Commerical for a Western

Here is my one composition for Chamber Orchestra.
http://anaphoria.com/westerncommercial.mp3 The recording is from 1986 and appeared on a concert i put together at the Japan American Theater for 18 three minute works. Since i had what i considered a more important show. The premiere of my 3 projector film Long Gunn but not Forgotten I though well 3 minutes is like an advertisement anyway so i decided to do one for this upcoming show. I enjoy the fact that i was able to use a chamber Orchestra to advertise a concert on my self-made instruments. The Narrator in John Callahan who also appeared as the Sheriff in the film. He did an amazing job even though he didn't have had a chance to rehearse with the Orchestra before hand. Don Crockett conducted.

Zephyros

Zephyros for solo meta-slendro vibraphone is one of my favorite pieces. Ini.Itu was kind enough to issue it on Vinyl as the title track of
Anaphoria: Footpaths and Trade Routes
which has been its sole place of availability. I sadly is approaching going out of print so I am providing an mp3.

The Pentatonic Family pt.2/expanded

Here is a paper where we return to look at another cycle of Pentatonics within a 12 tone context in order for others to apply to the scale and subsets of ones choice. It is better to start with part one if missed it here.
I have revised this from the other day.

The Nature of Music is as much Inner as Outer

I really become more and more interested in what human beings can do musically. It is an inner reality than comes not from a mere imitating of environmental nature, yet is nothing but an expression of nature itself that we carry and comes out all by itself in a way we still do not understand.

What comes out of humans is such a wider variety than any one person or culture could ever imagine. Look at the different ways people make music, each with its own development, than often is compensatory to how it is used in other cultures. It becomes extremely difficult to reduce music to universal qualities that are common to all. At best we can find some that apply to most, yet in particular, these can vary to a degree that is equally complex.

I prefer to pursuit and defend a path which i see more as going  deeper 'into' the human as opposed to only 'outside' of it.   What is this 'musical nature" of human beings that some cast  as "inferior' to nature as if it has some original sin that must be suppressed. There is something 'puritanical' here.Might this definition of nature be one that only gives it masculine traits and characters, a suppression of all  the hidden and truly mysterious workings of nature in places outside the microscope. In the meanwhile music comes out of human beings like breath.

There is much in nature which is beautiful and listenable, and needs to be preserved. This though is as true inwardly than outwardly. The nature we find in the outer world though does not develop although it can be destroyed as is going on world wide [we all know that]. The inner nature though is one that grows and changes in unexpected ways , albeit slowly at times, but this requires a nourishment, more often in it being given expression more than it imitating an outer world. When it imitates it is more often than not  inclined toward the imitation of other humans. Even the interest in the environment, might be to big extent, imitating what others humans are doing. Within us too are the plants and varied species that we might water, the ones that grow inside of us and seem to potentially grow without limit. What nature implanted in us, might be so that in a way she might hear herself in a way she can't hear otherwise.

Bali again

Some time back we went to a concert in Sydney of the Indonesian National Orchestra. The Orchestra is headed by the composer Franki Raden, who has taken on the almost impossible task of creating a music out of the diverse islands of Indonesia. I do think he has managed to do what  he has done without homogenizing the forces he is dealing with, and yes it is still a work in progress.

Indonesia i think is a brave country to try in general the combining of all these different islands into one nation. If the world did become one, hopefully not under the banking interest, but in the interest of more humanitarian cooperation, it might be a good testing ground. But at this concert they had a raffle and right before they picked i turned to my wife who had entered and said' i guess we are going to Bali again" and sure enough they called her name although she wasn't sure at first.

We met Franki Raden for the first time unrelated to this during intermission and found out about the festival he was putting together in Bali IMEX [Indonesian Music Expo] so we both felt it was some sign to go there at that time. As politics is what it is , there was pressure for the gov't sponsors to put on many acts they thought fit and it was probably the last night that best represented Raden's vision. There was a group from Sulawesi that performed and after they warmed up, one realized that one was dealing with ritual more than just music. It was over powering. Greg Schiemer composed a work for swinging i phones holding sustain pitches that seem to fit in an uncanny way and this group joined him and it had to be one of the greatest combination of opposite technologies i have seen.

Most of our time there was spent just outside Ubud in Sebali in the company of Gusti Ngurah Suaratana who lead us to ceremonies, some on the street,  and was responsible for having our marriage blessed in a ceremony and lead us to a remote rice field where he had built a small structure. While there, his wife appeared with coffee and pastries that surprised us that she even got there at the same time. Gusti spoke a little English and Japanese and much of our communication over many long hours involved gesture that really seem to work. He was an instant friend if not member of a family as he put it. He in turn was good friends with Kris, an artist and historical prince of Ubud, who partooked of our blessing in between his heavy schedule of mediating problems in the region, all without pay. He too was a greatly inspired person who had studied abroad in order to understand his own culture and had even lived with an aboriginal family for 6 months eating everything thing but the large worms which ws just beyond of what he might do.

From Kris we learned that there is a law that every rice farmer in Bali has a equal right and access to water and that there are people put in charge to see this is in fact what happens. Being in the single rice field we were in was already a lesson on just how complex this can be and still i cannot imagine how it was done, much less on an island wide level. Bali seemed more civilized than elsewhere.

Here is a recording next door to where Kris lives of some hocketing frogs in the rain.
http://anaphoria.com/froghockets.mp3

A Resonator Mystery

Over the years i have always been amazed by what we don't know , especially in an area where it seems we have advanced so far beyond, it would have be long figured out long ago.
 No such luck in many cases.
 While they are figuring out what they did wrong at CERN with their faster than light results, i have stumbled into something that should have long ago been dealt with.

While in the process of tuning up some instruments in a new tuning, i had some tubes that are to become resonators that i decided to play with a bit  on a set of reeds tuned to the same tuning. Terumi suggested playing with open resonators so i took the caps off and found i could augment the sound of a reed and use my hand to open and close to play with the sound. The problem was that the resonators were resonating a pitch a whole tone or more lower than what all the the theoretical measurements have been telling me.

 I checked my answers with others who concluded that what i had was in the the range of what they had. I asked on the reed organ list if anyone there had such a thing happen and one suggested that it was the cavity that held the reed that jointly made a lower resonator. This made total sense to me and assumed it was correct but i thought i could check it by trying it against the second set of reeds which has a much shallower cavity. the result was the same.
 One of the things i did to test was to play the pitch it should be along with the lower pitch.
 In all cases it is the lower pitch that sounded much louder.

It appears i am not the first to notice this. i got an message from Simon Buser,  a builder and Organist in Germany who said,

"The same system of reeds 2 semitones higher than the resonators I found in Organ Clarinets of Aeolian-Skinner. Seems to be the usual way to handle this phenomena: by experience, not by calculation, I suppose."

My own theory at the moments is that since they are suction reeds not blowing reeds that the suction lowers the air pressure. But still have to figure out a way to test this.

 Oh yes BTW with a vibraphone bar it works as expected.

Anyway one can have some musical fun with this as can be heard here. [Might take a minute to load]. The top pitch is the theoretical one and the lower is the one that works

http://anaphoria.com/organharmonics.mp3

An Akashic Torus

The title An Akashic Torus refers first to the Akashic records, that library found in the ether that contains all knowledge. The Torus is a donut shaped structure that somehow is a common representational mapping in our mind of many multi-dimensional patterns. Along with the intonation employed we have a looking back but not to some ‘Golden Age’ that never was, but as a door to view what been discarded as musical possibilities or even what have been spoiled.  The piece centers solely on pentatonics, an interest resurrected by my contact with Lou Harrison, who I envision as the present caretaker of pentatonic scales in the previously mentioned library. It is not unlike the room he had in his house of similar purpose.  Of much interest also is in the effect of long meters as a resistance to the short time thinking we all are subject to. Although the meter of this piece contracts or expands it remains centered on a meter of 101 beats long, making each bar about 55.5 seconds long. The striking of a Meru Bar most often marks this meter, but not always so I advise not counting.  The piece has only 11 bars to show yet it makes the piece exactly 1111 beats long.

For those interested and familiar with Moments of Symmetry patterns, here is also the final rhythmic breakdown of the piece based on secondary Moment of Symmetry patterns. The basic 101 was both subdivided by a 64 beat generator which was cycled around or another generator which resulted in 64 different subdivisions. from there the 101 pattern was both expanded  to a 138 beat pattern and contracted to both a 64 and 37 beat ones.

It was a quite difficult piece to write in that the Clarinis were limited to a range of a ninth and this coincided with only the lowest octave of the vibraphone. They also were only capable of playing diatonic scales of 7 notes each and two different ones were necessary for getting all 12 tones of the scale. I worried much about the whole concert sounding too high in pitch lacking bass instruments so this is one of the reasons i added the Meru bars. You need headphones to really hear it though. Care had to be taken also to cue the Pitches for the violin like Tahru as often the lines were melodically more than harmonically conceived making it a bit harder for any string player, much less one also being handed a new instrument.  Fortunately it was all recorded in the studio a few days later which should appear with the other fine works on the program which you can access the links from the youtube video.

"Prepared" Intonation as opposed to "Tempered" Intonation

     Maybe the most common way tuning is thought of is to enable a series of harmonies or scales to be performed in as many different ways or in related ways depending on quite a varieties of approaches. Intonation regardless of the ‘school’ has given both melody and harmony new options as well as different stresses and pull even in sometimes the most familiar of material.

     These explorations have lead to sometime unforeseen musical situations that result in acoustical phenomenon not sought for but compelling when it appears sometimes out of nowhere. More than a few have sought these events exclusively by means that can be as simple as close pitches creating beat and beat patterns, or proportional triads or larger units as well as difference tones. It we pursue this path and construct tunings to do so, might the term ‘tempering” not be the best term we might use.

I think what is happening in many of these cases in pursuit of both sound and noise is closer to what Cage described and did with the term “prepared” in the case of the piano .

 The prepared piano was changed so that specific notes would be changed into specific sounds. In the field of intonation this shift goes from the noun of a singular pitch to the verb of the interaction of two or more, by interval. Being tied to ‘interval’ instead of a single atom of sound allows each individual tone to act potentially in a variety of roles that might be unique in its relationship and situations to the whole matrix of others. This places an overarching "political " framework by the roles each plays within its structure. It becomes capable of personality as well as identity. This approach calls for more investigation along these specific lines as these goals and desired will lead to new forms to have them realized. While we have new melodies and harmonies, we also have new sounds and even new noises and it is these four elements that promises much to the modern sound alchemist even via just  the one parameter of tone.

Another 14 tone scale [from a 2-3-7-11-13 Dekany]

As a prelude let me say not to worry. I will tell you what a Dekany is , and yes somehow I have come up with quite a few 14 tone scales, in fact more than any other number.

The harmonics 2-3-7-11-13 as a set have raised some interest. George Secor and Margo Schulter, are just two important microtonal theorist who have seen interesting possibilities in them. While the former sees it as a bedrock for harmonic development and is interested in scales that can accommodate them as in this paper of his. The latter, Margo Schulter is interested in this set as the basis to explore her neo-renaissance/neo-gothic approach to music since these harmonics are the basis of the Persian scales of the time.

Margo had recently posed the question about how these harmonics might also be developed into scales that include the non-tonal centered harmonics structures of Erv Wilson's called Combination Product sets, or CPS for short. These structures provide a gateway into a somewhat 'atonal' or perhaps 'pantonal' environment while retaining relatively simple consonances. The interest is in adding to the language of this period before tonality would take such a strong hold.

The simplest CPS we can form of these is the 2 out of 5 Dekany. The Dekany is a 10 tone structure that takes the combination 2 out of 5 elements at a time and multiplies these together. [2*3, 2*7, 2*11, 2*13, 3*7, 3*11, 3*13, 7*11, 7*13, 11*13]. You can download the chart above or a larger one here to see how one can map it out on a lattice. Now while this give us a wonderful harmonic set, there is a great advantage in going one step further and trying to find what is called a Constant Structure. This is a structure where each times ratio occurs in such a scale, it will be have the same number of notes in between. [We find this property in the pentatonic scale on the black notes, in the diatonic and in the 12 tone scale for instance] Now this Dekany does not have this property on its own and the chart shows how I solved the problem and ended up with a 14 tone scale.

I preserved on the left half shows the steps it took to solve [in case one wishes to do so with any set that might interest one.]

First one arranges the main intervals from smallest to largest possible with the harmonics one is working with.  This coincides with the series one sees running down the right hand side in the left half of the chart.

While 14/13 were all one unit the 13/12  we can observe that one of the three occurrences  are two units to the other two being only one. Hence we need to add tones so that all the 13/12 are 2 units in size. This is designated with a circle with an arrow from side to side which is carried down and counted in determining the other intervals.

A rather odd thing happen though as when we reach down to 11/8, we can see that the 12 notes up to that point do form a constant structure,  but the 11/8 is only 4 units is much too small as the smaller 4/3 is 6 units. While one can have a bit of an overlap on range, we instead fix this oddity by adding two tones in the large gap to make it at least the same number of units as the 4/3. Since the idea was to have possible repeated tetrachords the pitches chosen to be added were ones that were a 3/2 above or below tones we had. There are other solutions one could pick.

