Re: how much do you care about your music being in strict equal temperment keys?

["RICK WALKER" <looppool@cruzio.com>]

Dear Margaret,

I've been following this thread avidly (thanks for starting it)
and wanted to chime in:

Lately,  I've been studying a book, trying to teach myself the
basic Arabic Maqams (the scales that are most analagous to our
Western Modal approach but with more than 12 tones per octave)

There are examples in the excellent book that I'm working through and it's
attendant CDS  of listening to a pitch; the same pitch flattened half a 
step 
and the
same pitch flattened a quarter tone lower.

I'm trying to play these scales on Oud, Fretless Bass, Duduk,Bansuri 
Flute, 
Pocket Trumpet and Voice
every day and it's been a real challenge (and really fun too).

At first some of the quarter tones were challenging to my ear but the more 
I've
learned to hear them (and find them on my fretless string instruments,  or 
bend them
on my trumpet, duduk, bansuri or voice) the more used to it I am getting.

This has gotten to the point where some of these scales sound bad to my 
ears 
if they only
use the 12 tones of tempered Western Classical music.

I guess my point is that hearing is frequently contextual and sometimes it 
takes work or at least inadvertent exposure to
a particular kind of music before we can 'hear' it.       I know this is 
true of Gamelan for me as it sounded incredibly
exotic and 'weird' to my ears when I first encountered it and now, it 
sounds 
completely normal.

I remember the first time I heard Coltrane's "My Favorite Things".
I must have been about 12 years old and my father was driving the long 
drive 
back from Carmel to San Jose
when the local Carmel Jazz station played the whole thing (which was quite 
a 
long radio track for it's day).

At the end of it,  I asked my dad,    "Hey Dad,   why do you like this 
music.?"

He turned around (we were in the backseat)  and said with fatherly wisdom,
"Maybe a better question is:  Why DON'T you like this music."

And I replied,  "It has too many notes and it gives me a headache to 
listen 
to all of them."

He just laughed, gently at that and nodded his head.

I laugh, too (and feel sad as well as he passed away last month) at that 
memory because now that I am playing Avant Garde and Experimental Music 
Festivals regularly,   Coltrane's most 'outside' music ("Ascencion, with 
two 
disparate quartets playing at once and
completely freely)  it sounds really 'inside' to me.        "My Favorite 
Things"  sounds like pop music to me by contrast.
I can't even hear it being 'too much' for my ears any more.  I've grown.

Of course there will be 'Achey Breaky Heart'  fans in the world who won't 
ever get your music, Margaret,
but I wouldn't worry about that at all...........................what you 
do 
is beautiful and fully worthy of being considered
with the world's best musical traditions.