Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup tuning Re: [tuning] OT-----my son turns 16 tomorrow

On 9 May 2010, at 9:57 AM, daniel_anthony_stearns wrote:
>
> If he keeps improving and executing with an improviser's soul---and > especially documenting what he's doing---I think he'll be a pretty > dangerous dude later in life.
>
> http://tinyurl.com/2euaufb
> http://tinyurl.com/28erp4w
> http://tinyurl.com/2anmsut
>
Maybe, if he will work hard and will have a good teacher.. It's still a long way but he's on the good track. He must be careful not to be dangerous in this sense: quick fingers not controlled by intellect... There's enough musical balast in the world, no need to pollute the environment with another...

In my opinion what you've sent is just confused chaotic finger training up and down. Which is of course understable in the case of young person and student.

Even free improvisation is an art, and has its rules, as composition in real time. He needs more discipline, to learn not talk too much, but to communicate.

My advice as a long years multistyle improviser and teacher:
He needs to learn more about motifs (I call them in a more contemporary language "motivic cells") in each music parameter, be it melody, rhythm, metre, chords, chord progressions, dynamics, expression, timbre, ornamentics, articulation, texture, instrument typical or special ways of play etc., of course also style or even quotations... And use all this intentionally during the improvisation. This is true for all music styles, be it Baroque polyphony or jazz. Because music is a language, be it composed or improvised. Lot of composed music started and was created from improvisation.

Improvisation doesn't mean chaos. Even improvisation must be prepared. Even the best improvisers are prepared, they use lot of prefabricated patterns they learned, prepared and tried before, and then just use them, combine, variate during improvisation... The more such patterns improviser knows, the better he/she is (if only he doesn't try to show all he/she knows in one improvisation).

For example in the melody (pitch parameter):
- tuning + temperament
- different 5 to 10-note scales + modes, tone series, 12-tone rows, sets, subsets
- work with intervals and their directions in selected material
- creation of 3 to 6-tone motifs based on selected interval inside the selected system
- work with these motivic cells - transposition, mirroring (inversion or retrograde), expansion/compression of intervals, order or interval permutation, shape distortion
- creating longer melody from motivic cells, with its upper and lower peak and logical structure build from periods, questions/answers, expanding/ shorting, atomization, addition, note erasing, pause filing, pause erasing, and connection to the hidden (latent) or real harmonic accompaniment
- concerning motif combinations - transplantation, interpolation, mix, synthesis, crossing...

Of course we can use randomness and chance during improvisation, even let fingers to do what they want. But organic part of each intelligent improvisation is also instant analysis in real time. I must always know what happened, and use it intentionally, and make some logical structure from it. So even chance can be used to create something interesting.
From this point of view something like a mistake during improvisation doesn't exist, beause I can analyse it and use it. Or minimally to repeat the same mistake to make and intention from it, and maybe new motivic cell.

As for my recommendation for study of melodic motivic cells: it's very good to analyse works which used this method - Baroque fugues, and for example songs of Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Vernon Duke, Richard Rodgers, Harold Arlen
Looking in the fakebook, I see now Hancock's Dolphin Dance, masterpiece of motivif cells method... Also Coltrane, Corea, Jobim, Ron Carter... Not at all lot of blues, jazz, rock or pop (lot of melodies are too dependent on harmony and jazz improvisation uses primitive modal scales up/down, or chromatically transposed patterns - especially boring from this sense is be-bop).

There's much more... Also zen buddhism is not bad for improviser :-) - it will learn him to appreciate silence (which means to make pause from time to time) and be very careful in articulation of each individual note. You never know what bad note can cause on the other side of the world. In improvisation as well in the composition less means more in final impact to the listeners.

Good luck!

Daniel Forro

🔗Daniel Forró <dan.for@...>

Hi, Dan,

as for creativity and imagination, you are absolutely right... We see
too much creativity killed by bad or too strict and narrow-minded
teachers. I was talking about a good teacher :-) Such teacher must be
not only good in music theory and practice, but also in psychology...
That means not to force young students, just show them other possible
ways and help them to make their own way easier.

I was enough tortured in my childhood by unsensitive piano teacher
who didn't understand that something like an improvisation creativity
exists, and that musicality can have many forms... Yes, after so many
years I understand that it was shocking for her to hear me
improvising in piano etudes or change them because I felt they were
boring... It's quite different approach to the music than that
classical one, and not quite compatible. (Fortunately later I have
found few classical piano virtuoso with improvising ability doing the
same - improving classical works and doing their variations. )

Greetings to the proud father (you have good reason to be!) and
talented son. I wish him lot of good notes.

If you are by chance in Czech Republic or near since 25.5 to 24.6.,
we can meet, talk or make some musical noise which would be a
pleasure for me. Your son and his guitar as well.

All the best.

Daniel Forro

On 9 May 2010, at 1:06 PM, daniel_anthony_stearns wrote:

>
> Hi Daniel thanks for listening and taking the time to comment.
> FWiW, he's actually very free and loose and not too dependent on
> patterns and pre-practiced motifs on the whole, and this is a thing
> I've always respected about him----especially as a young person.
> Imo, true improvisers must not be afraid to let the music
> fall....and in this respect I've never tried to coerce him to more
> epicurean fantasies, just as I'd hope no-one ever tried to do the
> same to say a Robbie Basho---or, if they did, that they failed
> miserably.
> Teachers are overrated.... musicality is overrated.....creativity and
> Imagination is the key, or at the very least the hopes and views of
> this father
> be well,
> the other daniel----who speaks a bit of Czech as well, but
> definitely no Japanese!
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Daniel Forró <dan.for@...> wrote:
> >
> >
> > On 9 May 2010, at 9:57 AM, daniel_anthony_stearns wrote:
> > >
> > > If he keeps improving and executing with an improviser's soul---
> and
> > > especially documenting what he's doing---I think he'll be a pretty
> > > dangerous dude later in life.
> > >
> > > http://tinyurl.com/2euaufb
> > > http://tinyurl.com/28erp4w
> > > http://tinyurl.com/2anmsut
> > >
> > Maybe, if he will work hard and will have a good teacher.. It's
> still
> > a long way but he's on the good track. He must be careful not to be
> > dangerous in this sense: quick fingers not controlled by
> intellect...
> > There's enough musical balast in the world, no need to pollute the
> > environment with another...
> >
> > In my opinion what you've sent is just confused chaotic finger
> > training up and down. Which is of course understable in the case of
> > young person and student.
> >
> > Even free improvisation is an art, and has its rules, as composition
> > in real time. He needs more discipline, to learn not talk too much,
> > but to communicate.
> >
> > My advice as a long years multistyle improviser and teacher:
> > He needs to learn more about motifs (I call them in a more
> > contemporary language "motivic cells") in each music parameter, be
> > it melody, rhythm, metre, chords, chord progressions, dynamics,
> > expression, timbre, ornamentics, articulation, texture, instrument
> > typical or special ways of play etc., of course also style or even
> > quotations... And use all this intentionally during the
> > improvisation. This is true for all music styles, be it Baroque
> > polyphony or jazz. Because music is a language, be it composed or
> > improvised. Lot of composed music started and was created from
> > improvisation.
> >
> > Improvisation doesn't mean chaos. Even improvisation must be
> > prepared. Even the best improvisers are prepared, they use lot of
> > prefabricated patterns they learned, prepared and tried before, and
> > then just use them, combine, variate during improvisation... The
> more
> > such patterns improviser knows, the better he/she is (if only he
> > doesn't try to show all he/she knows in one improvisation).
> >
> > For example in the melody (pitch parameter):
> > - tuning + temperament
> > - different 5 to 10-note scales + modes, tone series, 12-tone rows,
> > sets, subsets
> > - work with intervals and their directions in selected material
> > - creation of 3 to 6-tone motifs based on selected interval inside
> > the selected system
> > - work with these motivic cells - transposition, mirroring
> (inversion
> > or retrograde), expansion/compression of intervals, order or
> interval
> > permutation, shape distortion
> > - creating longer melody from motivic cells, with its upper and
> lower
> > peak and logical structure build from periods, questions/answers,
> > expanding/ shorting, atomization, addition, note erasing, pause
> > filing, pause erasing, and connection to the hidden (latent) or real
> > harmonic accompaniment
> > - concerning motif combinations - transplantation, interpolation,
> > mix, synthesis, crossing...
> >
> > Of course we can use randomness and chance during improvisation,
> even
> > let fingers to do what they want. But organic part of each
> > intelligent improvisation is also instant analysis in real time. I
> > must always know what happened, and use it intentionally, and make
> > some logical structure from it. So even chance can be used to create
> > something interesting.
> > From this point of view something like a mistake during
> > improvisation doesn't exist, beause I can analyse it and use it. Or
> > minimally to repeat the same mistake to make and intention from it,
> > and maybe new motivic cell.
> >
> > As for my recommendation for study of melodic motivic cells: it's
> > very good to analyse works which used this method - Baroque fugues,
> > and for example songs of Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin,
> > Vernon Duke, Richard Rodgers, Harold Arlen
> > Looking in the fakebook, I see now Hancock's Dolphin Dance,
> > masterpiece of motivif cells method... Also Coltrane, Corea, Jobim,
> > Ron Carter... Not at all lot of blues, jazz, rock or pop (lot of
> > melodies are too dependent on harmony and jazz improvisation uses
> > primitive modal scales up/down, or chromatically transposed patterns
> > - especially boring from this sense is be-bop).
> >
> > There's much more... Also zen buddhism is not bad for improviser :-)
> > - it will learn him to appreciate silence (which means to make pause
> > from time to time) and be very careful in articulation of each
> > individual note. You never know what bad note can cause on the other
> > side of the world. In improvisation as well in the composition less
> > means more in final impact to the listeners.
> >
> > Good luck!
> >
> > Daniel Forro
> >
>
>
>

🔗Michael <djtrancendance@...>

🔗Daniel Forró <dan.for@...>

On 9 May 2010, at 2:49 PM, Michael wrote:

>
>
> Daniel>"- creation of 3 to 6-tone motifs based on selected interval > inside the selected system"
> Rather surprisingly...I actually hear a lot of these in the > first example IE http://tinyurl. com/2euaufb
> One thing I have always wondered is what exactly make a motif > different than simply small sets of repeating notes repeating over > and over with slight variations.

There can be more than one motivic cell in the theme, and they can be chained or layered, and there's much more possibilities than just slight variations or repetition. Motif can be changed so that is hardly recognizable but still something has to be kept for resemblance.

>
> Turning this all back to the subject of tuning (this list is > aimed to be more about tuning than general composition, correct?) > is what intervals do you and others believe lend themselves best to > strong motifs and why (and furthermore, perhaps, what scales are > good for such intervals)? In other words, what role can tuning > play in improving a composer's chances of making/finding high-> quality motifs?

All intervals are good and usable. Good melody usually combine more intervals, balance big and small intervals (classical rule for vocal polyphony - a jump in one direction should be filled with small steps in the other direction), has upper and lower peak (valley), is divided into periods (question - answer} etc. To me such spiral like melodies with balanced up and down intervals are the best.
And as the melody is not the only and the most important music parameter, I don't think it's so important to try to find the best motif. What it means, the best motif? I don't think anything like this exists. Create just any motif and try to get the best of it by means of the other compositional work with it. Motif, motivic cell, it's just a word, a syllable of musical language. Context is more important - sentences, articles, pages, chapters... whole story... Look how many different motifs were invented, some of them are pretty banal but emotionally strong (lot of Classicism music use just arpeggiated chords as motif, but what they did with it!). Some other are well done but not so strong...

I personally like and sometimes use big intervals in the melody if I have such intention and need. Sometimes it's just a result of compositional work with originally narrow motif - by expanding the interval size. Of course one has to be carefully with singers and choirs, they prefer small intervals.

Different or unusual tuning can bring some new intervals, which can lead to bigger contrast, or just opposite - to the equalizing and flattening the contrast (if tuning is totally dissonant or totally consonant). On one side composer has more possibilities with fine tunings with many different pitches, on the other side it can make selection more difficult, and result can be just some "out of tune" music to an average listener.

> >"Looking in the fakebook, I see now Hancock's Dolphin Dance, > masterpiece of motivif cells method"
> Hancock as in Herbie Hancock? IMVHO he did some truly amazing > things with motifs...his song "Chameleon" in particular seems > almost insanely easy to listen to yet gently bends its simple theme > in endless ways.

Exactly this melody is not so interesting, it's done just as a chain of different motivic cells (the only common element is minor pentatonics). Just up and down, no work with motif. Even minor pentatonics offer much more to do. He hadn't best day with this :-) This I show to the students how not to do a melody.
Try Jobim's Aqua de beber, or Corea's Crystal Silence, that's a real gem! Nothing to say about Bernstein's West Side Story, this is a paradise to analyse what he did.

> It gets me thinking, do you think perhaps the ability to make to > make a tuning such that virtually all notes harmonize with all > other notes so more ways to write polyphony (yes, I mean with > several instruments and different voices) would help make it easier > to write music "like Herbie"?

I don't understand this question.
1. Such tuning will be pretty boring, without any contrast.

2. Even in 12ET all notes can be used with the other notes. I don't see any limitation for writing polyphony, why.

3. And if you mean by "polyphony" just more instruments playing together, then it's not so difficult. Remember that usually instruments have different roles in the arrangement - in pop/jazz there's usually melody, countermelody, riffs or fill-ins, harmony, bass, rhythm. For each of this layers we have lot of possibilities how to arrange them, depending on the music style, too. But this is an arrangement handcraft, which is only additional work. Main target is to find good melody and harmony, all the other things are derived from it and can be done in many ways. If the basic music is OK, then it can be arranged in any style, for any instruments, and always will sound well. (I recently did an arrangement of Janacek's intro fanfares from orchestral Sinfonietta with additional 9 trumpets just for flute, 6 Japanese koto, shamisen, biwa, piano and Japanese drums and the result is unbelievably good. Good music is undestroyable, bad music will be bad even in orchestral arrangement.)

4. Why to write music as Herbie? If you want, it's easy, but uninteresting - why just to follow what somebody else did before. More difficult is to try something more original.

> Not to say it can't be done 12TET (Herbie Hancock obviously does > it)...but looking for ways micro-tonality could make it and things > like improvising easier to accomplish.

I don't think so, it's quite opposite, microtonality is a complication for composer and listener. If you want a simplicity, stay with pentatonics and diatonic scales. And don't hope there's an easy way to mastership in music. If you want some results you have to work hard and study a lot. Which is quite OK. How the hard working and many years studying masters with talent could be distinguished from lazy amateurs if learning music would be so easy :-}

Daniel Forro

Re: [tuning] OT-----my son turns 16 tomorrow

🔗Daniel Forró <dan.for@...>

🔗Daniel Forró <dan.for@...>

🔗Michael <djtrancendance@...>

🔗Daniel Forró <dan.for@...>

🔗christopherv <chrisvaisvil@...>