Blink and microtonality

Malcolm Galdwell's recent book "Blink" discusses snap judgements, and
how powerful they can be. But it also discusses how they can fail, and
one situation in which they tend to fail is with the unfamiliar.

The Herman Miller chain company, whose ads we tend to see when Herman
Miller's posts are up here, introduced a chair called the Aeron, which
people hated at first. Yet it ended up a huge seller. CBS introduced
All in the Family and The Mary Tyler Moore show, not expecting good
results, since the market-testing was not good, yet they ended up as
huge hits. The reason is, if something is different enough,
market-testing can easily fail to show that people exposed to it long
enough might end up liking it. This, I think, suggests that
microtonality could suceed, and people could get over the "it's out of
tune" reaction.

Gladwell says the following:

A bad movie is always a bad movie. The problem is, buried among the
things we hate is a class of products that are in that category only
because they are weird. They make us nervous. They are sufficiently
different that it takes us time to understand that we actually like them.

Good Post Gene!
Tangentially.....
I think people are used to microtones.
I think people have been listening to singers do microtones as well as jazz players bending things all over the place.
country fiddlin too
while people will say certain things are out of tune, it seems this has to be pushed in some direction before people won't take it as 'expressive, etc.
it is the forms and structures that it sometimes takes is what pushes people.
Like when you mess with their musical reality too much many resist, but if it is really in touch with stuff goin on, they do get used to these too, as the past shows.
Admittedly we have to realize that some "innovations" don't seem to endure for maybe reasons we don't understand, although we can find 49 different reason to say so. So either you progress very slowly or you jump out a head and hope you haven't trapped yourself
I thought this post was goin to be about Brink McBride who has his own anarchistic tunings going on that really do get you in the here and now.
and never knew Herman Miller had a chain company either.
otherwise i would be trying to figure out how to make and instrument out of chain!

tuning@yahoogroups.com wrote:
>
> Message: 1 > Date: Sat, 11 Feb 2006 22:10:56 -0000
> From: "Gene Ward Smith" <genewardsmith@coolgoose.com>
> Subject: Blink and microtonality
>
> Malcolm Galdwell's recent book "Blink" discusses snap judgements, and
> how powerful they can be. But it also discusses how they can fail, and
> one situation in which they tend to fail is with the unfamiliar.
>
> The Herman Miller chain company, whose ads we tend to see when Herman
> Miller's posts are up here, introduced a chair called the Aeron, which
> people hated at first. Yet it ended up a huge seller. CBS introduced
> All in the Family and The Mary Tyler Moore show, not expecting good
> results, since the market-testing was not good, yet they ended up as
> huge hits. The reason is, if something is different enough,
> market-testing can easily fail to show that people exposed to it long
> enough might end up liking it. This, I think, suggests that
> microtonality could suceed, and people could get over the "it's out of
> tune" reaction.
>
> Gladwell says the following:
>
> A bad movie is always a bad movie. The problem is, buried among the
> things we hate is a class of products that are in that category only
> because they are weird. They make us nervous. They are sufficiently
> different that it takes us time to understand that we actually like them.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -- 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

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@...> wrote:

> and never knew Herman Miller had a chain company either.
> otherwise i would be trying to figure out how to make and instrument
> out of chain!

Actually that was a typo for chair, so now you can try to figure out
how to make musical chairs.

Hi Kraig,

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@...> wrote:

> I thought this post was goin to be about Brink McBride

You're mixing his stage name with his real name
(except it's spelled McBryde).

He goes by "Brink McGoogy".

> who has his own anarchistic tunings going on that
> really do get you in the here and now.

You sure got that right! Brink uses some of the most
strangely constructed tunings i've ever come across,
and i *love* most of his music! Here are two webpages
i've put into the Encyclopedia describing some of his
most intriguing tunings:

http://tonalsoft.com/enc/b/brinko.aspx

http://tonalsoft.com/enc/m/mars-pyramid.aspx

I did an improv with him (just the two of us) back on
January 23 that i think came out *great*, and i'm just
dying to find the time to post it on my website. We
named it "However It Lands" ... be on the lookout for it
someday.

-monz
http://tonalsoft.com
Tonescape microtonal music software