source file: mills3.txt Date: Thu, 2 Oct 1997 04:08:29 +0200 Subject: Kopie von: Re: pop in microtones From: Daniel Wolf (by way of mr88cet@texas.net Betreff:Kopie von: Re: pop in microtones I agree largely with Jon Szanto. The bulk of pop music is, and will continue to be built upon, a bedrock of the prevailing temperament. Lest I be misread as eurocentric, this goes as well for Turkish Arabesk, Indian film music, or Javanese Campur Sari, where the local temperament does indeed vary from 12tet by microtonal intervals, but it would be an imperial gesture to claim that they are therefore microtonal in themselves. In all of these traditions, there are ornamental, and expressive deviations from the temperament (as well as outright mistakes in intonation!) but the structural referent is always that tempered set. And to claim that the variation in tuning from one gamelan or piano to another constitutes ''microtonal music'' rather than tolerance within a norm, can only be true when two such varied instruments are used together. I can well imagine that the decreasing costs of digital number crunching will one day allow us to retune a given recording as we like, but I suppose that it will be introduced as a kind of enhancement in sound quality - akin to the noise reduction of my youth. Microtone is a useful word - for an interval smaller than a semitone. Let's not rob this useful word of its utility by claiming it to mean so much that it ends up meaning so little! Daniel Wolf Just back from Yogyakarta SMTPOriginator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu From: Daniel Wolf Subject: TUNING digest 1195 PostedDate: 02-10-97 13:05:38 SendTo: CN=coul1358/OU=AT/O=EZH ReplyTo: tuning@eartha.mills.edu $MessageStorage: 0 $UpdatedBy: CN=notesrv2/OU=Server/O=EZH,CN=coul1358/OU=AT/O=EZH,CN=Manuel op de Coul/OU=AT/O=EZH RouteServers: CN=notesrv2/OU=Server/O=EZH,CN=notesrv1/OU=Server/O=EZH RouteTimes: 02-10-97 13:05:19-02-10-97 13:05:20,02-10-97 13:04:11-02-10-97 13:04:12 DeliveredDate: 02-10-97 13:04:12 Categories: $Revisions: Received: from ns.ezh.nl ([137.174.112.59]) by notesrv2.ezh.nl (Lotus SMTP MTA SMTP v4.6 (462.2 9-3-1997)) with SMTP id C1256524.003CE5A7; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 13:05:09 +0200 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA05169; Thu, 2 Oct 1997 13:05:38 +0200 Date: Thu, 2 Oct 1997 13:05:38 +0200 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA05181 Received: (qmail 11878 invoked from network); 2 Oct 1997 04:05:18 -0700 Received: from localhost (HELO ella.mills.edu) (127.0.0.1) by localhost with SMTP; 2 Oct 1997 04:05:18 -0700 Message-Id: <199710020657_MC2-2280-BE7F@compuserve.com> Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu