Musica
Listening to, and making, musical vibrations has been a big part of my experience ever since I can remember.
It’s time for me to set down what it is that blisses me out about music, in case it resonates.
Incantation
Much of what I play on the keyboard is
incantation, bringing a state of mind, a state of being, a world, into being.
This world that comes into being is enchanted, incanted. It’s the world
alluded to in old fairy tales, an unspoiled world, a magical world of lush,
unbound nature.
There is a charmed life to be lived in the heart, which is pure nature. Bringing forth pure nature, with music, with state of mind, state of being, enchantment will be restored.
The Chills
What keeps me listening and playing is the
pleasurable payoff that occurs from time to time, a shiver that travels the
length of the spine, a lovely rush in the brain bringing tears of joy. Music
gives full voice to the heart, and brings us home. Music is a manifestation of
pure spiritual beauty. Whenever we’re overtaken by spiritual beauty, we
become like a struck gong, vibrating with energized spirit. Spiritual beauty
evokes music; music evokes spiritual beauty.
Harmoniousness
I’m not ashamed to indulge in making extremely harmonious music.
After all, the overtone series found in nature is the essence of harmony.
There’s something about pure or close to pure triads that’s
downright therapeutic. Tonality and harmony are perennial essentials. We need
not settle for anything less than what makes us feel whole. Auto-Tuned banality
can’t satisfy the deepest yearnings of the heart.
Letting Music Play
Itself
Every instrument, and every tuning system, has its
sweet spot, its forte. When improvising, I let the instrument and the tuning
system be in charge of the placement of pitches. The
composite waveform comes together on its own to musical life, spontaneously,
synergistically, organically, achieving maximum resonance and energy, with no score,
no composer, and no player.
Duende
Music in its most powerful state expresses life and death, the fact that
although all passes away, this moment is timeless, this moment is all there is,
this moment is all that is. The older I get, the more I’m drawn into the
music. What is music anyway if not vibrations of energy; what is life anyway if
not vibrations of energy. Music is life; life is music. The body of the
erstwhile composer decomposes; music never dies. There is no composer; music
composes itself.
The Silence
Rather than always trying to fill the silence with a flurry of notes, I let
the silence in, and let silence be as much the music as the sounds. Silence is
the source of all sound, all music. Without silence, there could be no sound,
there could be no music.
Music as Meditation
My habit lately has been to wake up very early in the morning, have coffee
and breakfast, and then sit down at the piano to play for as long as I can
before I must get ready to go to my day job. To have at least an hour to improvise, or to revisit old improvisations, at the piano is
therapeutic. I’m sitting up straight on the piano bench, and I’m at
maximum alertness. This is, in fact, the way I happen to meditate. I’m
not thinking of anything when I play. The playing is like paying attention to
breathing, or to a candle flame. A cat or two usually comes to visit, and I
have a chair set up next to the bench for these visitors.
The sounds emerge from silence, and fall back into silence. This is sonic meditation, exploration of being through exploration of sound. Traditional meditation is silence. What we bring to the world as a result of meditation is clarity and peace. I would also like to bring music to the world, to accompany the clarity and peace.
Using a tuning system that employs many acoustically pure intervals is appropriate for making music that pays tribute to clarity and peace, the qualities of pure awareness, of pure presence. States of being can be expressed musically. Pure being is pure music. Music, not words, can express the ineffable.
Playing Within
Limitations
It’s entirely possible to express oneself
fully in whatever musical context we happen to be, using whatever instrument or
tuning system is at hand. When the heart needs to sing, it will find a way.
Even 12-tone equal temperament can be used to express the heart’s inmost feelings.
The voice is enough; even without a physical voice, the heart has its own voice, and will find a way.
Kirtan
Even though I enjoy sitting down and improvising at the keyboard for hours,
what really delivers the goods is to chant and sing while playing a few chords.
My voice may be cracked and raspy, but the act of singing opens up the
floodgates of spirit; it doesn’t take much musical technique to do this.
That feeling, that cleansing, is overwhelming, the
beautiful pure spirit, bringing beauty and purification: that’s what music can do for us.
Heavenly Music
Recognize heaven’s presence, here and now, and pick up a handy harp
and play, and play, and play. Those brief moments when I can sit down at the
piano are heavenly.
When away from the piano, I’m no less in heaven. The handiest harp is the heart, peace and joy flowing symphonic. Music is felt, then heard in the mind’s ear, then vocalized, and then, if an instrument is handy, music is produced through it.
As heavenly music may be, it’s an expression of heaven, a state of pure being. Pure being is the purest music. Simple presence is nature’s music of the highest order. Feeling love for all life and expressing love for all life is the summum bonum, nature’s masterpiece.
Natural Perfection
Lately I’ve been keeping the digital piano in Werckmeister
III and indulging in its ravishing, colorful sonority; pedants can quibble
about its asymmetry all they want—it doesn’t change the fact that
it somehow, in spite of its technical imperfections, it sounds so right and so
beautiful. It’s a natural, human temperament, requiring only the human
ear and a few minutes to set up repeatably and
reliably. It’s a temperament that doesn’t require high-tech tuning
equipment or a lot of professional-level time to establish.
The Musical Spirit
In the midst of worldly distress, the simple presence of spirit is enough
to pause to celebrate, to rejoice. All things must pass and do pass, but spirit
remains spirit, ever-present, the life living through every form. Music is
prayer, spirit speaking with itself.
Chords
Ever since I can remember I have loved to hear and to make chords, any
chords. Chord progressions, no matter how simple, have always moved something
in me. Hearing great pieces of music well performed further deepened my love of
harmony, and of chords. The shameless tonality expressed in the works of
Giovanni Gabrieli and others still moves me to tears.
Now half a century later I’ve come to realize that my lifelong love of chords has found its voice in the harmonious unequal temperaments of centuries past, and for the moment there’s nothing I’d rather do than play in Werckmeister III temperament, the same one enjoyed by composers, musicians, and listeners for centuries. There’s a ravishing sonority to music played in the more harmonious temperament systems, and of all such systems Werckmeister III delivers an excellent mix of chords in a 12-tone tuning system. Harmoniousness in music used to be a given, used to be the norm, before the over-refined and inharmonious 12-tone equal temperament became the norm imposed upon the ears of players and listeners.
With the unequal, harmonious temperaments, we can again hear music the way it sounded in the ears of our ancestors. We can hear once again how beautiful, colorful, sonorous, evocative, and harmonious music can be.
Piano Forte
I have been having great fun playing an excellent and surprisingly
affordable digital piano, one that duplicates the sound and feel of an acoustic
piano to an astonishing extent. Now that I’ve placed this fine instrument
in a location with good acoustics its true colors are coming out. I’m
surprised to say that it plays best, overall, in 12-tone equal temperament, in
the ‘factory default’ settings. It sings like a Steinway concert
grand in its own way, and I roam the 88 keys with delight. I would play nonstop
if not for the calls of nature and the need to work at the day job.
The expressiveness of the piano’s touch is the secret of its sublimity; subtlety and soul are spoken through it.
A young lady in
Good Music
As I continue to improvise and experiment and explore the endless
combinations and possibilities a modest digital piano provides, my ears are the only reliable way to determine what sounds
good, what sounds right. I can only concur with Duke Ellington who used to say,
“If it sounds good, it IS good.“ For
instance, in spite of what many musicologists say about the horrid imperfections
of the Werckmeister III irregular temperament, it
sounds astonishingly GOOD when actually played. In spite of how horrible
12-tone equal temperament triads sound, it can be made to sing and sound
surprisingly good when played carefully to avoid the uglier intervals. Music is
a subtle art, one that requires lots of patience, practice, an open mind, and
the most exquisitely acute and careful listening.
Non Compos(er) Mentis
My preference for musicmaking is to improvise, to
take the instrument on hand and let it play itself. Rather than have someone
else play “my” compositions, I’d much rather have others find
their own instrument and improvise. This is my childhood musical training
coming to fruition: I was allowed to make any kind of noise on any instrument
in the house, and eventually my noises became more musical.
I would like, for example, to hear someone sit down at a piano that’s been set in a harmonious temperament such as Werckmeister III or Kirnberger III and just play whatever sounded right, letting the instrument and the tuning system guide the fingers to the keys that are the most synergistic. Let the instrument play itself—be an instrument of Nature rather than a ‘player’ or a ‘composer.’ In truth there is no player and no composer, just the universal essence of music—the spirit of the universe, the spirit of Nature.
Nature likes to sing for the sake of singing. Everyone can let Nature sing through them.
Playing For Fun
“If it ain’t fun, you ain’t doin’ it
right!” I wonder how many high-stakes professional musicians are having
fun playing—or if the fact of depending on music to make a living has
taken the fun out of music-making. Being cursed by a perfectionist
teacher—who forces young musicians to play perfectly, never mind whether
the music-making is ever fun for them—can also suck the fun out of music.
My parents left me alone to have fun making noises with the instruments around the house, the ukulele, the organ, the piano. I wanted to make the kind of music that felt good and sounded good.
For me, making music is its own reward, which is a good thing, because I’d hate to have to depend on it for a living wage and necessary medical benefits. That wouldn’t be fun. I’d also have to play music that people expected to hear, and that’s definitely no fun at all.
The most fun temperament I’ve found that’s available in my digital piano is Werckmeister III. Yes, it has a few of what effete musicologists call “crudities” but in spite of them it just…sounds…so…right. Its musicality is absolutely winning. I can’t stop playing, it’s just plain beautiful. And fun. And musical. And practical.
Temperament
Temperaments
Every tuning and temperament has its strengths and
weaknesses. The challenge is to take advantage of the strengths, and to avoid
the weaknesses. In the limited but beautiful just tunings, the pure intervals
are sounded for their own sake, and modulation is not sought. In meantone, harmoniousness prevails, and modulation is kept
within its bounds. In circulating temperaments, the tone color changes are made
according to the palette of each unique temperament. In equal temperament, modulatory freedom rather than harmoniousness is exploited,
taking advantage of its quintal Pythagorean nature.
Pure Intervals and
Proportional Beating
When a triad contains all pure intervals
there’s no beating, just beatless harmony. This
is how just intonation triads sound.
When a triad contains a pure interval the impure interval of the triad beats rhythmically. Irregular temperaments that contain many pure intervals, such as Werckmeister III or the Kirnberger temperaments, have many triads that beat rhythmically, which enhances the musicality of the triads.
When a triad contains all impure
intervals the beating is chaotic: this
is how the 12-tone equal temperament triad beats.
The speed of the beating of the thirds is not so important as the clarity of the overall beating of the triad. Having as many pure intervals as possible in the temperament, i.e., making it as much of a tuning of just intervals as possible and tempering as little as possible, enhances the overall clarity of that temperament.
Tunings and
Temperaments
Western music being as it is largely limited to 12 tones to the octave is an acoustic challenge. The laws of physics that govern music are what they are, and if we limit ourselves to 12 tones to the octave we must accept certain compromises and limitations in a 12-tone system, employing art as much as science when it comes to making music that does what music can do for us.
The kind of music I play on the keyboard depends on the temperament—each different temperament favors different intervals to varying degrees, and intervals, chords, and melodies arrange themselves according to what sounds best in a given temperament. Irregular temperaments favor triads; meantone favors triads and major thirds; Pythagorean favors perfect 4ths, 5ths and 2nds; 12-tone equal temperament favors perfect 4ths, 5ths, 2nds, is strongly pentatonic, with triads acceptable but more acceptable when complexified.
To have a keyboard that sharpens the listening skills of the player by providing several different temperaments enhances musicality. If not for the unequal temperaments, I would not appreciate equal temperament as much as I do now. It’s possible to make any compromise temperament sound as beautiful and expressive as possible in that particular temperament.
12TET
As a keyboard player it’s a blessing to have discovered for oneself the world of tunings and temperaments. For many years I thought the only way the twelve tones of the octave could--or should--be placed on fixed pitch keyboards was absolutely equally. The sound of equal temperament has been in my ears, and at my fingertips, upon the various pianos and organs I’ve played over a lifetime. Piano tuners tuned exclusively in 12-tone equal temperament (12TET); electric pianos and organs, and the early digital pianos and organs, only came with 12TET in their circuitry. 12TET was the standard for all instruments, even singers, to follow. The “Auto-Tune” fad in pop music takes 12TET to the extreme, electronically forcing the otherwise free-intoning human voice to fall into 12TET lockstep .
12TET will go its own way, and have its adherents, either out of musical ignorance, informed choice, or personal preference. I still play in 12TET once in a while just to remind myself why I depart from 12TET so readily.
Strengths of 12TET: Ease and smoothness of modulation, unlimited modulation in fact; consistency of sound and tone color (monochromatic); fairly good 2nds, 4ths, 5ths, and 7ths: 2nds, 4ths and 5ths, almost Pythagorean, which have a fairly good feeling of harmonic stability; familiarity of tone color—it’s how all pop, rock, jazz, and much classical music ‘sounds’; atonal works, jazz, and tone clusters exploit its strengths.
Weaknesses of 12TET: M3ds and m3ds very fast-beating, with a restless, nervous quality especially in the upper registers. Major and minor triads are bland, shrill, and acoustically chaotic. Only in the lower registers where beating of 3rds is somewhat slower can triads be made to be more tolerable.
I occasionally return to 12TET to explore ways of playing the piano in this temperament that exploit its characteristics to maximum advantage. The 2nds, 4ths, 5ths and 7ths are close to pure, and 12TET has a medieval flavor as it’s very close to Pythagorean overall. It’s a refined, perhaps overrefined, temperament, and its tonal blandness and sameness can be overcome by cunning combinations of pitches, so that it can become interesting and expressive in spite of itself. This perhaps is why jazz is 12TET-based, and why popular music uses 12TET as a vehicle for song lyrics—its versatility overcomes its intrinsic acoustic weaknesses. If tonality is fluid or nonexistent, 12TET can be quite useful, and beautiful in its overfamiliar way. If pure intervals and greater harmoniousness are not needed or wanted, 12TET is a workable compromise.
It’s challenging to improvise in 12TET to exploit its strengths and minimize its weaknesses. Music of strong tonality, using major and minor triads and classic cadences, sounds much better in meantone or irregular temperaments even though such music can be played in 12TET passably well. If the remote key signatures are seldom used, or used just in passing, the bulk of music in common key signatures sounds much, much better in meantone and irregular temperaments.
The modern acoustic piano and the well-made digital piano manages to make 12-TET sing, and in fact the piano may well be done the most justice when tempered skillfully in 12-TET, and played with a soulful touch.
Non-12TET Tunings and
Temperaments
Kirnberger III
With the advent of digital synthesis, each pitch in the octave can be individually adjusted away from 12TET so that the keyboard can become a microtonal instrument. Very inexpensive digital workstation keyboards can be had at the local consumer electronics superstores. Acoustic pianos, harpsichords and clavichords can be manually tuned and tempered as one wishes.
I am currently playing as my primary keyboard a digital piano which has several factory preset tunings and temperaments; of all these, I’ve found Kirnberger III in particular to be strikingly beautiful as well as a welcome musical challenge. There are many pure intervals and colorful microtones in the K3 system, from perfect major and minor 2nds, 4ths, and 5ths, to one pure M3rd, and close to pure m3rds; it’s a lovely integration of Pythagorean, meantone, and just intonation, with no keys unbearable, no ‘wolves.’ It’s a rainbow of sonic color, delightful to play upon and to hear.
Strengths of K3: Pure intervals; rainbow of key color; emotional ‘affekts’ in each key; rest and repose in CMaj and in all the pure intervals; exquisitely expressive; balanced, symmetrical, with strong C Maj. tonality with its pure M3d.
Weaknesses of K3: Four narrowed fifths are rather rough; pythagorean and near-pythagorean M3ds in keys beyond 3 accidentals, an acquired taste not necessarily acceptable to everyone; transposing is problematic—tonality is so strong the choice of key is crucial to optimum musicality of the performance, to find compatible tone colors and “affects” within a given key signature.
K3 is about as far as one can get from 12TET and still have complete freedom of modulation in all key signatures. It’s extreme, and extremely beautiful, a barely tamed feral beast of great innate beauty and nobility. K3 is a strong, sonorous sonic world unto itself, having a solid acoustic foundation, constructed with interlocking pure intervals and only three tempered notes required, every other pitch in pure intervallic relationship with at least one other tone, if not the whole system of tuned pure intervals. It is exquisitely expressive, and wonderfully harmonious.
Werckmeister III
With the deft shifting of E and B the uncompromising tonality of Kirnberger III is transformed into the effervescent utility
of Werckmeister III. Modulation is much easier, and
there is much more musical flexibility. There is still much key color, and many
pure and nearly pure intervals, although fewer than in K3. Many triads beat
proportionally, and give music an overall lively, sparkling propulsiveness.
Strengths of W3: Modulatory flexibility; key color; overall sparkling musicality.
Weaknesses of W3: Four rather rough narrowed fifths; rather fast-beating G-B; less balanced tonality than K3, it being split between C and on F; loss of pure M3d C-E. F#Maj triad is pure Pythagorean, a bit harsher than K3.
Lately W3 has become one of my favorite temperaments, a delightful alternative to K3 when I want to play with a bit more modulatory flexibility. If my digital piano were capable of Young temperament I might prefer it over W3. There’s just enough harmoniousness in W3 to heal ears too long subjected to the sour instability of 12TET triads.
There is a balance and symmetry to W3, and it’s structurally unique. Major triad cadences F-C, G-D, A-E are absolutely matched, and F-G-A/C-D-E major triads gradually rise in brilliance. The test that matters is its musicality, its expressiveness, its inherent attractiveness—in this test of real-world music W3 passes with exquisite flying key colors. It has sufficient modulatory flexibility to be usable for playing with other instruments, even if they’re tuned in 12TET. W3, and all well-tempered systems generally, provide a satisfying, solid musical foundation along with key color and harmoniousness.