17-tone concert
danstearns
Mark Kleinhaut
danstearns wrote:
> http://www.archive.org/details/seventeenTPP_02
Dan, I tried listening to this but it made my head hurt and then I
threw up.
danstearns
http://www.myspace.com/danstearns
danstearns
my piece starts at the 41 minute mark .
pmfan57
Wow. That sounds horrible to me! But I turned it off before I threw
up, saving a good barf bag for later use.
David J. Littleboy
"pmfan57" <jwra...@aol.com> wrote:
> danstearns wrote:
>> hmmm......and i thought it was one of my more "normalish" pieces!
>>
>> http://www.myspace.com/danstearns
>>
>> Mark Kleinhaut wrote:
>> > danstearns wrote:
>> > > http://www.archive.org/details/seventeenTPP_02
>> >
>> > Dan, I tried listening to this but it made my head hurt and then I
>> > threw up.
>
> up, saving a good barf bag for later use.
Now, guys. Stop being nasty. That's not nice.
(I do have to admit, though, that the urge to write something similar is
nearly irresistible.)
David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan
danstearns
the front door...I'm beginning to feel like Ives in a field of pansies!
But seriously, a project like this takes a lot of work on a lot of
people's part to bring to fruition, and it's an attempt to sincerely
take a stab at pushing the horizons open a bit too new vistas. Now
whether somebody likes it or not, or thinks it's worth a damn or not,
is their prerogative/opinion, and i DO appreciate anybody actually
taking the time to listen, I really do. But if a piece like Cirrus and
Pileus is actually so offensive to someone, perhaps next time they're
giving lip service to some new harmonies and this or that accepted
artist's innovation (et al), they might pause one millisecond to check
their own endeavors in this direction and try to remember that most of
the innovations we accept and gossip about so easily now were almost
uniformly despised and ignored at their inception.
http://www.myspace.com/danstearns
floreth
Pileus reminds me of Hugo Wolf--charming yet disturbing.
I remember Markku Henneken telling me of a guitarist who was
experimenting with, I think, 15 frets per octave. I'm curious, why 17
tones?
danstearns wrote:
> http://www.archive.org/details/seventeenTPP_02
Newbie Brad
danstearns wrote:
> http://www.archive.org/details/seventeenTPP_02
Listened to it for the first time this morning. I think it's brilliant.
Newbie Brad
pmfan57
danstearns wrote:
> ha, okay boys, fair enough, but just remember who let smooth jazz in
> the front door...I'm beginning to feel like Ives in a field of pansies!
> But seriously, a project like this takes a lot of work on a lot of
> people's part to bring to fruition, and it's an attempt to sincerely
> take a stab at pushing the horizons open a bit too new vistas. Now
> whether somebody likes it or not, or thinks it's worth a damn or not,
> is their prerogative/opinion, and i DO appreciate anybody actually
> taking the time to listen, I really do. But if a piece like Cirrus and
> Pileus is actually so offensive to someone, perhaps next time they're
> giving lip service to some new harmonies and this or that accepted
> artist's innovation (et al), they might pause one millisecond to check
> their own endeavors in this direction and try to remember that most of
> the innovations we accept and gossip about so easily now were almost
> uniformly despised and ignored at their inception.
>
Are you saying we should take our 17tet medicine like men?
Not offensive, by the way. Just awful sounding to me. I'm not
offended in any way. It was like a really bad dream.
I was listening to some early Cecil Taylor this morning on WKCR in NYC
and he's all over the place, but it's a regular piano and it sounded so
"of this planet" this morning after having heard the 17tet "stuff"
yesterday.
Paul
On 10/6/06 12:11 AM, in article
1160107878.5...@h48g2000cwc.googlegroups.com, "pmfan57"
<jwra...@aol.com> wrote:
I think you guys are teasing Dan, but you forgot the little emoticons. Was
that piece really worse for you than listening eg to opera? On those rare
ocasions when I listen to opera music I'm usually bugged by the fact that
the vibrato is so pronounced (especially for sopranos) that the pitches are
ambiguous, but I understand that it is a matter of my ears not being used to
it. I suppose if I listened to 17 tone music for a few days I'd start to
hear it better and appreciate it. Of course, I'd have to go through the same
process next time Dan posts a 18 tone piece, then a 19 tone piece, etc.....
:)
Paul K
pmfan57
Paul wrote:
> >
> I think you guys are teasing Dan, but you forgot the little emoticons. Was
> that piece really worse for you than listening eg to opera? On those rare
> ocasions when I listen to opera music I'm usually bugged by the fact that
> the vibrato is so pronounced (especially for sopranos) that the pitches are
> ambiguous, but I understand that it is a matter of my ears not being used to
> it. I suppose if I listened to 17 tone music for a few days I'd start to
> hear it better and appreciate it. Of course, I'd have to go through the same
> process next time Dan posts a 18 tone piece, then a 19 tone piece, etc.....
> :)
>
> Paul K
If you listened to 17tet piano music "for a few days" you'd be beyond
help/repair. Like in that Star Trek episode in which they left the guy
in the room strapped in the chair with that spinning light and awful
noise. Arrggggghhh!
pmfan57
danstearns wrote:
> http://www.archive.org/details/seventeenTPP_02
I will say that your stuff is the best, and not just becuase you're
here. Singing 17tet sounds much less grating than piano. That first
piece (track 1) is absolutely horrid sounding to me, though.
Piano is such a 12tet instrument, whereas singing has always been
somewhat microtonal, especially in various non-western musics.
oasysco
Yes, I agree, but we're better than that, David :)-
Greg
oasysco
> http://www.archive.org/details/seventeenTPP_02
Dan,
I listened to some of seventeenTPP_02_64kb.m3u. Now with stringed
instruments, you get microtonal stuff by going fretless, right?
How does that happen on a piano? The piano sounds slightly out of tune,
but not really, if you know what I mean. Are the strings tuned
differently on the piano for this type of music?
Thanks,
Greg
paul
Mark Kleinhaut wrote:
>
> Dan, I tried listening to this but it made my head hurt and then I
> threw up.
>
Mark Kleinhaut wrote:
>absolutely NOBODY is immune from this. Everyone seems to have
>something bad to say about nearly any and all who are not the perfect
>musician/artist (nothing exlusive to guitarists). What is it about us
>that makes us so critical and so disrespectful of the uniqueness and
>exquisite variety that each artist brings (or could bring) to the table
>from their lifetime of love and devotion to music? My theory is this
>stems from deep seated feelings of inadequacy, impotence and a
>pervasive dispair over winding up in the great dustbin of human
>wannabeism. Anyone have another theory?
--paul
tim.f...@gmail.com
> hmmm......and i thought it was one of my more "normalish" pieces!
Dan, I read the description of how the pianos were tuned and was
intrigued. So I listened to it thinking "Oh man, this is gonna hurt but
I can always turn it off". I was amazed at how painless it was. Yes,
that sounds like damning with faint praise but I was expecting it to be
completely unlistenable discordant cacophony. But my mind/ears adapted
very quickly and it was really just music after a while. I listened to
the entire concert.
Does the 17-tone scale "line up" particularly well with 12-tone? I can
understand why 24-tone Eastern music doesn't sound completely alien
because all the Western intervals are still there. Is that the case
with 17-tone as well? Is there some tuning that would be guaranteed to
sound "all wrong"? Like, I'm guessing, 11- or 13- tone?
I'm not going to lie and say that I loved it all but it was definitely
an enlightening experience and I'm interested to explore more.
danstearns
having something more to do with Pythagorean than it does with say
meantone. Because 17, with its extra wide fifths and thirds, is kind of
a "hyper Pythagorean", and is also the next cutoff point in the chain
of 3/2s after 12. But it's not a particularly restive tuning ,or one so
well suited to tertian harmonies. That said, i think it's a great
introductory micro tuning in the sense that its arrangement of sharps
and flats lines up so nicely for both conventional sight-reading and a
VERY alien sounding world of its own as well.....familiar yet strange,
that's how i see/hear it.
thanks,daniel
http://www.myspace.com/danstearns
danstearns
Sean
I kind of like it. It's sort of spooky. I also liked that there was
laughter in the background after the real banging crashing bit.
It could be a good film score. A challenge for an animator, perhaps.
Still, I don't think I'll listen to it all in one sitting.
--
Always be sincere, but never be serious.
Allan Watts
Sean
> I kind of like it. I don't want to go there myself, however. Cirrus and
> Pileus reminds me of Hugo Wolf--charming yet disturbing.
Cirrus and Pileus is my favorite one so far. The ragtime and the
martian vocal are very interesting.
>
> I remember Markku Henneken telling me of a guitarist who was
> experimenting with, I think, 15 frets per octave. I'm curious, why 17
> tones?
>
> danstearns wrote:
>> http://www.archive.org/details/seventeenTPP_02
Sonic Deviant
Anthony Stearns, there is an extreme amount of musical snobbery and
condescension going on here, jazz brethren. Though I love jazz, I have
a strong disdain for its elitism; there's even sub-elitism within the
genre, as jazz horn players typically look down on guitar players (you
know I'm right guitarists).
Music is just sound as expression, so it seems really silly and
childish to tell another talented musician, guitarist, and composer
that his music makes you physically ill. If you don't like it, don't
listen--but be big enough to at least admit that you might be listening
with jaded, bigoted ears.
Here's an appropriate quote from early 20th century composer, Maurion
Bauer (who spoke highly of the jazz idiom, by the way):
"The untutored listener responds to obvious rhythms (a foot-listener),
the banality of which annoys the trained musician who seeks his
satisfaction in melodic and harmonic complexities...sounds which were
painful, when once accepted and organized by the brain, may become
pleasurable."
BTW, I've seen Dan's music featured in just about every US guitar
magazine I know of since the late '80s and early '90s, but I've never
seen any of you guys in there. I wonder why that is.
Great jazz guitar players are a dime-a-dozen (there's one or two in
every town), because they all use the same jazz licks and tricks (like
the tritone sub, bebop scale, and all that stuff). Folks like Dan are
rare; thank God we have them to mix things up a little bit and keep us
on our toes, or we would all wallow in musical cannibalism from now
until the end of time.
I can admit I like jazz and jazz guitar (and many other forms of music
as well), but I also know not to let myself become a musical snob about
any form of sound art. That's really ridiculous.
Devianocus sonariae (Shane Hendricks)
http://myspace.com/sonicdeviant
pmfan57
Lighten up. Condescension never entered into it.
Dan is great, and a big boxing fan too, which make him even cooler. I
like a lot of Dan's stuff on his web site, and I even like his 17tet
stuff from this concert (at least the singing part). The music I
didn't like with the first track, and solo 17tet piano in general. I
can withstand it with strings and vocals a lot more.
NO ONE here that I know of looks down or has a condescending attitude
to any of this stuff. This is serious music composition. Some just
don't like the way it sounds and were jokingly saying so.
Dan knows all of us, and I think we all understood he would take it the
right way, like when a friend takes you to the Chinese restaurant and
tries to introduce you to the "stinky tofu" or other exotic dish. You
might jokingly say something like, "ugh, get me a barf bag" That's not
condescending. Just because you like burgers doesn't mean you look
down on more complex foods that you might not like.
I doubt I will ever be able to listen to piano tuned this way for any
sustained period of time. It almost physically hurts me to listen to
it. But I don't look down upon a serious guy like Dan or the other
composers.
Kid Kool
wrote:
>
>Being a musician and composer myself (and my point was tell you guys to
>lighten up--because sometimes jazz cats can take themselves way too
>seriously, no?), when you're serious about your craft and someone makes
>a comment that listening to your work makes them want to puke, that
>kind of commentary can really hurt, even if you manage to laugh it off
>as a joke among friends.
>
Dan's stuff is consistently interesting and challenging. I didn't go
for the 17 tet stuff, but it's not like I gave it a lot of time. Jokes
about saving barf bags are reminscent of Britney fans talking about
jazz or 'smooth jazz' types who talk about mainstream wanking.
Ornette said that there's no bad music, and I think Ornette's hip
enough to know.
Hey Dan - tell 'em to kiss yer keester!
Mark Kleinhaut
danstearns wrote:
> ha, okay boys, fair enough, but just remember who let smooth jazz in
> the front door...I'm beginning to feel like Ives in a field of pansies!
> But seriously, a project like this takes a lot of work on a lot of
> people's part to bring to fruition, and it's an attempt to sincerely
> take a stab at pushing the horizons open a bit too new vistas. Now
> whether somebody likes it or not, or thinks it's worth a damn or not,
> is their prerogative/opinion, and i DO appreciate anybody actually
> taking the time to listen, I really do. But if a piece like Cirrus and
> Pileus is actually so offensive to someone, perhaps next time they're
> giving lip service to some new harmonies and this or that accepted
> artist's innovation (et al), they might pause one millisecond to check
> their own endeavors in this direction and try to remember that most of
> the innovations we accept and gossip about so easily now were almost
> uniformly despised and ignored at their inception.
>
Hi Dan, I never said anything other than describe my physical reaction
to the music, which for all I know is exactly what the composer and
performers intended I feel. It may have come accross as condescending,
but I don't believe I stated anything that was subjective- merely
reporting the effects of my listening experience. BTW- I didn't
actually hear YOUR piece as I only got through the early part of the
opening pianos piece, so I will try and go back and find your section.
It's not available as a separate clip, is it?
danstearns
http://youtube.com/watch?v=pY4UwgwV4RY
or here for the audio:
http://www.myspace.com/danstearns
thanks, dan
pmfan57
I wasn't talking about your piece either, BTW. It was the first piano
piece. Your's is pretty cool with that neat vocal. I just don't like
piano tuned like that. Funny because I love ancient keyboard music
with its non 12tet tunings. Listen to the David Moroney's complete
keyboard works of William Byrd to hear those delicious tunings.
danstearns
acclimation....I shudder to think how many things i never cared
for--even actively disliked--on a first exposure that I later came to
better understand or even see as an indispensable part of what I truly
like. 17 is a little rough and "active", but it's also quite beautiful
if you take the time to write it that way--remember ,there are people
who cringe at the "activeness" of 12 in comparison to Just Intonation.
In any case, I think good music should transcend most of its
particulars , and I personally think Cirrus and Pileus is one of my
better songs ,so and I'm quite happy with it and its tuning.
http://www.myspace.com/danstearns
pmfan57
Well 17tet is WAY far away from what people are used to hearing. I
grant you that 12tet sounds out of tune to musicians of almost any but
the most recent western cultures. But it's an approximation/compromise
of what a more pythagorian tuning would be. But I love Krel music,
composed millions of years ago in Altair IV, so go figure.
danstearns
edi...@rcn.com
danstearns wrote:
> http://www.archive.org/details/seventeenTPP_02
Ineresting.....its one thing to get the pianos to work in this tuning,
but how did you get the singer to do it. Its not easy to hear this so
it should be even more difficult to sing this.
That being said, i am always interested in new sounds ( I recently
heard about Georgian music where the primary interval is the fifth
instead of the octave) and I agree that we can all get too hung up
playing what we know