source file: mills2.txt Date: Tue, 3 Dec 1996 00:20:39 -0800 Subject: another self-unmasking From: ELNA Hi tuners! I found non-twelve intervals at St John's College (the Great Books school) during freshman lab, while studying the monochord. It was immediately obvious to me that many deliscious notes were being absolutely ignored. I spent the bulk of the time allotted to the monochord listening to such lovely intervals as 8/7 7/6 12/11 7/4 etc. But I was not satisfied with hearing them in stark isolation, so I built a simple lyre to have a few of them in relation to one another. Since then I have built several other lyres, a movable-fretted long-necked lute (which I call "saz" the normal turkish name for this sort of thing-- I really ought to call it "pandura"...), and a tetrahedral double zither: all of which I tune up in more-or-less exotic versions of just intonation. I recently bought an old DX-7 with the E! card, so there is a wholly new set of approaches to microtonality opening up: it's real exciting! When I play wind instruments, I am drawn to the exotic intervals, like the neutral third which a recorder gives when you ignore the "normal" forked fingerings. I especially like to treat it as a neutral second 12/11 by shifting the "do" or "sa". I am quite fond of Indian music, both classical and folk; this spills over into fondness for drone-based highly melodic styles. In 1980 I had the great fortune to hear a series of lectures/concerts of Erv Wilson, Ivor Darreg, Johnny Glasier, et al. in San Diego. I played for a single semester in the Partch Ensemble at San Diego State, but did not manage the transition from St John's (pop. 300) to SDSU (pop. 30,000) at all well. I have continued playing in small ensembles and listening to all the xenharmonic sounds I can find. I have recently sung Lou Harrison's "Koro Sutro" *twice*. The first time changed my life in an unexpected direction: it kindled my love of Esperanto the international language. I am sure that many of you detwelvulators know that Lou Harrison is a longtime advocate of Esperanto, but how many are aware that Ivor Darreg also was an Esperantist? [John Chalmers told me this.] I know that at least one other lurker has some experience with this fresh, new language. I suspect that there is a kind of kinship between the sense of discovery of fresh terrain which links new tunings and this new language. I am beginning to integrate the two strains by composing songs with Esperanto texts using xenharmonic modes. I am most struck by the elegant simplicity of several of the pentatonic scales described in Harrison's "Music Primer". Although I like to hear others' works in dense fields of little intervals, I enjoy the spaciousness of the pentatonic and hexatonic modes. This tuning list has been a constant source of delight for me, especially the enthusiastic ravings of Brian McLaren. I wish that the anti-Brian crowd would just learn to use a kill file and stop complaining! I am deeply disturbed by suggestions of censorship.... Keep those wild tunings happening! Amike salutas vin Miko. Miko SLOPER elna@netcom.com USA (510) 653 0998 Direktoro de la ftp.netcom.com:/pub/el/elna fax (510) 653 1468 Centra Oficejo de la Learn Esperanto! Free lessons: e-mail/snail-mail Esperanto-Ligo de N.A. Write to above address or call 1-888-2-ESPERANTO ------- End of Forwarded Message Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Tue, 3 Dec 1996 17:02 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA27098; Tue, 3 Dec 1996 17:03:49 +0100 Received: from eartha.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA27385 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id IAA01630; Tue, 3 Dec 1996 08:03:46 -0800 Date: Tue, 3 Dec 1996 08:03:46 -0800 Message-Id: <961203110230_1422513706@emout10.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu