source file: mills3.txt Date: Wed, 19 Nov 1997 01:35:52 +0100 Subject: Xenharmonic? From: Carl Lumma >Question: What would be most helpful in music today to the composer, to the >performer, and to the theorizer... > >...therefore an entirely new scale is required, in which the tetrads can act >as the basic consonances. While I find Paul E's paper on 22 a mass of excellent knowledge that's well-written too and I look forward very much to reading it in the up-coming issue of Xenharmonikon, there are bits that seem to, to me at least, advocate 22 as good idea for a "next paradigm" or "next big thing" in music. Now I have a negetive reaction to this, and it has nothing to do with 22. It has to do with the idea that there ought to be a new paradigm, a new "main thing" in music at all. To me, this idea represents bad old industrialist over-standardization, a mindset that I blame for the current Xenharmonic crisis. What crisis? For me, it's felt as a distinct lacking. Something's missing from my toolbox as a musician. Let's see... I've got dynamics, tone color, what I wear on stage... cheap instruments that are all... tuned the SAME? In this I also disagree with Partch's pluging of the Monophonic Fabric, although he emphasized experimentation and non-conformity enough to compensate. I've got my own "ideal" tunings, and reasons why they're really good. And I've got my violent response to bad old over-standardization. If this reflex causes me to read between the lines, then I apologize. I've read things, supposedly from the field of Xenharmonics, that evoked the reflex far more strongly than the abovequoted paper on 22 -> Jules Siegel's insistence on his "System", for example. Paul's paper was just the most recent example, and so I put in my Two Cents on what "Xenharmonic" means to me. Carl SMTPOriginator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu From: Carl Lumma Subject: The severity of scale PostedDate: 19-11-97 01:36:37 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: 19-11-97 01:35:18-19-11-97 01:35:18,19-11-97 01:35:26-19-11-97 01:35:27 DeliveredDate: 19-11-97 01:35:27 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 C1256554.000336B1; Wed, 19 Nov 1997 01:35:06 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA02327; Wed, 19 Nov 1997 01:36:37 +0100 Date: Wed, 19 Nov 1997 01:36:37 +0100 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA02325 Received: (qmail 20864 invoked from network); 18 Nov 1997 16:36:12 -0800 Received: from localhost (HELO ella.mills.edu) (127.0.0.1) by localhost with SMTP; 18 Nov 1997 16:36:12 -0800 Message-Id: <19971119003840625.AAA312@NIETZSCHE> Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu