source file: mills2.txt Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 16:17:59 -0800 Subject: Re: So you want to be a microtonal composer? From: Gary <71670.2576@compuserve.com> I suspect that Marion McCoskey's methodical survey of JI is perhaps a good direct example of what Matthew's was looking for in methodizing new-tuning resources. (Harry Partch didn't - or so it seems to me anyway - do a methodical survey of tunings, as much as he created an innovative new musical world and let his mind play in it.) That along with the folks he already, like Easley Blackwood. Ivor Darreg did an even more complete survey of equal-temperaments in his Xenharmonic Frontier, Multiples of Five, and Multiples of Seven studies. (Some of that is in his CD, by the way.) But perhaps more importantly, he investigated and published methodical suggested approaches to composition in those tunings. It's kind of odd in a way: I both strongly agree, and yet somewhat disagree, with Matthew's view of the importance of methodically evaluating the various new-tuning possibilities. That makes a lot of sense with regard to making sense of the chaos, and guiding people with certain inclinations toward appropriate tunings. The balance to that though is the creative zing we often get seemingly from nowhere - I call it divine inspiration - in doodling around with a given tuning. That doesn't have much to do with methodical investigation, neither with respect to locating an appropriate tuning, nor with respect to the composition process itself. Some of the best compositional and listening inspirations I've had were totally inexplicable best I can tell. Received: from eartha.mills.edu [144.91.3.20] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Wed, 24 Jan 1996 08:44 +0100 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id XAA09160; Tue, 23 Jan 1996 23:44:36 -0800 Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 23:44:36 -0800 Message-Id: <960124073647_71670.2576_HHB48-12@CompuServe.COM> Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu