[Harp-L] Musicology [long and only harp at end]

Robb Bingham <robbingham@xxxxxxxxx> · Fri, 8 Oct 2004 06:55:22 -0700 (PDT)

Here?s the first sentence of the question that started
this thread:
===============
[Oliver asked] 

<Hi, a somewhat academic question for the musicians on
this list who might also be history buffs>:

Well, that?s me, and I offered up one of my favorite
books; ~Temperament~ by S. Isacoff. Oliver went on:

========================
<Does anyone know where I could find information on
the history of music fundamentals (for lack of a
better term):

1) when were the letters A-G assigned to the scale? Or
the French
Do-re-mi? Who came up with that?
2) how did we end up with 12 notes in a chromatic
scale, and not say 10 (decimal base) or 16 (a power of
2 base)?
3) why is the major scale 7 notes and not 6 or 8?
4) why are those seven notes spaced as
1-1-1/2-1-1-1-1/2?
5) when and how was the standard C note chosen?
6) has anyone created music on a decimal or
hexadecimal scale? What does it sound like?
7) what is the oldest written sheet of music found?
7) many other questions that answers to the above
would create :)

I suspect many of these don't have definite answers,
but there's probably books/web sites on this stuff,
written for laypeople. I did a search on musicology,
historical musicology, but it doesn't seem those are
the right terms.

Oliver>

====================================

I responded with simply the name of the book. Pat
Missin promptly replied:

<... is full of bias, serious omissions and historical
inaccuracy.

He then added a url for a Village Voice article by
Kyle Gann [Pat admits, Gann is anything but unbiased
or accurate, but the article lists no actual errors or
inaccuracies etc. Instead it reveals Gann?s very
obvious and continuous agenda to make statements
about: ~The USA being worse than the USSR~, Hopi and
any Native American music?s ~implied microscales~
[undeveloped] being superior and more legitimate than
traditional~, ~women have greater courage as
composers~, and that ~Marx has the answers to modern
civilization~, ~Custer had it coming~ etc etc, onto
many many things that many students, chatroom scholars
and wealthy New Yorkers believe are fact]. Bottomline:
Gann didn?t like the book either- which is fine- but
he cited no actual errors or bias or omissions, so I
asked Pat for his examples. We went back and forth,
and, in the end, he gave some more reason why he
didn?t like the book [fine and good], but he never
substantiated his claims that the book was flawed by
it?s bias or oversights. He went so far [early on] as
to suggest that:

Fewer!? Partch has less errors!?!? Partch, the guy who
was famous for a total rejection of all Western
Civilization and it?s scales??? Partch who rejected
all ~traditional instruments~ and instead put shoes in
trumpets and bricks in pianos? Partch who invented
scales for dog barks and human belches!?!? Partch is
the one who might help fledgling musicians who want to
know about the history of the major scale and sheet
music? That Partch? He has less errors and omissions
and is more credible than Isacoff??? The guy who
Isacoff went out of his way not to denigrate and
devoted several pages to [though Partch is more famous
for refusing any position of responsibility and who
believed that the ~truth of Just Intonation has been
hidden~ by a conspiracy] . The guy who?s contribution
is a scale that includes eel farts and 43 TONES !?
Where do you BEGIN to site errors when you believe
that proper intonation has 43 tones and Pacabel and
Mozart were big ninnys. Partch believes [see PBS!
Article as they also deify him for his iconoclastic
and maverick heroism]: 

http://musicmavericks.publicradio.org/features/essay_justintonation.html
, 

-where Partch says such things as ~Americans have been
trained to hear Indian, Asian music wrong because of
our equal temperament pre-conceptions~. Yeah. Sounds
great, but can you listen to anything by Mozart while
reading Partch and still take him seriously?? 

Sorry. I detect an agenda that goes beyond music and
into the over-intellectualized [yet without being
thought all the way through. Ah, the academic paradox]
halls of wide-eyed stuffiness. Intentional or
otherwise.

And so we come to the natural and overdue death of
this thread. Here is what the original questioner
concluded:

<The book ~Temperament~ by Stuart Isacoff was said to
"read like a novel",,, [he then reprints Pat?s links
to the Gann negative article and says:]

>>> keep in mind Pat Missin's caution on
accuracy etc.>>>

A tragic conclusion. Caution, in itself, is always
warranted. But in this case it is a kind of
censorship. Those earnestly looking to learn about
music history were left with the impression that the
SCHOLARLY [investigative] BOOK is suspect- but the
FROM-THE-HIP, EAT-THE-RICH EXPERIMENTAL [!~I've
discovered the hidden truth~] Partch book [with
literally NO borders or accountability] is safe to
trust. 

Still no one has pointed out any inaccuracies in
Isacoff?s book - nor are there any ~errors~  [any more
than any ongoing scholarly work: Is saying Dinosaurs
had feathers an ~error~, or a current state of the
ongoing investigation?]. Even Gann [~Classsical Music
was Born Dead~, ~Modernism For Modernisms Sake~],
ineffectual sniveler that he is, only speculated that
Isacoffs take on Bach?s take on Temperament wasn?t
right- which is what research is supposed to do-
speculate about those who came before, and build on
what they left us. Not destroy it and ignore it and
malign it. 

I speak German. I know that there is a whole chatroom
devoted to talking about if Bach meant ~A Nicely Tuned
Piano~ or ~A Piano With Equal Temperament~. It is
largely a misunderstanding.

But, again, we are confusing ~what we like~ with what
is ~accurate/unbiased~. Like what you want, but if you
dismiss something as bogus [biased, false, inaccurate]
because you don?t like it [or heard it?s not liked in
some crowds] than you?re losing the quest for
objectivity. 

I don?t accuse Pat of any of this. In my Dada days I
too thought a moustache on Mona Lisa was somehow
advancing the art world. Now I?m kinda glad someone
thought to put some plexi-glass up. Carrying pictures
of Chairman Mao, and all that.

Robb

PS: For those actually thinking about any of this: The
Mistake that Partch and others make is that THEY have
seen an error in ET that they can correct by, for
instance, a 43 tone scale. The ~truth~ is that there
are infinite tones. Bach and Beethoven [Hohner and
Hering] knew this. Pythagoras and Ptolemy knew this.
Yo mama knew this.

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