source file: mills2.txt Date: Mon, 23 Jun 1997 12:24:04 +0200 Subject: Re: Partch Tuning From: Adam Silverman I (Adam) said: > > 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. And Lydia replied: > It's a matter of opinion whether Partch wrote "mistuned" music. While > he must have had some difficulty keeping the string instruments exactly > in tune, he probably came as close as humanly possible. I don't agree > that the intervals Partch used later in his life were "dissonant" either. > The intervals continue to be "strange" for many people, but Partch himself > considered them consonances, as indeed they are on at least some > instruments... I should have explained further, because it is _not a matter of opinion._ What I meant was that Partch's music often avoids using strong, low-number ratio consonances. Strong interval-ratios (like 1/1) are "well-tuned," and weaker interval ratios in the same area of the "One-footed Bride" [see Genesis of a Music] (like 81/80) are "mis-tuned." It is my belief, and people may argue this publicly or privately, that this is not cultural conditioning, but is simply fact. It is also my belief that Harry knew this, too. He did say that we can be conditioned to accept higher overtone-limits as consonant. I agree. Often Harry would "mistune" an "interval of power" (fifth or fourth) even when the 3/2 or 4/3 is available on the instrument in use. It seems to me that he liked beating. Dan Wolf recently commented on "Dark Brother," which includes extended passages of chords made rough by harmonic beats. The coda in "Revelation" uses dissonance to portray Agave's shock at finding Pentheus' head in her hands. These are extreme examples, but I have found cases of less extreme yet intentional dissonances in every piece that I have studied. If people want to explore this further, please write me to ask for copies of my translations, (abs22@pantheon.yale.edu) or read the score to "Daphne" in Glenn Hackbarth's dissertation. The fact that Harry's instruments (and almost all other instruments) go out of tune perhaps makes people overlook the subtle dissonances that are written into the music intentionally. Perhaps if someone did a computer realization with sine waves, the tuning issues would become more easily aparrent. While Harry Partch was a Just Intonation theorist, he was not always a JI composer. A JI composer is someone who seeks the strongest, low-number consonance musically required. Harry was a microtonalist who used a scale which included Just-relationships, but instead of using a lattice-style plan for viewing the consonance/dissonance continuum, he placed them end-to-end chromatically and worked from there. He also had a keen ear for creating the clanky and quirky sounds that he picked up on the road. -Adam Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Mon, 23 Jun 1997 12:32 +0200 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA11211; Mon, 23 Jun 1997 12:32:46 +0200 Date: Mon, 23 Jun 1997 12:32:46 +0200 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA11212 Received: (qmail 13719 invoked from network); 21 Jun 1997 18:13:21 -0000 Received: from localhost (HELO ella.mills.edu) (127.0.0.1) by localhost with SMTP; 21 Jun 1997 18:13:21 -0000 Message-Id: <33AC194D.BDF4CCA9@fast.net> Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu