From: mclaren
Subject: Review of the Just Intonation
Network's "Rational Music For An
Irrational World"
--
Several correspondents have asked me to
review the 1989 cassette "Rational Music
For An Irrational World." For a number of
reasons, this makes sense--even though the
cassette itself is now 7 years old.
First, this tape is an extremely important
aural document in the history of post-Partch
just intonation. Prior to 1989 many individual
tapes were available, but there was no
convincing proof that a widespread movement
tapes were available, but there was no
convincing proof that a widespread movement
toward JI existed in America. Individual
composers' JI tapes could be dismissed by
bigoted New York critics of the head-in-the-sand
Paul Griffiths school--"this JI composer is a
fringe lunatic," "that JI composer is a flake,"
and so on, and so forth. Partch himself was
treated this way until the 80s. (After all, The New Yorker
music critic described Ivan Vyshnegradsky as
"almost insane" in a 1995 review.) But once the
JIN issued its compilation cassette, it became
impossible for the New York critical circle-jerk
buddy system to deny the existence of a
grass-roots just intonation movement of long
standing on the West Coast.
Second, the JIN cassette "Rational Music" is an
important document tracing the early history
of just intonation on pre- and post-MIDI
important document tracing the early history
of just intonation on pre- and post-MIDI
digital synthesizers. Many of the compositions
on "Rational Music" date from just before and
just after the advent of MIDI, and they are
therefore an invaluable historical record of how
the first generation of mass-market digital JI'ers
wrestled with the problems of MIDI, computer
sequencers and keyboards designed for 12
equal tones but retuned to just intonation.
(This problem is one with which many of us continue
to wrestle today.)
Third, "Rational Music" was the Just Intonation
Network's announcement of its musical position.
Inevitably, all movements stake out a place in
the musical spectrum--IRCAM has consistently
placed itself in the post-Webern serialist camp
and has thus marginalized itself nearly out of
existence; all the award-winning IRCAM composers
and has thus marginalized itself nearly out of
existence; all the award-winning IRCAM composers
use Forte/Rahn/Morrison pitch-class set theory
in their compositions. CCRMA has consistently placed
itself in the American neocalssical camp; Dartmouth
in the Ussachevksy/Luening American electronic music
camp, which lies midway between the extremes of the
French ORTF musique concrete and the Germand
Darmstadt lab-oscillator-and-filter school--and so on.
With the selection of pieces on "Rational Music" the JIN
placed itself squarely in the neoclassical algorithmic
camp with this tape, reflecting by and large the
interests of the JIN members in the San Francisco
Bay area. This movement has since flowered,
while the Eurocentric12-TET serialist acoustic
movement has continued to flail and twitch
like a chicken with its head cut off--albeit
more feebly now than ever before.
(Remember that New York is part of Europe,
more feebly now than ever before.
(Remember that New York is part of Europe,
and the Bay area up through the Northwest is
part of the Pacific Rim. Then you can understand
why New York composers were so Eurocentric
and why the American gamelan movement began
in the Bay area.)
--
The first piece on side 1 of "Rational Music For An
Irrational World" is "Dance of the Testifiers" by
Erling Wold. This appears to be a synthesizer-and-
sampler arrangement of "incidental music for
the theatre work `The Islamic Republic Of Las
Vegas.'" The composition strongly resembles the
work of Lou Harrison, and dates from 1985. As
has been mentioned in prior posts, Erling Wold is
a talented composer as well as a polymath, and
this composition is as impressive and delightful
as the rest of his oeuvre. Especially notable: Wold's
this composition is as impressive and delightful
as the rest of his oeuvre. Especially notable: Wold's
success in teasing an expressive, human-sounding
result from his MIDI sequences.
"Prelude and Fugue for the Rest of Us" by Jules
Siegel was performed "by the composer's original
IBM PC software which models human performance."
This composition won 3rd place in the Third Coast
New Music Project Microtonal Music Festival in 1988.
Despite a slightly mechanical-sounding performance,
the composition comes across as a tuneful and impressive
extension of Bachian contrapuntal techniques into the
realm of extended JI.
"Loved and Lost" by Eric S. Ridgway was composed,
performed and recorded in January of 1986 using
4 multi-tracked acoustic JI guitar tape parts. This
piece is fascinating because it is a species of
composition which could not have existed prior to
the advent of cheap multi-track tape machines.
composition which could not have existed prior to
the advent of cheap multi-track tape machines.
It works well, although the recording quality betrays
the age of the composition.
"Form For Just Intonation" by Norbert Oldani, is
particularly interesting for 2 reasons: first,
Oldani is a long-time JI and ET theorist whose
theoretical work is undeservedly little-known
and whose compositions are ( even more
undeservedly) less widely known. And second, Oldani
realizes his composition with a peculiar early
digital synthesizer: Passport Design's Soundchaser
System. This synth produced 8-bit digital sound
with 256-point additive synthesis wavetables.
On 2 cards plugged into an Apple II+ computer,
the Soundchaser was much more programmable
than most modern digital synths--moreover, due
to the digital filters on the DACs, the sound
output was reasonably hi-fi up to about 12 khz.
to the digital filters on the DACs, the sound
output was reasonably hi-fi up to about 12 khz.
Oldani's composition takes maximum advantage
of the unique digital timbres of the Soundchaser
system: basically, you could get dynamic additive
digital synthesis by burning polyphony. In this
regard the Soundchaser was infinitely more
flexible than modern digital synths, and Oldani
coaxes a remarkable variety of bell-like, string-
like and analog-synth-type timbres from his
system. The piece works well, and is one of the
very few recordings now extant of a microtonal
composition on an entirely microcomputer-based
pre-MIDI digital synthesis system.
"City of Trout" by Thomas J. Dougherty, sounds
remarkably like much of the music being done
today by the San Francisco Bay area Max
algorithmic composers. By and large the American
algorithmic composition movement came out of
algorithmic composers. By and large the American
algorithmic composition movement came out of
the Bay area, and this is an early and elegant
example--one of the best pieces on the tape.
"I am Curious (George)" by Carola Anderson is
also noteworthy because it clearly represents
the first MIDI efforts by a JI composer who had
earlier worked exclusively with acoustic
ensembles. (This is true of many of the Bay Area
JI community: David Doty and many other influential
SF JIN members initially started their xenharmonic
explorations as American gamelan performers and
builders, strongly influenced by Lou Harrison's
justly tuned gamelans. Thus most of these early
JIN members gained their first compositional
experience with live acoustic ensembles, rather
than with digital synths and computers.)
This composition succeeds well, and doesn't
sound "stiff" or overquantized. David Doty is to
This composition succeeds well, and doesn't
sound "stiff" or overquantized. David Doty is to
be congratulated for serving as "MIDI guru" to
Carola Anderson on this composition. The results
are musically impressive.
"Two Fragments of Ancient Greek Music" are
FB-01 HMSL-produced Greek melodic fragments.
The timbres sound not so great and the performance
is somewhat mechanical, but since the main interest
here is historical and musciological, that doesn't
matter at all. John Chalmers once again demonstrates
his scholarship by resurrecting these 2500-year-old
musical fragments from oblivion and letting us
hear them.
"Air for the Poet" by Lou Harrison is a fine acoustic
recording of a typically Handelian neoclassical
composition. As always, it's difficult to hear anything
xenharmonic in the piece.
"Time Auscultations" by William Alves is up to the
xenharmonic in the piece.
"Time Auscultations" by William Alves is up to the
usual high standard of this fine composer's oeuvre:
in this case, samples of the internal motors of
robots are ingeniously used to create a just
intonation soundscape. Alves is one of the most
adroit composers at the forefront of the movement
to combine cutting-edge digital signal processing
techniques with classical just intonation tunings.
The result is a unique and splendidly musical blend
of the modern & the classical.
SIDE TWO:
"Paradigms Lost" by David B. Doty is his "fantasy
of what might have happened if psychedelic-era
rock bands had pursued their interests in the exotic,
free from the constraints imposed by the record
industry." To thse old ears, this composition sounds
like the best piece of music on the tape. It's a
stunning demonstation of how vividly musical just
like the best piece of music on the tape. It's a
stunning demonstation of how vividly musical just
intonation can be, while at the same time whipping
the listener through some truly crunchy JI
modulations & intervals.
Doty's intent is also a worthy one: we in the
Southern California Microtonal Group have also
produced a a subset of compositions which
in effect take up where the psychedelic rock
bands of the late 60s left off. This is a
musical direction utterly disdained by the
so-called "serious contemporary music"
theorists and critics (many of whom cannot
be taken seriously), but it's a musical
direction which promises endless musical
rewards to the adventurous microtonal
explorer...as Neil Haverstick has recently
pointed out.
I have in prior posts mentioned that David Doty
pointed out.
I have in prior posts mentioned that David Doty
is a superbly talented composer: this composition
offers yet further proof of that fact. "Paradigms
Lost" alone justifies spending the money on the JIN
tape.
"Analogs" by Glenn Frantz, uses a MIDIfied
Commodore 64 computer with a Yamaha TX81Z.
The composition is theoretically interesting since it
uses not a fixed scale, but instead a fluid set
of pitches separated by the 81/80. This kind
of "floating just intonation" would be impossible
with an impractically large acoustic ensemble,
but with a computer it becomes easy. Musically, this
piece is very effective, and works well. Another
historically fascinating example of early JI
composition: it's sobering to realize that with
the advent of the Commodore 64 and the TX81Z
and FB-01, for about 5 years in the mid-1980s
the advent of the Commodore 64 and the TX81Z
and FB-01, for about 5 years in the mid-1980s
even dirt-poor composers could get into digitally
sequenced computer-controlled xenharmonic
music for an investment of under 700 or 800
dollars U.S. This is no longer true: today, the
minimum cost of a retunable digital synthesizer
has climbed above $1500 and new computers
aren't cheap, either. (Of course, used IBM XTs
and TX81Zs can be bought second-hand for
next to nothing, but my point is that there are
no NEW synths or computers to fill the under-$1000-
for-the-whole-schmeer niche.) In my judgment,
this lack of dirt-cheap retunable synths is a
big gap in the market, and some synthesizer
company will make a bunch 'o bucks if they
can fill it. (Computer sound cards don't count,
since they're not portable stand-alone units.)
"Threnody" by Dudley Duncan is a positively
since they're not portable stand-alone units.)
"Threnody" by Dudley Duncan is a positively
19th-century-like essay in JI. Very nice piece,
and an early 1988 example of a composition
using Partch's 43-tone scale(!)
"Guitar Suite" by David Canright demonstrates
another talent of the multifacted math
instructor. Canright is not only a fine JI
theorist and a mathematically adept mind,
but a skilled guitar player & composer.
"Study #3" by Ralph David Hill is a virtuoso
example of something from nothing. This
piece was done on Hill's home-built Quadvox,
a synthesizer built literally from the
ground up out of raw chips and microcode
in the early 1980s. Almost anyone else
would be intimidated by the mere prospect
of such a task: Dave Hill not only completed
the project, but managed to make the results
of such a task: Dave Hill not only completed
the project, but managed to make the results
sound musical. (The liner notes are not
accurate for this piece: I know Dave HIll's
work intimately, and this composition was
clearly not done with his Cro-Magnon resynthesis
system.)
"Temple of Eyes" is a very skillful new-agey
JI composition using sampled and synthesized
sounds. Robert Rich, the composer, is also
an influential programmer: he wrote the JICalc
software which is used by so many xenharmonists
to retune their synths. An excellent piece of music.
"Zenharmonics 2.1 (excerpt) by Gino Robair,
proves less interesting. A bevy of guitars all
played with e-bows comes off as too much guitar
and too static a drone. Robair's percussion music
is much more interesting; it's a pity none of it
is included here.
is much more interesting; it's a pity none of it
is included here.
"Ulysses Departs From the Edge of the World" by
Harry Partch is the only recording I know of this
composition. Apparently it originally appeared
on a long-departed LP or CD called "New Music
For Trumpet" by Jack Logan. Kudos are due David
Doty and company for rescuing this fine recording
from oblivion.
--
Overall, this cassette is highly recommended. It's
available for ten dollars plus postage from the
Just Intonation Network, 535 Stevenson Street,
San Francisco CA 94103. WIth this tape, David
Doty has some an excellent job of selecting,
producing, and re-recording the music, and the
cassette sounds remarkably hi-fi throughout (some
of the tracks inevitably suffer from hiss due
the antique multi-track cassette medium on
of the tracks inevitably suffer from hiss due
the antique multi-track cassette medium on
which they were originally recorded).
The only suggestion for improvement I can make
is (perhaps) to issue a CD and run the more hissy
tracks through the Mark Dolson DNoise noise-
reduction shareware, or DigiDesign's vastly
more expensive but essentially identical de-doising
DSP software.
Other than that, this cassette is exemplary, and
a must-have for fans of microtonal music.
--mclaren
