source file: mills2.txt Date: Fri, 10 Jan 1997 14:35:42 -0800 Subject: Re: improvisation From: Johnny Reinhard The problem for some with microtonal improvisation is it is near impossible to analyze intonationally. The music may be great, or even superior to much of prepared composition, but it is tough for a microtonalist to promote its microtonal pedigree. Improvisation was once part and parcel of the Western art tradition in music but increasingly lost favor in the late Baroque until its virtual extinction. J.S. Bach stands apart from his contemporaries in the extra detail he included in the scores...this from a master improvisor. The reasons for the demise of improvisation is that composers began to distrust players who would not stay within both the style and manner of each particular piece. I have heard several computer composers wax poetic at the inability of players to reproduce their music exactly enough. This is an extreme position. And they were not speaking exclusively of microtonal compositions. Choosing notes from a given scale (albeit a microtonal scale) is easier to do, I think, than imagining exact microtonal relationships and producing them extemporaneously. Matter of fact, many "classical" composer do not realize the exactitude with which a player can pluck (as described by the great shenai player Bismallah Khan) any of an infinte number of microtones out of the sky. Interestingly, south India is much more of a composition-based society, while in north India the music is mostly improvised. Both use the microtones of Raga, however their choice of instruments is different. Clearly, both north and south Indian music has immense power and value as music. Microtonal improv, however, lacks easy musical analysis for pitch. This factor alone may account for its lack of supporters among the microtonally literate. Johnny Reinhard Director American Festival of Microtonal Music 318 East 70th Street, Suite 5FW New York, New York 10021 USA (212)517-3550/fax (212) 517-5495 reinhard@ios.com Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Sat, 11 Jan 1997 01:49 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA21473; Sat, 11 Jan 1997 01:52:35 +0100 Received: from eartha.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA21460 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id QAA25008; Fri, 10 Jan 1997 16:52:32 -0800 Date: Fri, 10 Jan 1997 16:52:32 -0800 Message-Id: Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu