source file: m1419.txt
Date: Sun, 17 May 1998 17:28:24 -0700

Subject: Re: ET for melodies/ JI for harmonies

From: alves@orion.ac.hmc.edu (Bill Alves)

Joseph L Monzo gave this citation:
>It came from Ben Johnston, "Scalar Order as a Compositional
>Resource", published in _Perspectives of New Music_, vol 2 # 2,
>Spring-Summer 1964, p. 59:
>
Thanks very much for the Johnston citation. Just to make it clear, what
follows is not a response to Johnston (which I haven't read yet), but to
other opinions given in this forum.

Before a consensus emerges that ET is somehow more "simple" melodically, I
would like to register my dissent.

First melodies in ET are presumably called "simpler," "smoother," or more
"comprehensible" because they have only one step size. However, how many
melodies typically have many semitones (or whatever size step) in a row?
Modes typically have at least two different step sizes, and melodies are
rarely entirely conjunct.

Well, ETs cut down on the number of intervals, true, but for me, at least,
the number of available intervals doesn't affect a melody nearly as much as
other parameters (depending on the musical style and intention of the
composer, of course). Bach played in well temperament doesn't strike me as
less "comprehensible" or less "smooth" than Bach in ET. Quite the reverse.

Finally, there are many sophisticated musical cultures without harmony in a
Western sense -- cultures for whom melodic writing is of much greater
relative importance in composition than in the West -- and yet equal
temperaments are far in the minority in world tuning systems.

True, the Chinese calculated 12TET long ago, but the evidence is that it
remained just a theoretical, philosophical construct, not a description of
practical music-making. True, some Indian classical musicians (though
certainly not all, and perhaps not even a majority!) express a preference
for ET, but I've never heard comprehensibility or smoothness given as a
justification.

Partly as an experiment, I wrote the score for my last video using many
"chromatic" melodies (i.e. using successive steps in the tuning system) in
a JI tuning system with quite different step sizes. (This was the piece on
the tape swap.) Now, I can only be my own judge and others may hear it
differently, but I found those melodies successful. (I certainly wouldn't
have used them had I not thought so.)

ETs are useful for 1) enabling modulation to all keys and having them sound
the same, 2) fretted strings, 3) making all tones functionally equal for
atonality, 4) those of us who still have occassion to write for
"standardized" instruments. But I wouldn't add smoothness of melody to that
list.

Bill

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