source file: m1559.txt Date: Tue, 20 Oct 1998 06:51:35 -0500 Subject: International Tuning Assoc From: Gary Morrison Regarding my comments that a "tuning co-op" would prove difficult, somebody responded: > Thanks for you comments re: the harmony farmers co:op, however > pessimistic they may be. Actually, I'm a really optimistic guy, and I'd be delighted to join and support such an organization. But just be forewarned that such organizations have a history of failure because of the geographic problem. Even these days, it's simply very difficult to form a sense of comradery across abysses like the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The other difficulty to overcome is that the majority of us are are either amateur musicians who have to scrape for every minute they can in musical pursuits, or are pros who have to spend the majority of their time playing "normal" music to eek out a living. We just don't have a lot of time for such things. Also, here's another question to answer: If indeed it is valuable to create such an organization, would starting yet another new organization cause yet more fragmentation? That as opposed to ... "enhancing" (for lack of a better word) ... an existing organization? Stichting Huygens-Fokker, for example, has been resolved in recent years to branch out from their originally-31TET roots to deal with unusual tunings in general. Would it be more meaningful to have them handle it? Above all, I'm glad to see that the reaction has been mostly positive toward such an idea. That because, again historically speaking, such organizations that are formed by 1-3 people have not fared well. Most of them either dissolve over a handful of years. That or, like the JI Network or Interval Foundation, become the blood, sweat, and tears of one or two people, with a little bit of periodic effort from a handful of satellite authors. If on the other hand, we can get something like 5 active local chapters, perhaps in Los Angeles, San Diego, around Stichting Huygens-Fokker, Denver, and New York, along with annual dues and a significant monthly publication, then I'd give it a definite chance of even more than just survival. But less than that, I'd anticipate it being a really up-hill battle.