source file: mills2.txt Date: Thu, 17 Oct 1996 08:29:27 -0700 Subject: Re: microtonal tuning From: Johnny Reinhard The following is from PITCH I:4 published by the AFMM in 1990. It is a from an interview by Mitch Corber with John Cage. JOHN CAGE: Do you want me to read the questions [aloud]? (pause) I like this one: "Do you consider yourself a microtonal composer?" Well, I think of the field of sound as not having discrete steps in it. Scales make discrete steps, and modes and so forth. But I like to think of it as a field on which one could land at any point; and you can do that, of course, with dials. With our technology, we're living in a period where you can have a pitch at any point. MC: And this is called microtonality? JC: It could be called that. Or you could say that if you look at the history of intervals, you could say that intervals have gotten more and more close together. [later in the interview] MC: Was there a certain friction between you [and Partch]? JC: He didn't like my work. MC: Did you think this was a cursory take on it? JC: No, he simply didn't like it. I think he didn't like the use of chance operations, and I don't think he liked my attitude toward pitch, which is, as i told you, an attitude toward a field of possibilities; whereas for Harry Partch, there had to be particular discrete steps in that field, and you had to be on the _right_ ones, so that certain sounds for him were right, and all the otherws were wrong. I don't know the difference between a right pitch and a wrong pitch. MC: Do you believe Partch actually heard these tiny differences? JC: Of course he did. MC: Would you say he had an exceptional ear, then? JC: I think many people have exceptional ears. David Tudor had what's called a "golden ear," and the term is used when they test to see how many vibrations you can distinguis...how closely you can distinguish different numbers of bibrations. And we worked very closely together. So, since he had a golden ear, I never felt that I had to have one that was that special. (Laughs) Johnny Reinhard Director American Festival of Microtonal Music Publisher, PITCH 318 East 70th Street, Suite 5FW New York, New York 10021 USA (212)517-3550/fax (212) 517-5495 reinhard@ios.com Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Thu, 17 Oct 1996 17:47 +0200 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA01291; Thu, 17 Oct 1996 17:49:17 +0200 Received: from eartha.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA01290 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id IAA16056; Thu, 17 Oct 1996 08:49:15 -0700 Date: Thu, 17 Oct 1996 08:49:15 -0700 Message-Id: <199610171544.AA10763@eceserv0.ece.wisc.edu> Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu