source file: mills2.txt Date: Sun, 8 Sep 1996 07:57:40 -0700 Subject: From Brian, end of series. From: John Chalmers From: mclaren Subject: JIN clarity -- Having discussed the dismal abundance of jargon, gibberish and psuedo-scientific claptrap in the so-called "serious" 12-TET music journals, it's time to turn the discussion to the Just Intonation Network's journal 1/1. Not because 1/1 contains any gibberish--but rather because of the admirable clarity and accuracy of its presentation. What makes 1/1 *more* remarkable is the fact that to my knowledge few of the people who edit and contribute to 1/1 have extensive training in acoustics, post-graduate mathematics or physics. (Erling Wold is an exception.) In particular, the editor David Doty has not to my knowledge gone through any college science courses on acoustics. Yet he always gets his acoustics and harmonic series mathematics right. His explanations are always clear, concise and accurate. (Doty's knowledge of psychoacoustics is not as complete, but everyone has a few gaps in their knowledge, including Your Humble E-Mail Correspondent.) The point is that Doty, without extensive technical training, handles very technical material about the harmonic series and the multipication of ratios and the use of logarithms and always gets it right. This is a considerable achievement. The operations involving in composing even simple JI pieces demand more mathematical explanation than most elementary composition in 12-TET. Thus there are inherently more opportunities for confusion and obfuscation when presenting just intonation music theory than 12-TET music theory. While it is, of course, entirely possible to whip up a vast cloud of confusing jabberwocky and dauntingly unnecessary logarithmic and set theory and abstract algebra and modulo-this and radix-that and blah-blah woof woof smoke-and-mirrors math when dealing with 12-TET music theory, the cold hard truth is that all of the operations beloved of the Robert Morris/ Allen Forte pitch-class matrix doyens can be reduced to very simple ideas and extremely elementary musical operations. "Modulo 12" means nothing more than octave reduction after performing the required operation. "Permutation" means nothing more than swapping pitches systematically. And so on. Thus "permutation of the melodic cells modulo 12" means swapping pitches and raising or lowering any notes which fall outside the octave. And so, while the operations customarily described in the so-called "serious" music journals are impressive-sounding polysyllabic rites shrouded with imposing jargon and elaborate set-symbols to make the whole thing sound impressive, the actions described are actually quite trivial, both mathematically and musically. By contrast, even simple JI compositional activities require potentially troublesome calculation by the just intonation composer. Playing a B major chord in the key of C in a Pythagorean tuning demands ratio multiplication, some extra pitches outside the normal gamut of 12 (this requires planning) and at least one extra trip around the spiral of just perfect fifths in order to get an F which sounds like something out of the familiar western harmonic tradition. Ironically, the material discussed in 1/1 is *inherently* more mathematically demanding than the extremely simple-minded operations whipped up into complex- seeming jargon-laden magna opera in the so-called "serious" 12-TET music journals. Yet the so-called "serious" 12-TET journals manage to misuse and abuse scientific terms, and obfuscate and jargonize the music theory with dismaying regularity--in short, they take simple music theory and make it incomprehensible and unintelligible. Meanwhile, 1/1 takes potentially complex music theory and renders it transparent and coherent. Of course, the journal 1/1 is run entirely outside the academic musical establishment. There may be a moral in this somewhere... --mclaren Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Sun, 8 Sep 1996 18:31 +0200 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA28196; Sun, 8 Sep 1996 18:32:39 +0200 Received: from eartha.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA28137 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id JAA09053; Sun, 8 Sep 1996 09:32:37 -0700 Date: Sun, 8 Sep 1996 09:32:37 -0700 Message-Id: <009A813C30AB6200.1FDA@vbv40.ezh.nl> Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu