Tuning and Microtonality

Then the other aspect is the "moment," that is, if I intend to use a procedure different from the traditional one in the choice of sounds, instruments, tunings, and writing, and this

occurs following a profound need to express oneself in that way, it changes, or could change one's approach, which would not be an end in itself, but would acquire

higher validity, it would be truer, more heartfelt (even at the height of rationality), then the results would be something else entirely.

It sounds a bit like saying, oh Beethoven, why did you go beyond the well-established sonata form? Were you unable to use the traditional procedure?

Bach, what do you care about balance?

I understand that tastes are tastes, but music is music even if we don't like it. You can also hate Lachenmann, but thinking that he doesn't know how to use a clarinet or a cello and therefore decides to write the way he writes....

But on the other hand you could say, what are you doing Mozart? Aren't you inventing anything new? Aren't you pushing any limits? Perhaps one must consider that even if he could have done so, he wasn't interested

Of course, it was fine where it was, it's not a criticism at all! Everyone chooses their own path and even I am often doubtful about certain choices, but asserting the validity of one path over another by virtue of "he wanted to express something else" does not seem like a good parameter for judgment to me. That's all. And then, as far as I'm concerned, Mozart didn't need to invent anything new; he himself was already a formidable invention

I think I was a bit misunderstood; I didn't mean to say that I dislike something in particular (in this context, for example), but rather that there are

certain works that can border on the ridiculous due to the forced manner in which a work is intended to be realized.

I will give a practical example: sometimes I have thought about the way music for tape and acoustic instruments has been written and continues to be written;

this aspect is interesting in the pre-stage, which I identify as the preparation for a composition, where to ensure that it is "functional,"
it is necessary

(as with the writing of "normal" scores) that the part dedicated to the tape be written with adequate symbols and realization specifications.

I like this aspect because it assumes there is organization, calculation, but also instinct and ideas to develop.

What could "work against" a work of this type (I am hypothesizing, because I imagine it and there are works like this around, I've heard something, even if little),

is not so much the formalism with which it was realized, which undoubtedly surpasses mine, which is still marginal (and I certainly do not boast about this; on the contrary, it is a flaw

that I must necessarily correct), but rather the final result (which is inevitably predictable), which could be a 'hodgepodge of noises, frequency emissions of various waveform shapes,

even rhythmic and in sync with the acoustic part, but ultimately, at an aesthetic level—and I am exaggerating now—perhaps useless, because if a minimum of aesthetic beauty is not achieved

even in the electronic part of the music, then this (for me) does not add anything to the piece; on the contrary, it ruins it. I think I have explained myself.

With this, I am not evaluating or criticizing specific works; I am hypothesizing that using a method that is now consolidated, just for show,

does not serve much if there isn't (this is my opinion, logically) a minimum aesthetic contribution, because at an electronic level we know that practically the impossible can be achieved

at a practical level, but precisely for this reason, if it is done in such a way that what is realized is also pleasant, all the better; otherwise, everything becomes mechanical, and I say this as someone "obsessed" with details,

a person who likes very precise things regardless.

At its birth, equal temperament appeared as an achievement, a milestone, not as a limitation or a castration of the infinite possibilities of music (that is, of the frequencies and physical forces at play).

Art at its peak is always a taking away, a filing away of what is in excess, and I seriously doubt that from an instrument harmonically tuned to quarter tones or microtonal could ever arise such a variety and infinity of meaningful compositions as was born in Western music from 1700 to 1900.

If one then likes Indian "laments," that is a completely different story...

Aside from the fact that Indian chants have been the luck of many composers... not to mention the rhythm, such as 'Indians' for Messiaen and 'Pygmies' for Ligeti....

i was just curious to know if it is an economically affordable job (quarter-tone tuning) or if something like 3,000 euros is needed to do it

I think a tuner should be happy that there is even this type of market... everyone is complaining about poverty

In the end, beauty is in the eye of the beholder....Since 1900 to today, an infinite number of composers and compositions have passed by....From Schoenberg to Stravinsky, to Bartok to Berio...etc.

Davehammerklavier wrote:

i seriously doubt that from an instrument harmonically tuned to quarter tones or microtonal scales could ever arise such a variety and infinity of meaningful compositions as those born in Western music from 1700 to 1900.

If one happens to like Indian "wailing," that is a completely different story...

In my opinion, the world is not just the West; I assure you that other cultures are rich with an infinity of meaningful compositions.

It is clear that music is not universal and everyone, in their own way and within their own culture, tries to attribute meaning... if they fail, it apparently seems as though something is lacking... but are we sure?

In fact, who decided that one writes from left to right? The East has taught us that one can live well even by doing the opposite.... one can write and read starting from right to left ...

And if it were only this, one could also talk about languages. Do you know how much effort Americans exert to understand Chinese? (now they are "forced") And yet they have always boasted of being the fathers of all languages... now that they are forced to explore "different" worlds ... eheh, the truth comes out

Davehammerklavier wrote:

At its birth, equal temperament appeared as an achievement, a milestone, not a limitation or a castration of the infinite possibilities of music (that is, of the frequencies and physical forces at play).

Interesting, but in fact mode was also a milestone, an achievement, not a limitation or a castration of the infinite possibilities of music ...then tonality arrived ...

e in reality today, as it stands, tonality has almost exhausted its resources

Look, when I was little (I must have been ten years old or so) I listened with great interest to the entire Shankar family, even when John McLaughlin played with them; I don't find contemporary music disturbing at all and I watched the attached videos here without blinking.

