ellen@ucla-cs.UUCP (03/21/85)
[i second that emotion.....] (1) [before i get into the subject] yeah, do listen to Harry Partch. to the best of my knowledge his music is being taught in San Diege, CA by a close associate of his (name now forgotten). Harry designed his own instruments as well as his own tuning systems, based lyrics on graffiti, and was generally a pioneer of 20th century music. i've been listening to a CD recording by a Spanish group best known for mediaeval music (lead by Paniagua) of ANCIENT GREEK music (basically fragments) - reminded me of Partch's stuff. (and nothing like contemporary Greek music - well, maybe one fragment sounded related, and another sounded Roumanian) (2) Indonesian music is not microtonal, as far as i know. i've performed Javanese, Sundanese (on three different types of Sundanese gamelans) Balinese (on three different types of Balinese gamelans). tuning is not like Western tuning, but can be approximated, since pitch/ relationship between pitches/ intervals are RELATIVE, not absolute as in Western - and anyway, that absolute is different in America & Europe. there are several basic tunings - 7 tone, 5 tone, & 4 tone. and there are variations on the 5 tone tuning...7 tone is old & rare; 5 tone systems are most common; the 4 tone system is actually based on one of the 5 tone system)(now, i also forget, there may be a 6 tone version in Javanese) they are not necessarily the same from island to island - Sumatran music, using the serunai, is much closer to what i think of as microtonal (BTW, the serunai is a reed wind instrument known from eastern Europe to Japan, under a variety of names, one of which is zurna, and believed to have originated in Persia, from whence it spread in many directions through conquest & trade. it is common in eastern European folk music, Indian music, Chinese music, & Japanese court music, among many others) rough equivalent to a common Balinese scale : C E F G B the other reason the tunings may seem microtonal is that in Bali, intruments occur in pairs, a male & a female. the two are not tuned to exactly the same pitch, intentionally, so that there is an aural shimmer to the sound. the female is the lower pitched of the two. in gongs, the female is the biggest, deepest, most important of them (usually there are more than two gongs - at least 3). this is not true of Javanese music. another possible explanation for odd sounds is that the bamboo resonators beneath the bronze keys of most instruments are quite fragile in American climates and crack, causing changes in pitch which would not occur in tropical Indonesia. (3) i have been taught that some Middle Eastern tuning systems are microtonal. try to find some classical music from Egypt, Persia, Arabic countries (may not be as easy as it sounds (did it sound easy?) because so much of what is sold from these areas in the States have lurid belly- dance pictures on the covers - the music inside may be anything from from junk done on cheap electric pianos & organs to truly fine music done by respectable musicians - you just can't judge by the cover.)