source file: mills2.txt Date: Sun, 25 May 1997 21:50:26 +0200 Subject: Re: beats and difference tones From: Daniel Wolf There is some interesting music out there based entirely on acoustical beating. The recent works of Alvin Lucier for various combinations of voices, instruments, and oscillators are good examples. If you have any doubt about the viability of beats being heard in a musical context, thenLucier's _In Memoriam, Jon Higgins_ for clarinet and oscillator should definitely be heard. I am particularly fond of his _Navigations for Strings_, where a four note cell within the space of a minor third is gradually - via microtonal deviations notated in cents - diminished to a unison, and although the attacks of the individual stringed instruments are steady, the beating rate makes a gracious ritardando over some sixteen minutes. Many on the list are probably familiar with Jim Tenney's _Critical Band_, which begins with tones related as harmonics within the critical band - thus producing beats - and broadens outside of the band to represent lower harmonic ratios. In contrast to the Lucier, the acoustical beats are gradually drowned out by the pulse of the players' attacks. It is quite possible that beats between ''mistuned'' unisons are used in Balinese music more as an aspect of musical rhythm and timbre rather thanas pitch. Some gamelan (especially gender wayang) have such steady beating patterns throughout the instrumentation that the beats could practically be used as a metronome. An interesting use of difference tones may be found in Richard Maxfield'slandmark tape piece _Night Music_, which is composed entirely of difference tones between an oscillator and the erase head of the recorder. The old Stockhausen and David Tudor favorite, ring modulation, yields both sum and difference tones. (I am not a Stockhausen enthusiast by any means, but his use of ring modulation in _Mantra_ creates tonal relationship which are quite easy for a listener to comprehend). La Monte Young's _Two Systems..._ describes a theory of harmonic controls based entirely upon avoiding particular constellations of sums or differences. Walter Zimmermann has awonderful piece for two clarinets which play loud dyads with first order difference tones derived from Franconian folk dances. I think that the successful incorporation of beats and combinations tonesinto music like this illustrates well how by subtly changing the context in which music is presented, non-traditional materials can be perceptably integrated into a work of music. I am convinced that we know almost nothing about the limits of our perceptual faculties and new forms of conditioning, new ways of presentation and new technologies can extend those faculties dramatically. This is the fundamental reason why I am always ready to challenge compositional or analytical theories derived from psychophysical research which is based upon narrow, culturally defined conditions. Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Sun, 25 May 1997 22:33 +0200 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA09644; Sun, 25 May 1997 22:33:13 +0200 Date: Sun, 25 May 1997 22:33:13 +0200 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA09645 Received: (qmail 11339 invoked from network); 25 May 1997 20:33:09 -0000 Received: from localhost (HELO ella.mills.edu) (127.0.0.1) by localhost with SMTP; 25 May 1997 20:33:09 -0000 Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19970525132840.0069ad4c@adnc.com> Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu