source file: mills2.txt Date: Mon, 2 Dec 1996 16:55:59 -0800 Subject: Re: microdoodling From: Gary Morrison <71670.2576@CompuServe.COM> I have a quick commentary on Neil's post regarding lack of musical excitement in microtonal music. First of all, I agree that there's a very real problem there. That's why I've been taking up the real saxophone recently - so that I can try to regain the raw performance skill I've lost over the last several years of theorizing and composing. Second, I would take Neil's concern one step farther in one particular direction: Some of us will just have to accept that we're not cut out for certain types of musical pursuit, and take some other form of microtonal pursuit. I have to accept that that may even end up applying to me with regard to producing CDs of my music. I haven't given up by any stretch of the imagination, and am thus improving my chops in order to remedy that particular problem. Whether and when to give up is something that each of us has to decide for himself, the hard part being figuring out how to take constructive criticism. It's very easy to either give up entirely, rather than doing the hard work of locating the SPECIFIC problem and fixing it. And on the other end of spectrum it's easy also to ignore the criticism entirely, which is usually a very bad idea. The difficulty of that task is compounded by the fact that SOMETIMES (although not often), some constructive criticism really SHOULD be ignored entirely or serve as a sign that you really should COMPLETELY give. But perhaps even more important is, if you do give up on performing, composing, or whatever, to find some other area where you CAN contribute. Third, I think it's important to note the difference between Neil's criticism here and some of the other postings with a critical tone (and no, I'm not refering to any single person here). Neil's critique has carefully avoided mentioning specific names in this public forum. He has clearly reserved that for person-to-person direct communication. He also clearly mentioned his own weaknesses as well, that he's primarily a performer over a theorist. Neil has also taken that fact into account in his own persuits too: He hasn't created any new tuning systems that I know of, but has instead exploited his true talent, which is performance. That's admirable. Fourth and finally, I think it's important to follow up critiques of this sort with specific person-to-person critique. I say that because this sort of posting is bound to raise a lot of questions in peoples' minds in addition to Neil's main aim, which is to ask us to just generally practice our trade more than trade it. A lot of people are probably asking "hmmm... who is thus and so sentence in particular refering to?" So I hope that he and others will do an effective follow-up as well. Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Tue, 3 Dec 1996 02:35 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA28055; Tue, 3 Dec 1996 02:37:02 +0100 Received: from eartha.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA26667 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id RAA17596; Mon, 2 Dec 1996 17:37:00 -0800 Date: Mon, 2 Dec 1996 17:37:00 -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