source file: mills2.txt Date: Sun, 24 Nov 1996 08:18:02 -0800 Subject: context, conditioning, and Universities From: Daniel Wolf <106232.3266@compuserve.com> (a) Phrases like **one cannot hear (x)** and **difference (y) is not perceptible** or **(z) is a horrible dissonance** turn up with great frequency in the Tuning list discussions. It is unfortunate that such phrases are used without making the necessary qualifications as to context and conditioning that would make such statements true. For example, classifying the interval 7/4 as **dissonant** or even **mildly dissonant** should be qualified by register, duration, timbre, and musical context, locally and globally. I can imagine this claim being true in many musical settings I am familiar with but it is certainly not true for Javanese vocal music or for the music of La Monte Young. (It is astonishing how eurocentric music-acoustical research can be!) (b) As long as the academic study of music is focused upon existing musics, the subject of tuning will be a relatively modest enterprise. While it is true that tuning has been given shortshrift even in this regard, and should be strengthened to offer a more complete view of repertoire (and this is necessary to deal with the expanded repertoire - including early European and world musics - under academic consideration), I cannot find a convincing argument to make for basing the curriculum on anything other than historical repertoire. The bulk of music students are _repertoire bearing_ (music educators, performing musicians, and musicologists), and I cannot see/hear that composers or speculative theorists are hurt by a sophisticated encounter with good music from the past or from another part of the planet. Perhaps someone on the list who has studied or taught in a College/University setting with a more experimental curriculum (UCSC, CalArts, York, Mills?) might want to comment on the success/failure of such an enterprise. Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Sun, 24 Nov 1996 17:17 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA06058; Sun, 24 Nov 1996 17:19:08 +0100 Received: from eartha.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA05830 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id IAA19347; Sun, 24 Nov 1996 08:19:06 -0800 Date: Sun, 24 Nov 1996 08:19:06 -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