source file: mills2.txt Date: Sun, 12 Nov 1995 10:47:16 -0800 Subject: Re: Partch and resolution From: "Adam B. Silverman" Two days ago, J. Reinhard wrote: > One should read Chapter 11, "The Question of Resolution," >in HP's _Genesis of a Music_, 2nd edition, pp 181-194. While HP >wrote everything in the key of G (392 hz), in part because of >material and technical limitations, in part for theoretical reasons >(monophony is the harmonic expansion of a single tone, the 1/1, see >the definition on page 71), he was very aware of resolution and >chordal motion and wrote some extremely dissonant, yet powerful >progressions. Don't get me wrong--I love Partch's music. In this chapter, however, (if I understand it correctly) he is a little shaky on tonal drive. Partch begins with a disclaimer that these are simply observations from his own ear. I quote from the Book (Genesis XI): "The extent and intensity of the influence that a magnet exerts is in inverse proportion to its ratio to 1... This means simply that the extent and intensity of the influence of 7, for example, are just a seventh of those of 1." His two following observations seem quite in order to me, but this one reminds me of the scene in "Dead Poet's Society", where poetry is ranked on a Cartesian Plane. How could HP aurally determine if a tone's pull is 1/7 of another? Often Partch presents strong arguments without strong facts. Yes, this is a pedantic observation. I agree that the lower identities have a stronger pull towards each other. The reason that I grumble at this is that it only brings the polemic closer to what may be the inevitable conclusion: that JI tonalities should be treated the same as 12TET ones, but with more care to use microtonality to its fullest potential, and to intensify consonance and dissonance as needed. Adam B. Silverman Received: from eartha.mills.edu [144.91.3.20] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Sun, 12 Nov 1995 22:57 +0100 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id MAA09928; Sun, 12 Nov 1995 12:57:29 -0800 Date: Sun, 12 Nov 1995 12:57:29 -0800 Message-Id: <951112205412_71670.2576_HHB23-1@CompuServe.COM> Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu