source file: mills2.txt Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 04:51:56 -0800 Subject: [Fwd: Re: C# and Db:I said KEYS, not PITCHES] From: kollos@cavehill.dnet.co.uk (Jonathan Walker) This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------6FB25C3305 Content-Type: text/plain; charset-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I posted this to the list on Monday, but never received my copy from the Tuning list server, so I'll assume no-one else received it. Apologies if you've seen it before, or if you think it was hardly worth posting in the first place. -- Jonathan Walker Queen's University Belfast mailto:kollos@cavehill.dnet.co.uk http://www.music.qub.ac.uk/~walker/ --------------6FB25C3305 Content-Type: message/rfc822 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Return-Path: Received: from [195.224.47.220] by dna1.dnet.co.uk (post.office MTA v2.0 0813 ID# 0-11061) with SMTP id AAA9860 for ; Mon, 10 Mar 1997 14:17:26 +0000 Message-ID: <332418C6.82A@cavehill.dnet.co.uk> Date: Mon, 10 Mar 1997 14:20:54 +0000 From: kollos@cavehill.dnet.co.uk (Jonathan Walker) Reply-To: kollos@cavehill.dnet.co.uk X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.01 (Macintosh; I; PPC) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: kollos@cavehill.dnet.co.uk Subject: Re: C# and Db:I said KEYS, not PITCHES References: <199703082345_MC2-124D-A3A1@compuserve.com> <3323F05F.27E0@cavehill.dnet.co.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Just to avoid any further possible misunderstandings on this matter, I'll repeat what I said in an earlier message: within the tuning environments of well-temperament and 12TET, while there is of course no acoustic distinction between the pitches C# and Db, this does not prevent us from making functional distinctions in our notational system. But this has nothing to do with the matter under discussion. Functional distinctions only exist within a relational system. Now if Beethoven had been speaking of pitches within a piece, or even of keys arrived at by means of modulation within a piece, then such a system would have provided the context for talk of functional distinctions. But Beethoven was talking about Db major and C# major in vacuo, as the tonics of a piece, and therefore outside such relational systems, and so not amenable to functional distinctions. What else is left if we cannot distinguish the keys on grounds of acoustic difference (as is the case in WT or 12TET), nor on the grounds of notational-functional distinctions? Again, I offered the other possibility in previous messages -- arbitrary associations of keys with various pieces, instruments etc (I'll put synaesthesia in this category too: while individuals, such as Messiaen, feel their associations to be necessary, each synaesthesiac differs). Beethoven's statement would seem to fall firmly into this last category. So if not acoustic differences, nor notational-functional differences, nor arbitrary associations, then what? Obfuscation, nothing else. By the way, if anyone can locate the Beethoven quotation, I'd be grateful. -- Jonathan Walker Queen's University Belfast mailto:kollos@cavehill.dnet.co.uk http://www.music.qub.ac.uk/~walker/ --------------6FB25C3305-- Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Wed, 12 Mar 1997 15:18 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA03127; Wed, 12 Mar 1997 15:17:57 +0100 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA03125 Received: from by ella.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) id GAA05046; Wed, 12 Mar 1997 06:15:33 -0800 Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 06:15:33 -0800 Message-Id: <199703121410.JAA06232@phyleus.interlinx.qc.ca> Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@ella.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@ella.mills.edu