Re: Even More Slash....

[Eric Williamson <erwill@suitandtieguy.com>]

On Feb 4, 2004, at 6:28 PM, David Beardsley wrote:
> Eric Williamson wrote:
>> but yes, one of my favourite realities of music in the year 2004 is 
>> that there is truly nothing new, as our musical opportunities are 
>> limited by the overtone series of western instruments.
> Care to elaborate on that statement? Why limited?

ah i forgot about the microtonal aspect, reminded by your sig.

i really should have clarified that with the word "diatonic" in between 
"our" and "musical".

i feel that diatonic music is limited by the integer-multiple overtone 
series. there are only so many ways to string 7 (or 12, if you're into 
tone rows and that sort of thing) notes together, and every time i try 
to write a melody, i'm reminded of that.

i personally am not interested in using non-diatonic-based tunings in 
my music, because i don't feel that an appropriate enough combination 
of interface, instrument, and price point exists yet to make me 
interested in it. i'm not a guitarist, i'm a keyboardist. when i think 
about Wendy's Alpha scale it makes my head spin.

an instrument i would really like to see that would get me into 
microtuning would be a digital Hammond organ clone where the digital 
tonewheels could be tuned to different scales. _That_ would get me 
excited. especially if it had a "stretch" knob so i could finally play 
an Hammond in proper tune with a piano!
---
Eric Williamson
www.suitandtieguy.com