Re: [Harp-L] musicology - much longer than planned and potentially very uninteresting

[Pat Missin <pat@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Robb wrote:
> 
>>RB: I asked for ANY example of
>> >bias or errors. He, thus far, has declined to supply
>> >any.
>>
>>PM: Yes - for several reasons.
>>
>>>>>> 3 - and most importantly, I don't have a copy of
>>the book in front of  me at the moment.
>
>But you had enough info to STATE as fact that it had
>grievous omissions and errors???

Yes (although the adjective "grievous" is yours, not mine). When I had
a copy of the book in front of me, I read it thoroughly. However,
without a copy of it to hand, I am not really in any position to give
you a page by page list of verifiable errors and omissions, such as
you requested. Besides, as this is not really directly connected with
the harmonica, even if had the book in front of me and the time to do
that, I don't really think that harp-l is the place to do it. I did
feel however, that a note of caution to your enthusiastic endorsement
from someone with at least a little background knowledge of the
subject was not inappropriate. I still feel that way.

>Not personal [it's an honor to discuss rationally like
>this actually. Thanks]. Just going back to original
>point. A blanket condemnation with no evidence sited.

Well, OK -  if you will permit me some vague off-the-top-of-my-head
criticisms:

I felt the whole thing had a bias towards keyboard instruments. Not
surprising given his background as a pianist, but the fretted strings
were as important to the development of 12TET as were keyboard
instruments. Even the organ, once the dominant instrument of European
art music theory, is given little mention. How about telling us why
organs in 12TET sound so bad?

I thought his comparisons with the visual arts were somewhat vague and
poorly supported. About as convincing as high school essay.

Rather than being upset, as you suggested, by his lack of coverage of
20th century musicians who work outside of 12TET (you think I'm
bothered that he didn't include Laurie Andersen?? - to me that is a
point in Isacoff's favour!), I was more disappointed with his
treatment of stuff from prior to the age of12TET, such as his
extremely cursory (and somewhat dismissive) coverage of the various
meantone temperaments and in particular his glossing over of the
various well temperaments (one of which is much more likely to have
been used by Bach than the 12TET he is so often said to have used).
His chronology of the various tunings in use before 12TET also seemed
a bit confused, as I recall. It is important to remember that such
people on your "greats" list as Brahms, Bach and Chopin, to say
nothing of Byrd, Mozart and Scarlatti, were not simply making do with
unequal temperaments because that's all that was available prior to
the introduction of 12TET, they were writing music that exploited the
features of those tunings. Isacoff seems to dismiss the various
unequal temperament as merely being stepping stones on the path to the
Final Supreme Temperament.

Having said that, I do think that as one of the 20ths century's most
vocal opponents of temperament and the biggest influence on the
alternative tuning field, Harry Partch did deserve more than the
amazingly brief mention he received. IIRC, Berthold Brecht was given
more coverage! On the plus side, I was pleased to see that Terry Riley
at least got a namecheck.

I didn't care for his portrayal of the opponents of Equal Temperament
as subborn old stick-in-the-muds with religious objections to the new
tuning, in much the same way that I don't care for his subsequent
description of the critics of his book as "the Tuning Taliban".
Perhaps it is unfair of me to drag that into a criticism of his book,
but there you go. 

Then there were the various small errors - getting the wrong year for
Handel's death seems to stick in my head as an example. Not exactly
indicative of meticulous research.

My biggest complaint is probably the lack of technical detail. I know
that a book filled with mathematics is unlikely to make it to the top
of any best-seller list, but we are talking about something that bases
itself around a logarithmic value, the twelfth root of two, to be
precise. To me, that makes at least a token amount of mathematics a
necessary ingredient. If you are going to talk about commas, skhismas,
dieses and the like, how about some sort of measurement of them? How
out of tune is "a little out of tune"? At the very least, a few tables
showing the actual differences between various temperaments would have
been useful. How even a brief explanation of beating and how a tuner
actually sets the temperament by diverging from pure intervals?  And
you can discuss temperaments with such minimal usage of cents and
hertz is quite beyond me. 

The previous best-selling book on this topic is probably JM Barbour's
"Tuning and Temperament". It is every bit as biased as Isacoff's, but
at least he throws in some objective measurements. Isacoff instead
seemed to want to tell entertain yarns about colourful characters.
Nothing wrong with that, but according to the title, this is supposed
to be a book about temperament.

There you go. That's all from memory of a book I read a couple of
years ago. If I have remembered incorrectly, then I apologise both to
you and to Mr Isacoff.

>No can do. I loved the book. You said it was bogus.

I have never in my entire life ever described anything as "bogus".

I said it was biased and had both errors and omissions. I will happily
concede that it is a good read. Likewise, "Amadeus" is a great movie,
I just don't consider it to be a particularly unbiased or accurate
biography of Mozart.

>That there's a chatroom out there that dislikes it
>doesn't surprise me- but that doesn't exactly document
>your charge.

The "chatroom" as you call it, was born at the music department of
Mills College and has seen contributions from some serious
heavyweights of the tuning world. It's a little different to, say, the
David Hasselhoff Fan Club Chatroom.

>> If you really want a detailed list of grievances
>with the book, you
>> could search the tuning list archives. Here is a
>good starting point:
>
>I do know the grievances of chatgroup types [ain't it
>the same on all of them? I like the Popper analogy]
>But I don't know of any scholars or critics who said
>it had SERIOUS ~errors, bias or ommisions~.>

Off the top of my head, amongst those who criticised this book on the
tuning list are:

Kyle Gann  - author of numerous works on musicology, Peabody Award
winner, Professor of Music at Bard College, with a string of academic
credentials from such places as Bucknell, Columbia and the Art
Institute of Chicago.

John Reinhardt - founder of the American Festival of Microtonal Music
(off which Stuart Isacoff is a board member, BTW).

Joe Monzo - author of various tuning related books and software, along
with one of best tuning related sites on the Internet.

Ed Foote - professional piano technician, expert on historical
keyboard temperaments and responsible for a couple of very well
received CDs piano pieces played in the tunings for which they were
originally written.

Everyone is entitled to an opinion, but to me their opinions carry a
little more weight on this subject than Charlie Rose. Your mileage may
vary.

>http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/tuning/message/35560
>
>Thanks again,

You're welcome. Now for the benefit of any of my customers that might
be reading, I am now going to spend some time _doing_ some tuning,
rather than writing about tuning.

 -- Pat.