Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup tuning AW.: Re: 36-tone Debussy

DWolf77309@cs.com wrote:

> From: DWolf77309@cs.com
>
> In einer Nachricht vom 12/4/99 10:31:27 AM (MEZ) Mitteleurop�ische
> Zeitschreibt monz@juno.com:
>
> <<
> [Kraig Grady, TD 419.22]
> > Debussy thought in a 36 tone system >>
>
> Kraig, maybe you're thinking of Busoni? An English translation of Busoni's
> _Sketch of a New Esthetic of Music_ is to be found alongside essays by
> Debessy and Ives in the Dover volume _Three Classics in the Aesthetic of
> Music_. Busoni advocated a 36-tone system, to be learned by first mastering
> third-tones. However, he never actually composed in either 18 or 36.

I studied analysis with Jack Ringold. He did his Ph.D work on Debussy. went to
europe looked at his letters, the whole deal. This data was a personal
communication from him. This I admit leaves room for error but this is what i
remember and i remember it cause it didn't make sense to me then, nor really
now. The impression I got was that double sharps are double flats were the
points of difference. I wasn't able to break that code. That this work of
Busoni was next to one of Debussy is quite curious and if this is how it
happened, It would be a very out of character mistake of Jacks!
................................................................................................................................

Well in order to that keep the rest of you all busy for a while. i think
you are all missing the boat though, what about those composers who hears in
microtones but didn't necessarily saw any reason to say anything. what about
Bartok. Or stravinsky who wrote music on a "terribly out of tune"(Robert Craft)
piano ( also he had a theory of harmony according to lucky Mosko that was based
on combination tones, I am checking this one out as we speak), Or chopin who
tuned his own piano to meantone (communication from Lou Harrison circa early
80s) What about burmese piano music, put it back in Burmese tuning. Brittens
Prince of Pagoda into slendro. Schoenberg Into 53 since he foresaw it use in
the future and was held back only by the impracticability at the time. Doug
Leedy has performed at least one song of Landini in 11 limit, when you get here
let me know, you might sucker me into this. At this point considering my
composition skills aren't up to snuff with the great old white boys up here who
did the real groundbreaking microtonal work (after all they are where its
at,yeah!), i think it would be presumptuous of me to consider myself a
microtonal composer. I am considering going to electronics, unless their list
is filled with similar type of endeavors. I don't think Tomita would be taken
so seriously as his counterparts here :)
(Sorry to consolidate all this on you message dan)
If you are really really going to insist on this road take a clue for Margo's
research and observations. In examining tunings influence on 13th century
counterpoint, she has pointed out how the tuning of the day "explains' why
they used the intervals the way they did. This I have found valuable in that
it is something applicable to subsequent styles in the same way that Yasser
Harmonization of infra diatonic scales are in maybe a lesser degree. It
supplies a springboard for speculation on a strong foundation.
Unless examinations can explain how the hearing of a different tuning
affected the writing of the music in some way differing than if it was heard in
12et, i have to consider it off topic outside as a historical curiosity.

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

🔗Afmmjr@xxx.xxx

Kraig, can you imagine how uncomfortable each of us gets when the discussion
goes to one of our weaknesses? This is a common difficulty for achievers.
This is also the explanation for all the resistance that Academia has held
for microtonal music.

For me, I find that one foot in the past and one foot in the future is the
only way to live the present. It's not just the old chestnut "If you don't
know where you're from, you don't know where you're going." It's the way for
me to achieve the greatest understanding.

But there's a more important, visceral reason. Performing and repeatedly
listening to a music masterpiece is always enhanced by being heard in the
tuning conception imagined by the composer. It is no different for Bach than
it has been for Ives. In fact, it makes all the difference for me.

Debussy in 36? Bring on the evidence.

Johnny Reinhard
AFMM

🔗Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@xxxxxxxxx.xxxx>

Afmmjr@aol.com wrote:

> From: Afmmjr@aol.com
>
> Kraig, can you imagine how uncomfortable each of us gets when the discussion
> goes to one of our weaknesses? This is a common difficulty for achievers.

I understand. I am sorry i was maybe not clear how any composer who feels they
are plowing new ground might feel weak when having to compete with these war
horses. It is a perspective of a composers as a a composer

>
> This is also the explanation for all the resistance that Academia has held
> for microtonal music.

I see no reason to hold my punches with these monoliths. The cost they charge
make it impossible for the many to even consider going into "fine arts". There
is just to much money to pay back. I was talking to a head of an art dept. at a
university just last night and he told me there is a larger Graphic Design dept.
than the whole rest of the art dept. put together. The universities have created
a situation where only individuals from an upper class can consider being an
artist. If all our artist come from this class, what does that say about
society.
It's kinda a reverse Psychology. :) If i make enough noise maybe they will
give me a job to shut me up:)

> For me, I find that one foot in the past and one foot in the future is the
> only way to live the present. It's not just the old chestnut "If you don't
> know where you're from, you don't know where you're going." It's the way for
> me to achieve the greatest understanding.
>
> But there's a more important, visceral reason. Performing and repeatedly
> listening to a music masterpiece is always enhanced by being heard in the
> tuning conception imagined by the composer. It is no different for Bach than
> it has been for Ives. In fact, it makes all the difference for me.
>
> Debussy in 36? Bring on the evidence.
>
> Johnny Reinhard
> AFMM
>

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

🔗DWolf77309@xx.xxx

In einer Nachricht vom 12/8/99 5:39:08 AM (MEZ) Mitteleurop�ische
Zeitschreibt jadl@idcomm.com:

<<
Oh, those NAUGHTY players: do they DARE inject their own musical
sensibilities into a performance? We will pummel them until they
behave! Everything must be EXACTLY as originally conceived!!
>>

In my scores, the pitches and rhythms are prescribed, if they're not right
then one is not playing the piece. (I could also put it this way: if you
don't like the pitches and rhythms I've notated, why do you want to play the
piece?). In the domains of articulation and dynamics, my notation is rather
sparse. Some of my pieces are in open score (without specific instruments),
others invite ornamentation. So there is plenty of room for the player's
sensibilities, just not in the areas I have notated.

You can still go to the Rodin foundation in France and order a new casting of
one of his works. His sculptures are on exhibition several times at the same
time in different places. I grant that some art works will always be
one-offs, but visual artists have long been comfortable in this age of
mechnical reproduction. What's wrong with the analogy?

You wrote:

<< You graciously "allow"
those who have already proven themselves in your eyes the right to have
done what they've done, but evidently, if you had been there, before
these people proved themselves (in your eyes), you would have done your
best to explain to them that they had no right to do it!

Either that, or you're saying that, if any discussion comes up, that
fact in and of itself proves the unworthiness of a project, and
presumably the person in question will cease and desist immediately
upon notification of your (or anyone's) disapproval. >>

Obviously you did not read what I had written:

> But this has got to be
>done with honesty about the nature of the re-composition, convincing
>rationale for the critique implied by the project, and enough touch of
>inspiration or virtuosity that discussion is unnecessary.

Experiment, by all means, every musician does it! Most do it in private, as
a means of digging out details in the music, but when it is more than details
and done in public, please present it as an experiment or a new composition
and not as a reproduction of the original composer's intent. If you wish to
do that, then the level of evidence required to support the claim is
extremely high.

Your Bach retunings are interesting, but to my ears only demonstrate how much
his voice leading technique was determined by the resources and limitations
of temperaments. Virtually all of Bach's works -- the solo cello and violin
pieces are the great exceptions -- included keyboard instruments, whether as
solists or as continuo instruments, and there is no evidence that Bach used a
keyboard with more than 12 pitches to the octave. While his private
clavichord playing might have used a lot of _Bebung_ (thus allowing him to
bend pitches upwards a bit, as well as to use vibrato to disguise the
intonation), all of his public performances were made with 12 tones of
meantone or a well temperament.

Daniel Wolf