source file: mills2.txt Date: Wed, 18 Dec 1996 22:13:17 -0800 Subject: Introductions From: "Jo A. Hainline" Johnny's request of several months ago for "lurkers" to give an accounting of themselves has prompted me to think back to some of the influences that have motivated me to pursue alternative tunings. Perhaps sharing my "hit" on this pursuit will stimulate a little discussion on areas of alternative tunings which I find particularly fascinating. I began musical training with piano lessons at age 8 and 2 years later took up the french horn in 5th grade band program which I pursued through college and beyond a little, gaining enough proficiency to sub a couple of times with the Pittsburgh Symphony, a summer with the Colorado Philharmonic and the a season with the Albuqurque Symphony ('72-'73) and the following year a season down in Mexico. However I becam e discouraged with the professional classical music scene with all of the politics, etc. so I gave it up, gave my horn to my brother and went to work for Austin Organ Co. in Hartford, CT. I learned cabinetmaking from a couple of German master cabinetmake rs, an art which seems virtually nonexistent in this country, and after about 4 years went to work in a small organ shop which specialized in restoring tracker organs; the owner was also German trained. He also had a tuning business and I ended up holdin g keys for many hours. At this time I did extensive reading on temperments on historical instruments through organ periodicals, etc. But the pressures of raising a family forced me into the plastics manufacturing business in which I have been engaged for the past 20 odd years. Picked up the horn again a few years ago and currently play with the Reno Philharmonic, opera orch, ballet orch, etc. for the fun of musicmaking which it has become again! Now to the things of interest-- During college I ran across several fascinating passages in Gurdjieff's writings--specifically in "Meetings with Remarkable Men", pub. E. P. Dutton & Co., Triangle Edition (1974), pp. 128-133. I'll quote several passages (p 128) "...Vitvitskaia finally replied that the cause of her state was, as she expressed it, the 'damned music,' and she asked me if I remembered the music of the night before last. I did indeed remember how all of us, sitting in some corner of the monastery, had almost sobbed, listening to the monotonous music performed by the brethren during one of their ceremonies. And although we had talked about it afterwards for a long time, none of us could explain the reason for it." And later (p 132) "...I later, on my return to Russia, resumed my experiments on people. I found, as the brothers had advised, the absolute "la" according to the atmospheric pressure of the place where the experiment was to be carried out, and tuned the piano correspondingly, taking into consideration also the dimensions of the room. Besides this, I chose for the experiment people who already had in themselves the repeated impressions of certain chords; and I also took into consideration the character of the place and the race of each on e present. Yet I could not obtain identical results, that is to say, I was not able by one and the same melody to evoke identical experiences in everyone....But here, the day before yesterday, this music almost without melody evoked the same state in all of us--people not only of different race and nationality, but even quite unlike in character, type, habits and temperment. To explain this by the feeling of human 'herdness' was out of the question..." Also in Gurdjieff's "Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson" there is a whole section, pp 847-870, E. P. Dutton & Co. (1964) in which he outlines a sophisticated scale of 7 tones/octave, 5 'half tones' and 14 'quarter tones' over a 7 octave range which represents in sound vibration what the 7 colors of the sp ectrum represents to light. This tuning system apparently offers insight into cosmic law. The reading is relatively difficult but it spurred my imagination into realms of the possibility of music beyond mere entertainment--I was a biochemistry and philosophy major in college at the time. A few years later I read another passage which also reinforced my curiosity of alternative tunings and dissappointment with the direction that 12TET music was taking. This is a passage in The Urantia Book (1955), Urantia Foundation, Chicago, IL. "The best music of Urantia (earth) is just a fleeting echo of the magnificent strains heard by the celestial associates of your musicians, who left but snatches of these harmonies of morontia forces on record as the musical melodies of sound harmonics. Spirit -morontia music not infrequently employs all seven modes of expression and reproduction, so that the human mind is tremendously handicapped in any attempt to reduce these melodies of the higher spheres to mere notes of music sound. Such an effort would b e like endeavoring to reproduce the strains of a great orchestra by means of a single musical instrument. "....Be not discouraged; some day a real musician may appear on Urantia, and whole peoples will be enthralled by the magnificent strains of his melodies. One such human being could forever change the course of a whole nation, even the entire civilized wo rld. It is literally true, 'melody has power a whole world to transform.' Forever, music will remain the universal language of men, angels, and spirits. Harmony is the speech of Havona."(p 500) I suppose more than other writings, these passages have motivated my thoughts and search for things metamusical. My work in this area has been only theoretical to date and I hesitate to share these thoughts without some real music to illustrate the ideas . I have recently acquired an old EPS with which I hope to work with some of my experimental tunings, so I'll keep you all posted. The constraints of survival in this society and raising a family of course have limited this pursuit, but it has been a pl easure to listen in on others who also are expanding and extending our musical spheres and I look forward to continued discussion and experimentation. Thank you. Bruce Kanzelmeyer Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Thu, 19 Dec 1996 07:14 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA05211; Thu, 19 Dec 1996 07:16:57 +0100 Received: from eartha.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA05210 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id WAA09591; Wed, 18 Dec 1996 22:16:54 -0800 Date: Wed, 18 Dec 1996 22:16:54 -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