Copy of Whole TUNING digest 1608

The old Mills College server just woke up. Here's a copy of the whole
"TUNING Digest 1608" it just sent (so nothing gets missed):

>
> TUNING Digest 1608
>
>Topics covered in this issue include:
>
> 1) Re: forum CD review
> by "John Loffink" <jloffink@pdq.net>
> 2) Re: xen keyboards 2
> by Paul Hahn <Paul-Hahn@library.wustl.edu>
> 3) Comments on managing the tuning list
> by Mark Nowitzky <nowitzky@alum.mit.edu>
> 4) a gentleman and... an academic
> by "Debra Shea-Stearns" <stearns@capecod.net>
> 5) Radiant Christmas {chords}
> by "Debra Shea-Stearns" <stearns@capecod.net>
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Topic No. 1
>
>Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1998 06:53:01 -0600
>From: "John Loffink" <jloffink@pdq.net>
>To: <tuning@eartha.mills.edu>
>Subject: Re: forum CD review
>Message-ID: <000e01be2b4e$84b43a80$231b90d1@x2k5x9>
>
>>From: Neil Haverstick <stick@uswest.net>
>>
>> The first review that I've seen of the tuning CD appeared in the new
>>Westword mag this week...log onto www.westword.com, and look for reviews
>>by Michael Roberts. I'd be curious to see what you folks think of what
>>he had to say...Hstick (PS...WW is a Denver based paper)
>>
>
>IMHO Stephen James Taylor's piece was the best one on the cd, so I can't
>agree with the reviewer's opinion.
>
>John Loffink
>jloffink@pdq.net
>http://freeweb.pdq.net/jloffink
>The Microtonal Synthesis Web Site
>
>------------------------------
>
>Topic No. 2
>
>Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1998 07:59:24 -0600 (CST)
>From: Paul Hahn <Paul-Hahn@library.wustl.edu>
>To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
>Subject: Re: xen keyboards 2
>Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.4.01.9812190753030.603-100000@library.wustl.edu>
>
>On Fri, 18 Dec 1998, Carl Lumma wrote:
>> For those of you not familiar with this, the Janko keyboard, being
>> originally designed for acoustic instruments in 12tET, has keys sharing the
>> same internal lever and strings (as Manuel explained). This causes the key
>> travel to be longer and easier in the rows nearer to the performer, and
>> shorter and harder in the rows farther from him. I think it can be agreed
>> that this is undesirable. The makers of Janko pianos never solved the
>> problem.
>> [snip]
>> Either way, can anyone come up with a different solution? It would be
>> worth a great deal, I think. Might even get one in the history books (I
>> think we're all already there anyway, but... :~)
>
>I believe I mentioned Paul Vandervoort on this list a _long_ time
>ago--possibly within the first year or so of its existence. Vandervoort
>has made some refinements to the Janko keyboard, one of which is a
>parallelogram linkage to equalize the leverage. I have a citation
>somewhere of an article from the '70s about his ideas, but I haven't
>found anything since then (though I haven't looked real recently), so I
>don't know if he's still active.
>
>--pH <manynote@lib-rary.wustl.edu> http://library.wustl.edu/~manynote
> O
> /\ "'Jever take'n try to give an ironclad leave to
> -\-\-- o yourself from a three-rail billiard shot?"
>
> NOTE: dehyphenate node to remove spamblock. <*>
>
>------------------------------
>
>Topic No. 3
>
>Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1998 08:47:59 -0800 (PST)
>From: Mark Nowitzky <nowitzky@alum.mit.edu>
>To: tuning@onelist.com
>Cc: tuning@eartha.mills.edu, madole@dnai.com
>Subject: Comments on managing the tuning list
>Message-ID: <2.2.16.19981229084420.36d7c5a4@pacificnet.net>
>
>Hi all,
>
>Just letting you know that it's an honor, and I'm having a blast, managing
>the tuning list at its new location. It's quite an undertaking; increased
>thanks to Dave Madole for managing it for all that time!
>
>Anyway, here's some common problems, and how to deal with them.
>
>1) Too many messages per day - I want just one, daily email:
>
>For those of you who preferred receiving the list in one, daily "digest" (as
>I do), you
>need to switch your subscription to digest mode, by sending an empty email
>to "tuning-digest@onelist.com".
>
>It's too bad I wasn't able to capture everybody's "digest vs. non-digest"
>preferences from the old system, 'cuz it seems to be a common problem.
>
>2) "When I try to switch to digest, or even mail to the list at all, I am
>told that my email address is not subscribed. And yet I receive tuning
>email here.":
>
>You may be known to the system by a different email address. The difference
>may be subtle, or there may be some sort of "email forwarding" going on.
>Compare the return address you put on emails to the address ONElist is using
>to send you mail.
>
>3) Do I have to have web access to use this thing now?
>
>No. I saw this problem coming. That's why I included this extra
>description in every message, after ONElist's web instructions:
>
> You do not need web access to participate. You may subscribe through
> email. Send an empty email to one of these addresses:
> tuning-subscribe@onelist.com - subscribe to the tuning list.
> tuning-unsubscribe@onelist.com - unsubscribe from the tuning list.
> tuning-digest@onelist.com - switch your subscription to digest mode.
> tuning-normal@onelist.com - switch your subscription to normal mode.
>
>That's all for now. Go back to talking about tuning. (Maybe I'll join in
>on that again too, once the smoke settles.) Thanks,
>
>--Mark
>+------------------------------------------------------+
>| Mark Nowitzky |
>| email: nowitzky@alum.mit.edu AIM: Nowitzky |
>| www: http://www.pacificnet.net/~nowitzky |
>| "If you haven't visited Mark Nowitzky's home |
>| page recently, you haven't missed much..." |
>+------------------------------------------------------+
>
>------------------------------
>
>Topic No. 4
>
>Date: Sun, 27 Dec 1998 21:28:12 -0500
>From: "Debra Shea-Stearns" <stearns@capecod.net>
>To: <tuning@mills.edu>
>Subject: a gentleman and... an academic
>Message-ID: <000901be3209$bb61dd00$11f5f4d1@stearns>
>
>In the TUNING digest 1607 (topic No. 16), Carl Lumma wrote:
>
>"�Partch would have been greatful for the DX7. He who says otherwise
>is a gentleman and... an academic."
>
>While I'm certainly not an academic (or can I claim to be the �gentleman� so
>depicted in this context), I am reasonably certain that I don�t really know
>much about this or that intent of someone I never knew� so this may very
>well be true; 'Partch would have been grateful for the DX7'... I can�t
>say�But I will offer a personal point of view or two, to which (I am fairly
>certain) someone is bound to have some heartfelt objections.
>
>I do not own a copy of Partch�s �GENESIS OF A MUSIC�. But I have taken it
>out of the library (a couple of times), and seem to recall a passage in
>which he talks about (new?) instruments and how music has always grow around
>and out of them... Though I�ve no doubt butchered the judicious literatim of
>what he wrote, hopefully I�ve conveyed something of it as well (?).
>
>It is my humble opinion that the more unforgettable characteristics of
>Partch�s music (assuming that the actual music one creates carries with it
>something distinct from the ideologies that buttress it) are tied a lot
>tighter to the creation and implementation of new instruments, than they are
>the advancement of a tuning that happened to resolutely embrace aural
>causation� And though the tuning the instruments the ideologies and the man
>and the music all seem inseparable to me now... I for one am pretty darn
>thankful someone was seduced by carpentry!
>
>Would the �inimical leer� that permeates much of his writing on the subject
>tuning have lost a bit of its punch (or charm) had his radical, spirited
>MUSIC not shined so brilliantly? I (for whatever that�s worth) certainly
>would have found the shrillness of the intonation reform minded rhetoric
>unendurable had the music been some underwhelming, imaginatively anemic
>quotidian�'Natural, reasonable, and inherently pleasing...' or not.
>
>Would one with alternative tuning inclinations truly find an unanticipated
>audio encounter with an instrument such as Ivor Darreg�s Megalyra any less
>�impressive� or �interesting� were it tuned to (and played in) 12TET? Would
>the same go for a DX7... Does a compilation like EMI�s 1st �GRAVICHORDS,
>WHIRLIES AND PYROPHONES� make a better �argument� for the design and
>implementation of interesting new instruments than a compilation like the
>tuning forums �A MICROTONAL MUSIC EXPERIENCE� does for the design and
>implementation of interesting new tunings?
>
>In the end I would suppose that the divination's either in the work, or it
>ain�t, regardless of whether it is in the gross tactical bone and marrow of
>the procedure (or it ain�t), and ultimately that it�s more or less for each
>to say�
>
>As if its not clear by now�I profoundly disagree with the [arch] remedial
>minded �intonationalist�� I tend to see the systemic components of music
>(and be those components the beneficial mediation of de-occulting
>literatim... �where natural phenomena obeys blind necessity�, or be they
>some detachments from the physically exact� �at what cross-purpose the world
>is dreamt�), as a varied lot of inspiriting, and metaphorically
>speaking�enclitic understandings, put into their determinant position by the
>successful (and influential) realization of their MUSIC�
>
>But this is not exactly why I wrote, so I guess I�ve run out my "personal
>point of view or two�" Intonation and music are not the same� Having said as
>much I would hope not to hie to my grave having said, "therefore; mutually
>exclusive�"
>
>Respectfully, D�Stearns
>
>------------------------------
>
>Topic No. 5
>
>Date: Sat, 26 Dec 1998 22:50:06 -0500
>From: "Debra Shea-Stearns" <stearns@capecod.net>
>To: <tuning@mills.edu>
>Subject: Radiant Christmas {chords}
>Message-ID: <000701be314c$01c955c0$90f4f4d1@stearns>
>
>Think me mad�but I�ll gladly choose the shimmering �beats� of a sustained
>choir (of voices, strings, brass, or winds�) intoning a 12 : 4 : 7 : 10 : 14
>: 17 : 21 : [22] : 25 : 27 of 12 EDO* over the pellucid �pulses� of the same
>(choir of voices, strings, brass, or winds) intoning a 4 : 5 : 6 : 7 : 9 :
>11 : 13 : 15 : 17 : 19 of the harmonic series.
>
>Respectfully
>D�Stearns
>
>* As far as acronyms go� (E)quidistant (D)ivision of the (O)ctave�s� EDO, is
>certainly seems to me a rather colorless creation (immanently indisposed as
>it is to the oddly resonant charm of (T)one (E)qual (T)emperament�s�TET),
>but I do believe it 'better says' what (I believe) 'needs saying'� and as
>such I feel somewhat obligated to continue to pretend I like it (and
>apologize for saying so).
>
>------------------------------
>
>End of TUNING Digest 1608
>*************************
>
+------------------------------------------------------+
| Mark Nowitzky |
| email: nowitzky@alum.mit.edu AIM: Nowitzky |
| www: http://www.pacificnet.net/~nowitzky |
| "If you haven't visited Mark Nowitzky's home |
| page recently, you haven't missed much..." |
+------------------------------------------------------+