source file: m1370.txt
Date: Mon, 30 Mar 1998 14:45:43 -0600 (CST)

Subject: Re: Subject: Re:microtonality in popular music

From: Paul Hahn <Paul-Hahn@library.wustl.edu>

> > A casual listen to  the things being released today show (to me anyway)a 
> > rising desperation.The 
> > 'Jungle/Drum&Bass' scene seems to me to be a natural result of the 
> > impossibility of writing a 'new'
> > song in 12 TET.

Lenny Bernstein wrote a nice sonnet about why he continued to write
tonal music despite the arguments presented by atonal/serial advocates
that tonality had been exhausted.  (If I get a chance, I'll look it up
and post it.)  I don't feel that 12TET has been "played out" any more
than tonality has.

> >    As something of an aside to this discussion, I have long thought that
> > movie music is be a great avenue for microtonal composers to get their
> > ideas to the proverbial masses.
> 
[snip]
> 
> Seriously, movies have such a huge budget you can't expect too much
> experimentation, especially as the people who hold the purse strings
> aren't going to be big musos.  Now, if an established film composer
> were to go microtonal, then we'd be in business.  If the audience
> don't realise they're listening to microtonal music, they might
> accidentally like it!

"There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio . . . "  Some pretty
far-out things happen in film scores; often in spite of the producers,
but sometimes because of them.

To add another example to the ones already cited, I think (according to
Manuel's list) there's some microtonal stuff in the "Genesis Effect" cue
of the _Star Trek II : The Wrath of Khan_ soundtrack.  I forget who did
it; it wasn't James Horner, who did most of the score.  Trek movies have
a not completely insignificant audience, I believe. 8-)>

--pH <manynote@lib-rary.wustl.edu> http://library.wustl.edu/~manynote
    O
   /\        "You just ran nine racks but you won't give me a spot?"
  -\-\-- o   "I can't; I haven't seen you shoot yet."

             NOTE: dehyphenate node to remove spamblock.          <*>