source file: mills3.txt Date: Tue, 7 Oct 1997 01:58:44 +0200 Subject: Re: "Yardstick" of Music From: Johnny Reinhard It is crucial to any discussion to define the terms being discussed. To that end I wrote a paper titled _Phenomenology and Its Application to Microtonality_ while a graduate student in ethnomusicolgoy. The results of 3 years working phenomenologically, in a Husserlian model, was that when aproaching the sound continuum intersylistically, no single cultural model is to be considered any more "natural" than another. (This includes 12ET.) Phenomenology as a methodology distinguishes between essences and accidents. Just Intonation, as well as equal divisions of the octave, and cyclings of particlur intervals are all "essential" microtonal relationships. Meanings of words evolve. The word "enharmonic" for example has evolved from 1. an ancient Greek genus that utilized a tetrachord made up of a 5/4 just major third and 2 "quartertones" (which themselves were unequal to each other in size). 2. in the baroque era an enharmonic interval was produced between the meantone F# and Gb, a syntonic comma. 3. Enharmonic is now an identity as it appears on the standard bearer piano (F# is Gb). "Microtone" by itself may not have any utility. It is vague and signifies insignificance by itself. IMHO. A discipline of Microtonality, which I adhere to, would include the commonality of all musics from the perspecitive of pitch and their intervallic relationships. It is to this end that Alexander J. Ellis invented "cents" which divides the octave logarithmically into 1200 cents. This is the "yardstick" to measure all music microtonally. 1200 is a convenient number at the very threshold of pitch differentiation. When the Harvard Dictionary of Music pulished its early 20th century definition of a _microtone_ as "smaller" than a quartertone, it was also describing _just intonation_ as mere theory with no evidence of historical useage and as virtually impossible to negotiate in practice. Both definitions needed to be updated. If Egyptian music is considered microtonal (which it has), and there is no interval smaller than a semitone in the Maqam system, what does that say about the word microtone? By Mr. Wolf's definition, and that of the early 20th Century Harvard Dictionary of Music, Egyptian music is not microtonal. And the flute is a woodwind made exclusively with metal. Johnny Reinhard Director American Festival of Microtonal Music 318 East 70th Street, Suite 5FW New York, New York 10021 USA (212)517-3550/fax (212) 517-5495 reinhard@idt.net http://www.echonyc.com/~jhhl/AFMM SMTPOriginator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu From: "kris peck" Subject: how about 22et vs 19et ? PostedDate: 07-10-97 05:01:09 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: 07-10-97 05:00:41-07-10-97 05:00:42,07-10-97 03:59:16-07-10-97 03:59:16 DeliveredDate: 07-10-97 03:59:16 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 C1256529.001087D3; Tue, 7 Oct 1997 05:00:33 +0200 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA09549; Tue, 7 Oct 1997 05:01:09 +0200 Date: Tue, 7 Oct 1997 05:01:09 +0200 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA09537 Received: (qmail 16437 invoked from network); 6 Oct 1997 20:01:04 -0700 Received: from localhost (HELO ella.mills.edu) (127.0.0.1) by localhost with SMTP; 6 Oct 1997 20:01:04 -0700 Message-Id: <199710070249.VAA14236@riptide.wavetech.net> Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu