source file: mills3.txt Date: Tue, 23 Dec 1997 19:48:51 +0100 Subject: Re: Danielou, Touma From: alves@orion.ac.hmc.edu (Bill Alves) >I know I've posed this question before, but since no one answered, I >want to try again...several folks have mentioned that Danielou's book on >Indian/Chinese music was flawed; could someone explain why, and just what >is correct. Danielou is an ethnomusicologist from a less empirical era. Most criticism of his writings that I have seen focus on the fact that the justifications for his derivations of scales and tunings are based on his own mystical precepts and not actual practice. (Danielou denied this, claiming that modern practice supported his theories, but Mark Levy pretty clearly showed that this was not the case in his empirical study of North Indian intonation.) That in itself doesn't make Danielou's theories worthless or even "wrong." In many cultures, including historical India, music theory is less about describing practice than about creating a consistent philosophy of music showing the relationship of sound to the cosmos. Certainly Danielou fits better into the latter category, though many of his ideas were his own and unrelated to those of previous Indian theorists. Here are some excerpts about how Levy describes and critiques Danielou: "While Danielou presents a number of mystical and acoustical justifications for the division of the octave into 22 parts, he formulates his own much more elaborate expanded system of 66 srutis, by means of which he interprets the intonation of the modern Indian ragas. "The author constructs a 'universal harmonic scale' which he believes contains all intervals used in Chinese, Hindu, Arabic, and ancient Greek music. [Note: elsewhere Danielou claims that Western music is essentially a 22-tone system that has become 12-tone through the conflation of enharmonics.]... "From all these pitches, Danielou chooses 53 which are 'acceptable harmonically,' eliminating others which in his opinion are 'unacceptable.'...To these 53 pitches Danielou, in succeeding publications, added 12 more obtained by dividing each disjunction [step sizes larger than a comma] in half. This results in 65 pitches, or if the octave itself is included, 66. He states that these are the 66 srutis described by Kohala... "Danielou's theory contains a number of inconsistencies, and seems contrived to confirm certain preconceived conclusions....Danielou states that in his sytem there are only 2 sizes of intervals, a 'comma' of 20 cents and a 'disjunction' of 32 cents....Furthermore, there are numerous discrepancies between the 53 pitches which Danielou presents in 1943 and those presented in 1969, which the author again leaves unexplained." Levy provides a table showing that, since Danielou has defined his intervals in just intonation, such consistent step sizes are obviously not found. In fact, Danielou describes step sizes ranging from 19.6 to 29.6 as being "commas" of 20 cents, and step sizes ranging from 21.5 to 29.6 as being "disjunctions" of 32 cents. I should point out, too, that actual tuning ratios are not found in Indian music theory until the late 17th century, and that it is rare to find two treatises that agree. Bhatkhande (early 20th century) is the only theorist Levy mentions who even considers 22TET, though he still does not consider it representative of actual practice. As Levy considers both North and South Indian treatises pretty comprehensively (though only North Indian practice), I am unable to find the source of Gregg Gibson's claim that 22TET is somehow standard in the South. Danielou's scale is still very interesting, and there is even an instrument tuned to his 53-tone JI. You can find out more about it and him through the web site dedicated to him. I don't have the URL handy, but there's a link off the JI network's links page: http://www.dnai.com/~jinetwk/other.html Bill ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^ Bill Alves email: alves@hmc.edu ^ ^ Harvey Mudd College URL: http://www2.hmc.edu/~alves/ ^ ^ 301 E. Twelfth St. (909)607-4170 (office) ^ ^ Claremont CA 91711 USA (909)607-7600 (fax) ^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ SMTPOriginator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu From: Gregg Gibson Subject: Re: Paul Ehrlich PostedDate: 23-12-97 20:26:33 SendTo: CN=coul1358/OU=AT/O=EZH ReplyTo: tuning@eartha.mills.edu $MessageStorage: 0 $UpdatedBy: CN=notesrv2/OU=Server/O=EZH,CN=coul1358/OU=AT/O=EZH,CN=Manuel op de Coul/OU=AT/O=EZH RouteServers: CN=notesrv2/OU=Server/O=EZH,CN=notesrv1/OU=Server/O=EZH RouteTimes: 23-12-97 20:24:26-23-12-97 20:24:27,23-12-97 20:23:58-23-12-97 20:23:58 DeliveredDate: 23-12-97 20:23:58 Categories: $Revisions: Received: from ns.ezh.nl ([137.174.112.59]) by notesrv2.ezh.nl (Lotus SMTP MTA SMTP v4.6 (462.2 9-3-1997)) with SMTP id C1256576.006A9709; Tue, 23 Dec 1997 20:26:11 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA24631; Tue, 23 Dec 1997 20:26:33 +0100 Date: Tue, 23 Dec 1997 20:26:33 +0100 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA24607 Received: (qmail 25800 invoked from network); 23 Dec 1997 11:26:29 -0800 Received: from localhost (HELO ella.mills.edu) (127.0.0.1) by localhost with SMTP; 23 Dec 1997 11:26:30 -0800 Message-Id: <34A071ED.4F79@ww-interlink.net> Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu