source file: mills2.txt Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 02:41:16 +0200 Subject: Interpreting the work of others From: John Starrett All- Before I get to the point, please let me direct those of you with web browsers to Jeff Harrington's page at http://www.parnasse.com/jeff.htm What a page! it's loaded with music in many different formats including Shockwave, MIDI and .au formats, and a lot of it is microtonal. Some of this is excellent! Recently I linked to one of Kami Rousseau's bits, a reworking of a rather standard 12TET chord progression in 15TET. It was familiar and yet totally strange- familiar because you could tell what was being done, and strange because the standard chord progression didn't end up where you would expect it to. This sort of thing is hilarious to me...it reminds me of the fun Neil Haverstick and I used to have when we were backing up a country & western Elvis imitator a few years ago, quoting various classical and pop fragments out of context as riffs and vamps in standard Elvis arrangements. We would try to outdo each other at placing inappropriate segments in the music. I don't know what Elvis would have thought (Gene, our boss, sometimes wanted to strangle us) but all the musicians who came to hear us loved it. WERE WE RUINING THE MUSIC?? It depends on your point of view. We were definitely making the music more interesting (to us and our friends, at least). My point is, what constitutes a valid performance of another's work? In the 12TET world, we are not afraid to present standard repetoir in outrageous clothing, because everyone knows its a joke. We are not afraid to undertake a serious reworking of someone else's music, because our peers understand that we are trying to elaborate or strip down or whatever a piece that we think has merit. In the microtonal world, however, because of the unfamiliarity of the tonal materials, I think, not as much deviation is appropriate, as we may lose the meaning or structure of the original. What do you think? By what are we bound in the interpretation of another microtonalist's music? I commenced to pondering this after reading the letter to the KRONOS string quartet (look in Corporeal Meadows) berating them for playing some of Partch's music on "unauthorized" instruments. Hell, John Schneider plays Partch on his guitar and doesn't get slapped around (as far as I know). It seems to me that a sensitive arrangement of Partch for string quartet is entirely appropriate, as long as the tonality is respected. John Starrett p.s. Really, CHECK OUT THE JEFF HARRINGTON! Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Fri, 4 Jul 1997 05:37 +0200 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA04709; Fri, 4 Jul 1997 05:37:41 +0200 Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 05:37:41 +0200 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA04698 Received: (qmail 15475 invoked from network); 4 Jul 1997 03:37:37 -0000 Received: from localhost (HELO ella.mills.edu) (127.0.0.1) by localhost with SMTP; 4 Jul 1997 03:37:37 -0000 Message-Id: <199707040332.WAA25946@kimserv> Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu