Re: random topics

Some very interesting posts folks!

Ed Footes reply to Margots usual excellent posts conjured
up some very interesting mental pictures of an "entropy"
occurring leading us into 12tet. Actually, my picture was
more like "simulated annealling", with forces in Western
music coalescing into a "local minima", ease of playing,
transposing, instrument building, and a match with certain
musics of the times.

John Link, you've posted some interesting things lately
and the Bernstein quote may have got me going on a book
purchase for the holidays. Sometime I really hope to hear
your various musics.

Regarding announcements of non-microtone performances, I
will not be posting anything about my jazz performances in
Israel, which would be 12tet if we were in-tune and I
didn't get string-bending fever...

A quick Ives question. I
am looking for a quote of his regarding a piece which
"mixes" in an Ivesian manner a variety of hymns which he
described as including the "ghosts in the church". [My
interest in his statement is referring to the use of
quoted material in jazz solo's. Some do it as a joke,
but others are finding the 'ghosts' in the music.]

Regarding 'interpretations' of older music which are
tuning based, I agree with a bunch of points. Music
notation is a very inexact medium for communicating an
imagined sound. You can try to approximate what the
compser may have thought was a reasonable performance
by playing period instruments, tuning, styles, probably
period dress and foods if we are talking a performance
rather than just a sonic rendering... Or you can try to
find what 'speaks' in the music and bring that out. We
call this interpretation, and there have been some fairly
radical interpretations which have become accepted because
of the integrity of both the speach of the music and the
speach of the interpreter (Segovia moving solo cello
and violin works to the guitar was considered fairly
radical, Glenn Goulds Bach on piano would have been
radical on ANY instrument the way he milks some of the
passing dissonances. I find both of these artists to
have come up with beautiful music, more than the some
of Bach+Segovia, etc).

So I believe Ehrichs (and others) comments about some
retuning experiments may be on the mark. The speech
of the interpretation MAY be "inharmonious" with the
speech of the composition (to some ears). This is
refered to as a "bad interpretation".

But I think this approach CAN (like transposing and
re-orchstrating) lead to GOOD interpretations, whether
or not imagined by the composer.

And it sounds
like a great learning experience, so I won't begrudge
anyone for this activity. Referring to the "local
minima" statement at the
beginning of this letter, I think original compositions
are what will lead to new "local minima", but the
path may be pointed out by any manner of experiment.

Happy Holidays folks,

Bob Valentine