source file: mills2.txt Date: Tue, 3 Jun 1997 02:41:48 +0200 Subject: Re: TUNING digest 1090 From: "Adam B. Silverman" >We've also listened to John Schneider's recording of Barstow. >Compared with the first commercial recording with all its percussive >timbres, I was amazed to hear how consonant the intervals sounded and how >much darker the mood of this piece becomes on the guitar. Your ears guide you well. You are responding to two things- 1. Partch's instruments such as the Diamond Marimba and the Boo (both included in the 1956 "Barstow" revision) are inharmonic (do not have overtone partials which relate to the harmonic series). These instruments also have such short ring-times that you could not hear the overtones relating even if they were well-tuned. 2. As Partch progressed through life, he became more inclined to write dissonant, "mistuned" music which is based on his "Monophonic Scale," but is not necessarily in what would be purists would consider to be Just Intonation. Most people won't tell you this because they have not exmained his scores in detail (his tablature-noation makes this prohibitively time-consuming). _________________ Adam B. Silverman 153 Cold Spring Street; A5 New Haven, CT 06511 (203) 782-1765 abs22@pantheon.yale.edu Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 02:43 +0200 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA14425; Tue, 3 Jun 1997 02:42:59 +0200 Date: Tue, 3 Jun 1997 02:42:59 +0200 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA14420 Received: (qmail 10646 invoked from network); 3 Jun 1997 00:42:10 -0000 Received: from localhost (HELO ella.mills.edu) (127.0.0.1) by localhost with SMTP; 3 Jun 1997 00:42:10 -0000 Message-Id: <199706022227.RAA25091@riptide.wavetech.net> Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu