source file: m1387.txt
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 15:16:38 -0400

Subject: Re: Schoenberg

From: "Paul H. Erlich" <PErlich@Acadian-Asset.com>

>Reinhard:
>> <snip>  Schoenberg describes temperament as an
>> indefinitely extended truce (Harmonielehre p.25) and says
>> the chord is the synthesis of the tone.  Would either
>> Partch or Erlich disagree?  

The first comment is vague. I don't know what the war was that resulted
in the truce. If it was the war between temperament and just intonation,
then one side clearly won the war; there was no truce. Partch would
probably say he was rebuilding just intonation from its ashes. Of course
meantone gets forgotten in this dichotomy.

The second comment is vague too, but let me interpret it to mean that a
chord is an approximate harmonic series so that every chord implies a
synthetic tone whose pitch is that of the fundamental of that harmonic
series. Clearly this view of harmony fails to account for minor and
other utonal chords, which, if viewed as a part of a harmonic series,
imply a fundamental that musically speaking is clearly a non-harmonic
tone. But by a Helmholtz/Plomp/Sethares analysis, utonal chords are at
least as consonant as otonal ones. So on this interpretation, yes,
Partch and I would both disagree with Schoenberg. However, there is
nothing wrong with a musical style based entirely on otonalities, which
(it is my understanding) characterizes the spectral school of
composition.

>Monzo:
>Hey, don't leave me out of this!  I've written a _lot_ on
>the rational implications represented in Schoenberg's theories.

>I _do_ think Partch would disagree with this: as I pointed out,
>he emphazed that the undertone series _as an acoustical
>phenomenon_  was not a part of his theory, but the mathematics
>involved in calculating it was.

Can you elaborate as to how this is a response to Schoenberg's comments?

>Erlich would probably disagree too, just because he likes to
>disagree (-- but that's OK by me, Paul; in fact it's healthy in
>this forum).

Anyway, thanks to Daniel Wolf and Joe Monzo for some good history
lessons. I agree with both of them!