source file: mills2.txt Date: Wed, 13 Dec 1995 17:15:13 -0800 Subject: Thoughts on Brian's posts From: "Jo A. Hainline" Several months ago I began to write this post and finally have taken a few minutes to make some limited sense of my thoughts and at least complete them to this point--I hope this is not too untimely. Brian's recent posts on n-j n-e-t scales and previous excellent survey of psychoacoustic research have stimulated many thoughts. The fact that his ideas are presented with such erudite precision makes it perhaps difficult to question such scholarly thinking--in fact they are a marvel to read and stimulating to the intellect. We are fortunate that Brian graces this forum with his thoughts. Non the less, I am concerned with the thrust of his argument. Perhaps I'm a bit "old fashioned", but I have always been under the impression that this whole tuning business came about with the effort to seek perfection or at least that which is more perfect in an imperfect world--or, perhaps create order out of chaos, or meaning and understanding out of the apparent random senslessness of events in our lives and the inevitable death of all that lives. Put another way, we seem to be drawn to attempt to link our experience with something beyond the immediate--whether this be to establish a calender to predict the seasons and reassure ourselves of better times during long winter nights or laws and courts to better control or predict relationships with the neighbors, or musical scales, to better harmonize with the eternal. Of course there are a great many opinions as to what that perfection is, or perhaps more accurately, what the best approximation of that perfection is in this imperfect world. Obviously we may never find perfection here, or the Good, or Platonic forms or the Archetypes of which this imperfect temporal world (Plato's cave) in which we find ourselves is but a shadowy reflection. But an element of the human spirit, or psyche if you will, resides in this world and seeks to commune with the eternal. I believe that music is one of the main potential avenues of expression of this Soul. Music in its most sublime expression is always a search for or expression of transcendance. That which does not is an intellectual or emotional masturbation. Can it be that that we have come to the brink of nihilism with regards to tuning? Is it possible for me to walk around my room striking random objects to create bongs and thugs and dinks with which I can then, with tremendous mathematical insight, create some sort of algorithmic justification for unifying this cacophany of tones into a "musical" scale? What possible value can be derived from such an exercise? Or is it more appropriate to generate a scale from some imaginary number series? irrational or transcendental numbers? Aren't we here, like Toad, "just messing about in boats"? Non the less, I believe Brian's scholarship can be interpreted at least 2 ways. First, and perhaps expressing the apparent thrust of Brian's own argument, that scientific experimentation reveals that simple principles of acoustics that seem to have been perhaps unconsciously taken for granted for such a long time and formed the driving force behind 12 ET do not adequately describe the phenomenon of hearing--that hearing itself is an extremely complex process and that no current model adequately describes all of the observable facts of its processes. And because of this there is no justification for accepting one particular tuning system over another--in fact many mathematical models exist for basing tuning schemes. Actually an almost infinite variety of tuning schemes are available based upon concrete mathematical models. The impression left is that vast new worlds of exploration are available for dabbling for the pioneering spirit. But to what end? I must ask myself. Is there not some higher vision, other than that it is new or different, that directs this thrust? I believe that it can be equally interpretted that the scientific evidence merely demonstrates the imperfection of this world and the imperfection of scientific measuring devices, mental models, etc. Is it a wonder that vibrating strings or columns of air do not describe mathematically "perfect" features, given molecular constraints, gravity, friction, etc.? It is equally unsurprising that the hearing process in all its complexities does not hold to a simple model due to the imperfection of its function. This in no way, though, proves that simple mathematical models are not the templates which this "real world" imperfectly reflects. Why should not musical scale attempt to reflect how sound itself is generated--not the imperfection as it manifests in the world around us, but as it is described by a so called perfectly vibrating body. Could this somehow lead that part of the human psyche which can respond to things perfect and eternal towards a meaning beyond the apparent meaningless chaos that so often confronts us here? Bruce Kanzelmeyer Received: from eartha.mills.edu [144.91.3.20] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Sat, 16 Dec 1995 20:13 +0100 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id LAA16343; Sat, 16 Dec 1995 11:13:02 -0800 Date: Sat, 16 Dec 1995 11:13:02 -0800 Message-Id: <01BACBEA.4DCA4F80@mac15.emap.co.uk> Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu