----- Original Message -----
From: Ed Foote
Jeff writes:
>>There is no color in a 14 cent 3rd, there are beats that we hear when 2 frequencies that are a certain distance apart are out of phase with one another.
Hmmm, ok, then by the logic of your original post, you must hear a 14 cent third as out of tune? So you must hear a properly tuned ET as totally out of tune? Or has the brain been convinced that 14 cents is "in tune"? If so, then where does it stop, at 10 cents, 19 cents, or is 14 cents the only size that is "in tune"? Brainwashing is a pretty strong word, but it seems it would apply here...
In my original post, I wrote "Where some hear varying degrees of "color", I hear varying degrees of out-of-tune because I haven't been brainwashed to hear it as "color".
Properly tuned ET, then, in theory at least, should not have varying degress of out-of-tuneness. The out-of-tuneness should be evenly distributed. Yes, each key will still have different characters because the rates of the faster beating intervals are still different. But it won't prevent you from playing in any key because something is so far out of tune. Today, when we teach singers from the art song books, you need to be able to play the same songs in the bass-baritone key, as well as the tenor, mezzo, and soprano. You need to be able to accompany a saxophone, clarinet, flute, trumpet, etc., all in their own individual keys without throwing key "color" into the mix. The string quartet needs to be able to play in tune with the piano and it not sound like the piano hasn't been tuned (which was the reaction I've gotten).
I ask, because "color" in the literal sense is simply a specific wavelength of light. This is a vibration, albeit a very fast one, that gives rise to a sensation, (optically). The combination of different wavelengths, (frequencies), gives the various "colors" that our eyes see.
The vibration of strings follow the same sensory behavior. We recognize a fifth and we recognize the color green,both of which are a combination of two frequencies ( 3/2 and yellow and blue ). When we combine these frequencies in various ratios, we not only have various intervals, but we can also affect the resulting sensation. There are many shades of green,red, blue, yellow, orange, lavender, etc. that have been used by artists throughout history to achieve their particular emotional response. Some are incredibly vivid,(Van Gogh), some are very subdued, (Monet, Rothko). Science has also determined that various colors shape our emotional states in consistent patterns of response.
There are many sizes of thirds that have been used throughout history to create the vivid effects that some of us refer to as "color". For some, this has no meaning, but to quote M. Mcluhan "The medium is the message". This means that the form of a medium embeds itself in the message, creating a symbiotic relationship by which the medium influences how the message is perceived. "
Mcluhan also stated, and I have seen to be true, that "meaning is the product of a message being received, it is not a unique property of the message, itself".
Science has also determined that various levels of consonance shape our emotional states in consistent patterns of response ie, the unsettled result of hearing a tritone or the sedative effect of pure fifths in Gregorian chant. The concept of WT is concerned with very nuanced shades of color, some will not be able to get beyond comparing it to what they know, others will embrace the expressive range and get more meaning from it. This translates into a more powerful emotional response for those that do embrace it.
So, I submit that the difference in tempering is a difference in medium, and there are those for whom this has no meaning. It is amusing that some people will perceive others who do extract meaning from the variety of color as being brainwashed, when from my perspective, the reverse is true.
Regards,
Ed Foote RPT
And yet, what I've heard pianists call "color" is completely related to tonal variation. Perhaps less or more stretch can also be interpreted as tonal color, because they'll also confuse bad unisons with poor tone. But the tonal color they're usually referring to is the palate of tonal change that can be made by changes in their performing technique - within the given fixed tuning. But varying degrees of out-of-tuneness being referred to as color requires someone having to stretch the limits of nomenclature, as you have just done, and teach others that what you are hearing is not out of tune intervals, but "color".
Jeff
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut.php/attachments/20100426/1a82e858/attachment.htm>
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC