source file: mills3.txt Date: Sun, 21 Dec 1997 01:00:10 +0100 Subject: Re: More of Septimals From: alves@orion.ac.hmc.edu (Bill Alves) I have tried to remain silent, allowing the wave of Gibsonia to wash by (perhaps even depositing a few valuables), at least when the discussion dealt with the arcana of 19 vs. 22 or some such thing. But I have a hard time letting this pass: Gregg Gibson: >There are excellent acoustical reasons for supposing the septimals >dissonant. Musical dissonance and consonance are not absolutely >relative, but must remain to the physical constraints of nature if they >are to have any artistic meaning. Why must a musical value be absolute to be artistically meaningful? Loudness is certainly relative and a spectrum of values. Timbre is relative along many different axes. In painting, brightness, saturation, and, of course, the spectrum itself change by degrees, in addition to altering the perception of each other in context. While there have been some great painting using only black and white, I would go so far as to claim that the parameters of media are most valuable BECAUSE they are relative. It makes no difference to me personally whether you call a 7/6 consonant, dissonant, assonant, or Gibsonant (tm). A 7/6 is a 7/6, and it has a particular quality to me that is quite beautiful in a lot of music. It is certainly not discordant and has no particular compulsion to resolve, to my ears, though that, too, may depend on the musical context. An equal-tempered minor seventh has no need to resolve when used in blues piano music, at least to me. (If you hear its function unchanged from Mozart, then I can understand why you might dislike blues piano.) Nor do dissonances always have to resolve. To insist that they do would rob us of the spice and wonder of Perotin, Bartok, Ligeti, and certain Bulgarian folk music. Likewise, insisting that a melody must be singable by amateurs (presumably those trained in the Western tradition, because Indonesian singers from childhood find the near-septimal intervals of slendro no problem) is an arbitrary constraint that would rule out much of Beethoven, Debussy, even rock and jazz. A universe of music of the type that Mr. Gibson seems to advocate I would find a much poorer place indeed. Even if I were to concede that Mr. Gibson's conclusions derive entirely from physical facts as he claims, and not from a selective combination of acoustics and certain highly debatable and subjective premises about the nature of music, I would still not accept his conclusion that music must at least approximate the path that he has found in order to be at all artistically successful or profound. Does this mean that I have a terminally open mind? I hope so. Does this mean that I like all music equally and uncritically? Of course not. I have encountered many times and can even understand those that believe that art is ultimately objective, and that anything that fails to fulfill those objective criteria is "bad art." What offends me, and, I think, others on this forum, Mr. Gibson, is the implication that anyone who does not arrive at your conclusion either has not examined your evidence, is incapable of logical reason, or is intentionally perverse. Or perhaps you will condescend to express understanding of the unenlightened masses who still effect the same muddled thinking and wrong ideas that you once did because of the influence of either the evil hegemony of 12TET or the aforementioned intentionally perverse xenharmonicists. Music to me is not about following acoustical norms. It's about exploiting one's (learned or intuitive) knowledge of acoustics, psychology, and culture towards artistically expressive ends. Sometimes that means working "with" or sometimes "against" acoustics, but thank goodness that human expression is so rich that it can provide us with truly moving art in such a wide variety of musical systems. Bill ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^ Bill Alves email: alves@hmc.edu ^ ^ Harvey Mudd College URL: http://www2.hmc.edu/~alves/ ^ ^ 301 E. Twelfth St. (909)607-4170 (office) ^ ^ Claremont CA 91711 USA (909)607-7600 (fax) ^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ SMTPOriginator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu From: alves@orion.ac.hmc.edu (Bill Alves) Subject: re:Chestnut help PostedDate: 21-12-97 01:36:36 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: 21-12-97 01:34:25-21-12-97 01:34:25,21-12-97 01:33:59-21-12-97 01:34:00 DeliveredDate: 21-12-97 01:34:00 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 C1256574.000325A2; Sun, 21 Dec 1997 01:36:18 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA22884; Sun, 21 Dec 1997 01:36:36 +0100 Date: Sun, 21 Dec 1997 01:36:36 +0100 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA22881 Received: (qmail 10241 invoked from network); 20 Dec 1997 16:36:31 -0800 Received: from localhost (HELO ella.mills.edu) (127.0.0.1) by localhost with SMTP; 20 Dec 1997 16:36:31 -0800 Message-Id: Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu