chapter on the Concord Sonata for piano? Dan(iel)?

Johnny Reinhard
AFMM

🔗D.Stearns <stearns@xxxxxxx.xxxx>

[Johnny Reinhard:]
> Question: why would Ives discuss in his Memos that a B# is an
eighthtone higher than a C in a chapter on the Concord Sonata for
piano? Dan(iel)?

A couple of things come right to my mind from his own words in the
_MEMOS_...

1) That there is an actual (i.e. physical) intonational implication to
his note spellings... and that the technical weight of his own words
seems to indicate (though he never actually says as much) an "extended
Pythagorean" scheme... and while his references to "natural" and
"aural" ways sometimes read like references to horizontal tendencies
(which seems a good fit for a Pythagorean conceptualization), they
also sometimes sounds like (Helmholtzian) references to vertical
tendencies - though this is in language style only, as he never (that
I'm aware of) gives any sort of equally tantalizing technical (or say
schismatic note spelling) evidence of this being an actual intended
aim...

2) That he used note spellings in an attempt to offset habitual tonal
expectations and mindsets... and here he seems to my mind to indicate
that this can be relevant in both a physical and a metaphysical sense,
but that in either case its intended application was one of limited or
special instances, and was not intend as a sweeping intonational
paradigm.

Q: Has the oft mentioned technical plan of the _MEMOS_, "see
typewritten copy sent to Bellamann of technical plan etc. of Sonata,
with tone-vibration tables etc.)--the difference in its overtonal
beats (actually measured vibrationally)" turned up anywhere... or was
it ever published or more thoroughly cited elsewhere? (Or is possibly
even an existing document?) It would seem that this would certainly
help if it were.

Dan

Ives on tuning

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🔗Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@xxxxxxxxx.xxxx>

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