source file: mills3.txt Date: Wed, 17 Dec 1997 21:38:47 +0100 Subject: Re: TUNING digest 1270 From: "Andrew L. Kaye" I admit I am finding the current discourse surrounding 19-TET and melodic limens fascinating. Gregg's has been extremely informative concerning 19-TET, and I greatly appreciate his contributions. However, I agree with those who suggest that he is trying to substitute one "ET" "tyranny" for another. Gregg says that you can't properly reproduce many rock songs on the piano, because these songs are in 19-TET. But it is also obvious that the rock musicians are using a complex combination of tuning systems, represented by the mix of diverse instrument timbres and tempering inclinations. If you listen to lots of music from different parts of the world, like I do (since I teach "world music" courses--and in this I include Western music!), you will be hard to be convinced that all people around the world veer towards a common temperament. Close, maybe. But the differences are critical; indeed it is in large part due to these slender differences in timbre and tuning that we can discern regional differences. We are unfortunately not close to a comprehensive study of how people around the world really work with pitch systems. Most studies from Seashore on are strongly biased because of their Western-based sample. The very perceptions of musical identities of pitches and melodies seem to vary around the world. I noticed in my fieldwork in West Africa--and Gerhard Kubik has published on this interesting phenomenon--that when harp and mbira players retune their instruments (which, especially in the case of the harps, go out of tune easily)--they sometimes come up with significantly different tunings, changing what seems to be a "whole tone" scale, for example, to something approximating a diatonic mode; and then they came it is the "same tuning"! That is, indeed, they claim it is identical. I've seen this. Despite Kubik's article, this phenomenon has not been rigorously studied. I suggest, and I do not mean to chatise, because we ethnomusicologists are also guilty, that most researchers in tuning and temperament are too narrowly focussed on Western models to achieve meaningful theoretical results. An organized world study can be done; but it is yet to be done. I'd love to see some of the brilliant minds on this list join forces and conduct such a study. SMTPOriginator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu From: "Jonathan M. Szanto" Subject: Re: Partch thesis PostedDate: 17-12-97 22:09:31 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: 17-12-97 22:07:29-17-12-97 22:07:30,17-12-97 22:07:07-17-12-97 22:07:08 DeliveredDate: 17-12-97 22:07:08 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 C1256570.007407B4; Wed, 17 Dec 1997 22:09:17 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA18403; Wed, 17 Dec 1997 22:09:31 +0100 Date: Wed, 17 Dec 1997 22:09:31 +0100 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA18406 Received: (qmail 16002 invoked from network); 17 Dec 1997 13:09:29 -0800 Received: from localhost (HELO ella.mills.edu) (127.0.0.1) by localhost with SMTP; 17 Dec 1997 13:09:29 -0800 Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19971217125827.007d0c10@adnc.com> Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu