source file: mills2.txt Date: Fri, 6 Jun 1997 21:11:05 +0200 Subject: Young's WTP, A Question concerning opinion From: "Adam B. Silverman" >> On a related note, does anyone know how to get Well-Tuned Piano on CD? > > I presume that the Just Intonation Network's JI Store still sells it. Henry Rosenthal, whose apartment is "The Just Intonation Store," had one copy left for sale as of last summer--I believe on lp, but possibly cassette. No CDs. As far as I know, the recording has been completely discontinued and LaMonte Young doesn't even have extra copies for sale. ------------------------------------ >The interview [with Johnston] that I read appeared in William Duckworth's >book "Talking Music, Conversations with John Cage, Philip Glass, Laurie >Anderson, and >Five Generations of American Experimental Composers" (Schirmer Books, 199>5). >..all the dissonant music of the twentieth century may well be very unhe>althy for us ... Not because it's dissonant. Not even because it's comple>x. But because it's irrationally dissonant. ... [we should] eliminate the> pollution. ... than just taking it for granted and ending up with a dama>ged world. >My question is this. Do members of the Just Intonation community basicall>y agree or disagree, and to what degree, with Ben Johnson's opinion as >expressed in this interview? > >I await any discussion. The old adage "you are what you eat" seems to be pertinent here. The sounds that we surround ourselves with have strong affects on our moods, and in the long-term must be considered to have "positive" or "negative" influence. Tuning cannot be considered to be the only musical attribute that affects our development in this manner, and Johnston realizes this. In his music he has tried many approaches (which vary in their degrees of abstraction and modernism) to express an orderly sound-world. I don't agree with Johnston's appraisal of rock music as being irrational. It seems to me that rock is overly rigid and simple. If I have any complaint with rock in general, it is the machine-like rigidity of it; rock jackhammers over our lives with gew moments of repose and a general disregard for large-scale phrasing. In my mind, this has a tiring and confusing effect (when I pay attention--and a boring effect when I don't). Johnston doesn't deal with equal temperaments other than 12TET, and hasn't composed in 12TET for years. His comments shouldn't be taken to express disdain for equal temperaments which approximate Just Intonation except that scales are judged against the yardstick of the overtone series, and the roughness created from acoustic beating in equal temperaments translates into roughness in our lives. Remember also the complexity is not bad, it is "illogical complexity" that our minds do not follow. Maybe if we listened to a "healthy" music made up of logical tunings, timbres, rhythms, etc., we would be a little more relaxed. Then we can move onto painting the walls earthtones... Yours, Adam _________________ 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; Fri, 6 Jun 1997 22:54 +0200 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA05502; Fri, 6 Jun 1997 22:54:26 +0200 Date: Fri, 6 Jun 1997 22:54:26 +0200 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA05500 Received: (qmail 23182 invoked from network); 6 Jun 1997 20:54:10 -0000 Received: from localhost (HELO ella.mills.edu) (127.0.0.1) by localhost with SMTP; 6 Jun 1997 20:54:10 -0000 Message-Id: <3397EC81@fsdsmtpgw.fsd.jhuapl.edu> Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu