|
the creative person shows himself naked, and the more vigorous
his creative act, the more naked he appears - sometimes totally
vulnerable - yet always invulnerable in the sense of his own integrity
...... this thing began with truth, and truth does exist...
for some hundreds of years, the truth of just intonation has been
hidden - one could almost say maliciously ... because truth always
threatens the ruling hierarchy - or, they think so... nor does
the spiritual corporeal nature of man fair any better... we are reduced
to specialties... a theatre of dialog without music for example... and a
concert of music, without drama... basic mutilations of ancient
concept... if there is a prophetic or magic quality in the musical work,
its essence does not lie in words... its much more inclined toward an
unexplainable being than toward formulas...
just intonation is any system of tuning in which all of the intervals
can be represented by ratios of whole numbers with a strongly-implied
preference for the smallest numbers compatible with a given musical
purpose - unfortunately this definition while accurate doesn't convey
much to those who aren't already familiar with the art and science of
tuning - the aesthetic experience of just intervals and chords however
is unmistakable the simple-ratio intervals upon which just
intonation is based are the fundamental constituents of melody and
harmony - they are what the human auditory system recognizes as consonance
if it ever has the opportunity to
hear them in a musical context - the significance of whole-number ratios
has been recognized by musicians around the world for at least 5000
years just intonation is not a particular scale nor is it tied to
any particular musical style - it is rather a set of principles which
can be used to create a virtually infinite variety of intervals scales
and chords which are applicable to any style of tonal music (or even, if
you wish to atonal styles) - just intonation is not however simply a
tool for improving the consonance of existing musics; ultimately, it is
a method for understanding and navigating through the boundless reaches
of the pitch continuum—a method that transcends the musical practices of
any particular culture just intonation has depth and breadth - its
fundamental principles are relatively simple but its ramifications are
vast - at present just intonation remains largely unexplored - a few
pioneering composers and theorists have sketched in some of its most
striking features but the map still contains many blank spaces where
the adventuresome composer many venture in hopes of discovering new
musical treasures in light of its numerous virtues why isn't just
intonation currently in general use - like so many of our peculiar
customs it is largely an accident of history - during the 16th 17th
and 18th centuries when western harmonic music and keyboard instruments
were co-evolving instrument technologies were inadequate to the task of
developing affordable playable instruments that could accommodate the
intricacies of just intonation - as a result various compromises or
temperaments were attempted - twelve-tone equal temperament was
ultimately adopted because it provided the greatest facility for
transposition and modulation with the smallest number of tones and
because it made all of the intervals of a given type equally out of
tune thus avoiding the contrast between in-tune and out-of-tune
intervals that characterized some earlier temperaments equal
temperament was not adopted because it sounded better (it didn't then
and it still doesn't despite 150 years of cultural conditioning) or
because composers and theorists were unaware of just intonation - the
adoption of twelve-tone equal temperament was strictly a matter of
expediency - equal temperament allowed eighteenth- and nineteenth-century
composers to explore increasingly complex harmonies and abstruse
modulations but this benefit was short-lived - by the beginning of this
century all of the meaningful harmonic combinations in the
equally-tempered scale had been thoroughly explored and exploited and
many composers believed that consonance tonality and even pitch had
been exhausted as organizing principles - what was really exhausted was
merely the limited resources of the tempered scale - by substituting 12
equally-spaced tones for a universe of subtle intervallic relationships
the composers and theorists of the 18th and 19th centuries effectively
painted western music into a corner from which it has not yet succeeded
in extricating itself fortunately a few visionary composers
rediscovered the source of truly viable new musical resources - these
farsighted musicians recognized that in the acoustically pure intervals
of just intonation and in the diverse traditions of world music were to
be found sufficient material to fruitfully occupy generations of
composers - unfortunately until recently composing and performing
sophisticated music in just intonation presented such difficulties that
only the most dedicated enthusiasts were likely to invest the required
time and effort - however due to the
recent appearance of affordable electronic instruments with programmable
tuning capabilities it is now possible for almost any musician to
explore just intonation without first making a major commitment -
the technical barriers having been largely removed - the only
thing lacking for a widespread growth in the use of just intonation is
an increased awareness of intonational principles and their musical
applications on the part of our more adventuresome musicians
|