source file: mills2.txt Date: Thu, 12 Sep 1996 14:47:07 -0700 Subject: Re: Teaching and classifying tunings From: Johnny Reinhard Well, it looks like I'll get a chance to try out a few ideas at the Ninth Annual Contemporary American Music Festival at South Dakota State University in Brookings. If your are in the area, please stop by: Thursday, Sept. 19th "Microtonal Ear Training"/8:00 a.m. in Peterson Recital "Completing Charles Ives's Universe Symphony/9:00 a.m. in Room 102 Friday, Sept. 20th "The World of Alternative Tunings"/8:00 a.m. in Peterson "Improvisation 101"/9:00 a.m. in Room 102 Following this residency I'm off to the Badlands for the weekend. Regarding intervals and tunes for memorability, here are some of the ones I've used: 2/1 (octave of 1200 cents) is the opening interval of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" 3/2 (perfect fifth of 702 cents) is the chant of the evil guards marching around the wicked witch of the west's castle (incidentally added just for the movie, probably for its primal power..."Oh, Eee Oh, Oh Eeee, Oh" 7/6 (small minor third of 267 cents) is the sound of kids going "Nah, nah!" 8/7 (large major second of 231 cents) is the sound of a person might make thirsting for a drink in the desert (e.g. Harry Partch's Water, Water" uses just this interval as a motif...that's where I got the idea...) 11/9 (just neutral third of 347.4 cents, or its rounded out neighbor in the quartertone sphere) is the opening interval of the oldsmobile car horn 33/32 (just quartertone of 53 cents or a 50-cent quartertone) is the difference between a concert B natural and a 60-cycle hum ( or merely sing the bass line played by the electric bassoon in the opening of Cowpeople by Jon Catler) 7/4 (a harmonic seventh of 969 cents) is the interval of the Indian elephant (actually used for description in Hindi society) 5/4 (a just major third of 386 cents) I demonstrate using Hoomi technique (basically a parting of the lips beginning with an almost sine wave hum 6/5 (minor third of 316 cents) is the opening interval in the tenor of A Solis Ortus Cardine by Gilles de Binchois (which I have lead in concert since 1981 Other intervals I grab from different pieces that I know from past performance experiences. I believe, it's a lot more convincing to teach intervals this way that it is to check with a tuning machine ad nauseum. More entertaining, too. Johnny Reinhard Director American Festival of Microtonal Music 318 East 70th Street, Suite 5FW New York, New York 10021 USA (212)517-3550/fax (212) 517-5495 reinhard@styx.ios.com Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Fri, 13 Sep 1996 00:59 +0200 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA23539; Fri, 13 Sep 1996 01:01:22 +0200 Received: from eartha.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA27874 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id QAA08067; Thu, 12 Sep 1996 16:01:21 -0700 Date: Thu, 12 Sep 1996 16:01:21 -0700 Message-Id: <02960912225820/0005695065PK5EM@MCIMAIL.COM> Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu