source file: mills2.txt Date: Wed, 1 Jan 1997 01:34:51 -0800 Subject: First Published Treatise in English From: Daniel Wolf <106232.3266@compuserve.com> Thurstan Dart, in his introduction to the Norton edition of the Morley, identifies the 1584 primer on the rudiments of music as ''written by an enthusiastic young Irishman with unorthodox views on the teaching of singing''. There were of course earlier manuscript treatises, both in Latin and English, and also the introductions to musical collections printed during the 21 years of the Tallis/Byrd monopoly on music publishing contain valuable information. I would agree heartily that the Morley is the first _complete_ treatise on music, but it does remain sadly deficient on tuning containing not a single ratio, and the entire section on Hexachord singing ia already at least 20 years away from practice - and more if the tuning is to allow for the syntonic comma (although the hexachord could still be used to determine ficta, which are invariant between 3 and 5 limit tunings). But, as I have said before, the treatments of rhythmic modes and diminution are excellent. As to the exactitude of the harmonic series in the human voice - this would require a vocal chord with no imperfections. Of course, I am setting a high standard for precision, but I think it is useful to be precise and say that the harmonics _tend_ to approximate the harmonic series, or deviate from the series by a tolerable amount, or the integration into a single complex sound is so good that we accept the deviations as harmonic. But the simple equation of actual vocal sounds with the harmonic series does no service to either. One phenomenon that I recall from trombone playing was the constant correction of pitch (by lip and slide) so that the deficient harmonic series of the tube would sound better. This may be taking place in vocal performance as well. When ''overtone singing'' had its heydey, I recall being disturbed by how unstable the fundamental was, and the constant intrusion of beats, perhaps resulting from attempts to tune the harmonics at the expense of the fundamentals. I think that Johnny misrepresents La Monte's position altogether. La Monte contends that one can sing Just intervals only through elimination of beating and that ET intervals are - because they require the perception and stable production of more complex beating practically impossible to produce accurately. As I understand Johnny's approach to pitch, it has more to do with pitch memory (so-callled absolute pitch) than with elimination of beats between pitches (and La Monte's approach is more like relative pitch). (It is not surprising that Johnny named his journal ''Pitch'' instead of continuing ''Interval''). Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Wed, 1 Jan 1997 20:38 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA06298; Wed, 1 Jan 1997 20:41:10 +0100 Received: from eartha.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA06297 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id LAA25582; Wed, 1 Jan 1997 11:41:04 -0800 Date: Wed, 1 Jan 1997 11:41:04 -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