Unfortunately, you see, I have never believed in polygamy, I still don't believe in it today, and I am happily married to tonality, to Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Bruckner, without feeling the slightest limitation, closing of horizons, or any other needs that are not fully met by these dear authors and this way of conceiving music.

In the world, however, there must be freedom and respect: everyone must do what they believe in, love what is different, and not follow everything and everyone out of some sense of inadequacy, unresolved inner confusion, or misguided relativism.

Davehammerklavier wrote:

In the world, however, there must be freedom and respect: everyone must do what they believe in, love what is different, and not follow everything and everyone due to some sense of inadequacy, unresolved inner confusion, or misguided relativism.

Beautiful! ... I mean, I don't have the same tastes as you when it comes to music, but I subscribe to this sentence word for word!

Davehammerklavier wrote:

However, in the world there must be freedom and respect: everyone must do what they believe in, love what is different, and not follow everything and everyone due to some sense of inadequacy, unresolved inner confusion, or unwise relativism.

I agree with Red and I see a noble thought even in the following

Davehammerklavier wrote:

Unfortunately, you see, I have never believed in polygamy, I still don't believe in it now, and I am happily married to tonality, to Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Bruckner, without feeling the slightest limitation, closing of horizons, or other needs that are not fully satisfied with these dear authors and with this way of conceiving music.

that's why I gave a like.

But you cite polygamy and marriage... a very personal thought: the fact that I love my mom and my dad doesn't mean there isn't room in my little heart for my wife... and the fact of having had children has taken nothing away from the "predecessors."

All to say that if it's a matter of taste... ok. But if it were a problem of the "heart," usually it is larger than we believe. Without any presumption of convincing you

Always a very personal thought, I wouldn't be able to think about not listening to anything that musically happened before 1700 or after 1900... and yet I don't feel like a bigamist, at most I can say I love music (as in other areas, my family). If we go further into the heart, there will be other things too... but I have had enough of this topic

Frank's objection is a sympathetic one, arising from a somewhat apodictic formulation of mine...

You see, the fact is that, I believe, there are very noble people capable of sincerely loving many things, and others very intensely a smaller number. I am among these. In my life, I have perhaps spent more time listening to Music without prejudice than any other activity, but as my mind and my emotions mature, the fewer subjects I love, and the more clearly I love these few subjects, who reveal themselves in my soul as a "whole", as elements capable of remaining indelibly part of my memory and my heart.

There can then be unexpected diversions, distractions, which however always carry less weight and leave fewer memories.

Davehammerklavier wrote:

There may then be unexpected pleasures, distractions, which however always carry less weight and leave fewer memories.

For enthusiasts of the topic of narrativity, as I have written in many other posts... the ability of music to be remembered is the link to narrativity. It may not be liked, but in fact... when something tends not to be remembered... it means that it does not "narrate."

And clearly many have the sacred need and right to derive from a piece "elements capable of remaining indelibly part of my memory and my heart."

Art is always the interpreter of time, and that of today, like that of the recent "yesterday," has a spontaneous and fragile closure towards memory, reflection, depth, drama, Truth, eternity, and anything that possesses weight, value, or real involvement.

Every experience and event must be momentary, pleasant, but ultimately minimal; it must pass, disappear, and nothing more, to leave space for something else that will, in turn, be forgotten and replaced.

One must think, but not too much; be intelligent, but not too much; speak, feel, but not too much, without ever exaggerating.

The lack of positive excesses, of vital impulses, of convictions, is perhaps the deepest sign of our time and the reason for so much art without soul and without meaning.

@Davehammerklavier, I dedicate them to you

Open content (youtube)

Dear Dave "Sokolov"... I must say that I understand you. Just think that nowadays the only music I can listen to with pleasure is Gregorian chant. Everything that comes after seems to me almost always quite gratuitous, and tendentially "impure" (let's be clear, I am not talking about the "spiritual," but about the music, and especially the relationship between text/music... though I would make an exception for Monteverdi, obviously!). Unfortunately, it is very rare to hear correct interpretations!

In any case, I think it is important never to lose curiosity, and the willingness to try to understand more. For this reason, I do not share at all the recurring voices regarding the decadence of the arts in our day (of good and less good, of sensible and nonsensical, there is as much as there has always been, today just like in the times of Guido, or Beethoven!).

I sincerely thank you for your kindness and exquisite consideration towards me.

I believe it is time to no longer concern ourselves with the approval or applause of others and to live following one's own personal integrity, those who possess it. If we like something, it is not up to others to determine its justice, value, or dignity. We have lived through a twenty-year period (and I say this as a young person) in which being serious or cultured was not considered something for "virile" people (you surely understand what I mean). Culture, thought, art, true creativity, as well as feelings or the sense of family, have been mercilessly and vulgarly squandered and killed to make way for a culture and a civil ethics based on affectation, whim, and minimum personal profit, not to mention voluntary mental dissociation.

Art has also been proposed in an embarrassing and disorganized manner and, in an attempt to recapture attention, performers of the lowest caliber, integrity, and artistic depth have been put forward.

That being said, my interest and affection for art music began precisely with the Chopin nocturne that you kindly dedicated to me, and, since then, to use the poet's words, my soul has never departed.

And regarding the lower matter, of the supposed lack of virility and concreteness of certain interests, sincerely, I have never lacked such things, but with a foolish, capricious woman in a miniskirt running around my house, I have realized that I much prefer a piano concert in Sala Verdi.