source file: mills2.txt Date: Fri, 21 Feb 1997 08:05:14 -0800 Subject: pre-millenarian mysticism From: Daniel Wolf Since a good portion of the list is enjoying pre- millenarian exstasis and unashamed speculation, I join in with my two bits worth: The integer series has shown itself again and again to be, as Eugene Wigner put it in an analogous context, ''unreasonably effective'' with regard to its descriptive power for ''real, existing'' musics. (Even Charles Lucy's schemata make comparison with just intervals). I do have difficulty with locating the series as a kind of reality, however: Is it a platonic reality which the physical/psychophysical/culture worlds of music reflect to varying degrees of accuracy, or is our perception of the acoustic reality the seed for our construction of the integers? Personally, I enjoy composing from the platonic position with an ideal in mind, but listening from the constructive, or intuitive viewpoint (hearing a universe unfold). The distance between the integer model and real music defines a range of tolerance that seems to be defineable to some degree of accuracy and across some cultural boundaries and this phenomenom is rich in musical potential (both the mental correction of intonational errors and the construction of intonational puns, for example, are a (by?)product of this tolerance). Nevertheless, some tuning systems have been devised for which an integer model is less useful - I eagerly await music composed in such systems where the tonal basis is not readily mappable onto a just lattice. Daniel Wolf Frankfurt Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Sat, 22 Feb 1997 16:00 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA13454; Sat, 22 Feb 1997 16:00:03 +0100 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA14613 Received: from by ella.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) id GAA10153; Sat, 22 Feb 1997 06:58:01 -0800 Date: Sat, 22 Feb 1997 06:58:01 -0800 Message-Id: <330DB368.1FC6@ix.netcom.com> Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@ella.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@ella.mills.edu