source file: mills2.txt Date: Sat, 26 Oct 1996 07:26:58 -0700 Subject: Re: TUNING digest 875 From: "Adam B. Silverman" >Just to add to Jonathan Walker's comments on the Johnston notation. . . > >he employs flat and sharp symbols to distinguish between five-limit minor >and major thirds, as well as "+" and "-" to designate ascending or >descending syntonic commas (81/80); surely this accomodates enharmonic >spellings (?). Ben's notation uses +/- for a mixture of 3 and 5-limit intervals (dare I say "see Fonville, 1991?) Since each symbol or combination of symbols represents a particular ratio, then an enharmonic spelling is necessarily a different pitch. Does your comment refer to a system such as that which is described by S. Terpstra in 1/1 8:3, which uses a system which sounds to me like an ET with comma or skhisma-sized scale steps? If so, could someone please explain the logic of this system to me? Johnny R. said: >My experience with Ben Johnston gives high marks for exactitude, but >loses too much due to the slowness with which it is read. Often conflicting >directions are used for a single note and so a mathematical calculation >is necessary. This process takes one out of real time. and Paul Rapoport said: >I am interested in Johnny Reinhard's remarks that cents notation is >helpful to performers. I can readily believe this, provided that fine >discriminations aren't necessary. I imagine that performers then identify >a sound or fingering with a cents designation. Would that be right? > >I still don't like this for analytical purposes, however. I wonder >whether performers prefer this notation to others or just get used to it. Johnny's notation is especially good for his own polymicrotonal music, which pledges allegiance to no system and wanders with ease from one microtonal system to the next. However, it does nothing to guide the performer towards knowledge of what *kinds* of intervals are being played. For example, in the early performance of his "Cosmic Rays" (I have not heard the "good" tape), the performers were so steeped in the xenharmonic aspects of the piece (note: *xen* harmonic) that they failed to well-tune a major triad--I argue that they didn't know that they were supposed to play a well-tuned chord. Nonetheless, this is probably the best compromise for such music. It should also take a whole lot of rehearsal to do well, as does all "performed" microtonal music. Ben's notation is specifically bent towards a JI ststem which he himself has stretched to the limit of its practical capabilities. My suggestion (for JI music) is to use differing systems of notation for score and parts, in which Sims or similar diacriticals are used to approximate pitch (with the rest tuned by ear) for easy sight-reading, and Johnston or something similar is for the score. Of course, Johnston notation, as with all notational systems, should be in a constant state of evolution, and I hope that discourse such as this will include proposition of better ways to notate pitches which are far from home on the lattice. _________________ Adam B. Silverman 153 Cold Spring Street; A3 New Haven, CT 06511 (203) 782-1765 abs22@pantheon.yale.edu Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Mon, 28 Oct 1996 18:17 +0200 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA06401; Sun, 27 Oct 1996 10:47:02 +0100 Received: from eartha.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA06410 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id BAA09014; Sun, 27 Oct 1996 01:46:59 -0800 Date: Sun, 27 Oct 1996 01:46:59 -0800 Message-Id: Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu