source file: m1379.txt
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 03:54:15 -0500 (CDT)

Subject: Systematization Again

From: mr88cet@texas.net (Gary Morrison)

>System-building in music certainly goes a long way
>towards satisfying one's intellectual proclivities

   Sure, but I wouldn't limit that to strictly intellectual impressions.
In short, its harder to project any impression, be it intellectual,
emotional, or whatever, to an audience using an inconsistent language of
expression.

   If you find, not just a tuning, but also a scale in that tuning, that
does a "pretty good" job of expressing the general sort of sensation you
want to portray to your audience, then if you build melodies and harmonies
largely from that scale, that sensation will get through to your audience
easily.

   If on the other hand (to use a traditional-music example), you change
meter, tonal center, and mode in every measure, it's very difficult for
your audience to latch onto any clear expression.

   You certainly don't want to do too much of either of course;  being too
consistent can be boring, and being too chaotic can be confusing.