Viggo Brun's Algorithm Applied to Rhythm and Long Meters

http://anaphoria.com/ViggoRhythm.pdf Here is a short paper about to be added to The Journal of Anaphorian Music theory on how Viggo Brun's Algorithm can be used to generate long meters or metric patterns. These produce different variations than the ones i have worked out with Horogram Rhythms found in that journal.

The Pentatonic Family pt. 1

This is a very elementary paper that i thought i would share.
It touches upon the use of Bi-level Moments of symmetry as well as chains with slight variations.
All is discussed in terms of an undefined 12 but the principle can be applied to any tuning. hope it is helpful. http://anaphoria.com/pentatonics.pdf

It is like a third world application of Xenakis sieve method. but then again we might prefer to apply complex ideas in simple ways than simple ideas to complex ones.

The Death of [blank] Music

It is not the death of new music, of contemporary music, of avant-garde music, of experimental music, of new music, of classical music, of rock music, of jazz music, of punk music, of free improv music, of indigenous music, of folk and traditional music, of electronic music, of conceptual music, of silent music, of professional music, of amateur music, of music on CDs or vinyl, of live music, or even anti-music, but it is the only the death of music that should concerns us. The healthy whole is made of many organs

Music and Evolution

I keep not posting cause i don't have extended things to say , sometime only a line of two.
please forgive. But people talk about all musical innovation as being evolutionary,yet if we are basing this on nature, possibly we might be stricter and point out in nature there are all types of variations produced that don't always result in a forward progression of the species.
Many of these are sterile, so what really constitutes what is evolutionary is the ability of something to produce fertile offspring as opposed to sterile hybrids. Let history define where musical evolution is or what might be like the parallel to Monsanto. What good is it to go somewhere if once you get there there is no where to go but the way one comes in. Perhaps there are more Cul-de-Sacs than ever before, but perhaps history knows them as the commonest of lots.

Dark Dissents at MOCA

http://www.moca.org/museum/event_calendar.php?m=4&day=10#10

I will be having a work premiered at this event of the above title in case you are in these environs.

'Dark Dissents' is for a retuned Hungarian Cymbolum played by Cory Beers
(It is quite unusual to have someone else perform my work)
Exploring the thresholds of where private dissents slowly transforms into public ones.

Our Rainy Season/Nuilagi

I am extremely happy to announce the release of my new CD.
The first in over 4 years and it marks my first since immigrating to Australia.
Our Rainy Season involved two Australia's finest improvisers, and Nuilagi, involved two of some of the finest i had worked with in the US.
I am honored to have it released on such a fine label as and/Oar's related label Either /Oar.
more info here
http://www.and-oar.org/pop_either_5.html

Bundanon again, with Ensemble Offspring

Terumi and I once again found ourselves at Bundanon. Our last time involved our participation in the Ten Trenches project and performance previously pictured on this blog here. This time we were here to lay the groundwork for just intonation works to be performed in Sept. by Ensemble Offspring, one of the leading New Music ensembles in Australia. Co- Director [w Claire Edwardes] Damien Ricketson and composer Amanda Cole will be the other two composers writing compositions with instruments the ensemble has commissioned. While we were there, Peter Garrett [former Arts Minister of Australia] stopped by as having a great interest in what happens there and Damien was able to entice him with our goings on while i accompanied him with the sounds of my vibraphone the ensemble will be using. [Photos by Terumi Narushima]

All the works will be based on a scale of mine i call Centaur.
which is a rare honor all its own. The instruments commissioned are 2 sets of 4 Clarini's [made by Linsey Pollack] to play subsets of the Centaur scale and a violin like instrument with 7 sympathetic strings called the Tarhui [made by Peter Biffin]. My 3 Octave Centaur Vibraphone will complete the tuned instruments. It is an exciting and wonderful opportunity to join with other talented composers exploring compositionally this newly created ensemble of instruments with its unique tuning.

Flying through the expanded Magic Squares.

Etienne Deleflie is a composer working at the University of Wollongong on compositions dealing with the perception and simulation of spatial orientation of sound. He originally asked for help in how to map Patch’s Scale onto a matrix that lead to a deeper and deeper joint exploration of some other intonational possibilities.


It quickly became apparent that he envisioned a just intonational matrix in which one could 'fly' through, as a space where nearby harmonies would have some relation to each other yet still retain a special identity in the overall field to aid in the sense of movement. This reawakened my own interest in parallel ideas of unifying space and pitch.


Those familiar with lambdomas [of which Partch’s diamond is an example] would recognize this as a logical choice, but these result with everything higher on one end. Thus the results are rather unbalanced and also lack a harmonic variety we sought for.


The situation instead seemed ripe for other types of intonational possibilities and I thought that some of the simpler recurrent sequences would work well.


So with a bit of experimenting I found that 'magic squares' placed in the middle provided good seeds for making different series running in four directions . Nearby tones would retain various difference tone reinforcements yet over ‘space’ one would move away or toward where one started harmonically in a significant yet varied way. Yet there was something musically appealing to having certain harmonics stand out and even be repeated yet then diverge in different directions from there.


After going into the anechoic chamber where Deleflie has his speakers set up and listening to some of the results, we found it warranted pursuing an actual installation with small speakers in a space where people can walk through. We are working toward this at the moment.


While this idea continues to develop further, this diagram shows some of the ways I am constructing my matrices. This one serves as a good illustration in that it includes more than one series embedded into it. [Click to enlarge.]

The numbers refer to harmonics (that in turn have to be multiplied to get them in the hearing range). First I started with a magic square made of numbers 4-12 that one can see in the outlined box in the near middle. From here I construct recurrent sequences for each direction of two varieties.

I illustrate.

Take a number, say 5, in the box and call this A with B and C being the numbers above it. Now if we create a sequence such as A + C = D we take 5 + 9 =14 which is the number above 9. Now if we move the sequence up we add 10 + 14 = 24 and we continue this pattern. Next the same formula is applied moving to the right where 5 + 7 = 12 and 12 + 12 = 24 etc. For the other two directions I used a different recurrent sequence. This one is A + B = D. So in this case we add 7 + 12 = 19 and 12 + 5 = 17 in the case of the bottom row moving left or in the case of moving down 9 +10 = 19 and 10 + 5 =15 etc. These two sequences I learned from Erv Wilson who uses them to create his Meta-Pelog and Meta-Slendro scales. He might be the first to have found them embedded in Pascal's Triangle or Meru Prastara, as it was known centuries earlier . His papers on this can be seen here.

You will notice that being a magic square the number 24 comes out being the sum of the row or columns in the box, and if one follows any of the lines in either direction where one has three 24s in a row you might notice we get simple harmonics of this 24. Quickly each quadrant deverges in its own unique way on either side of these rows. The corners become the highest notes with the center the lowest, which is a useful balanced arc. Yet it is possible to treat this whole series as a subharmonic series where the corners become the lowest and the center the highest.

Etienne has realized this using SuperCollider. The piece is now available here https://anaphoria.bandcamp.com/album/second-flight-over-an-island-interior

A Reassignment for Banaphshu

In response to those inquiries regarding the omission of Banaphshu’s name as a contributor here in the last month, we apologize that we delayed in order to enable her to speak for herself.

“It has been touching to read the inquiries as to my whereabouts from even people I have never met and it brings joy to my heart as I remember all the wonderful people I have come across through my work acting as a guide and consultant for first the Embassy and later this Austronesian Outpost.

I pray that many of you will find the opportunity to visit me in my new position as the director at RNC (Radio Nabu Congul) and I want to let you know those doors will be open ones.

With this new position comes access to the facilities that will enable me to pursue my own artistic endeavors and to develop much of the electronic music that has taken a peripheral or back seat since my first musical collaborations. I expect to become more active than ever before, and I am sure that my long time partner, Kraig Grady, will keep you informed of these developments as we remain committed supporters of each others’ work.

It was originally amusing to allow inadvertently our identities to become confused. Often our collaborations were of a magical nature where neither of us cared to remember who did what, so our merging identities were less about deception and more about artistry. For the record, our long and deep connection was of a spiritual, cerebral nature, not a physical one. We had little choice.

The last few years, however, have seen those collaborations become less and less frequent, as we have become more familiar with the territory each provided for the other. We both feel that we will always carry these experiences with us into our musics.

To Kraig and all the supporters of Anaphoria, I thank you with my heart and my soul. May you always be nourished by the gifts of the imaginous spirit!

Banaphshu
24th November 2010
Nabu Congul”

"Chopsticks" in the style of Charles Ives

From Richard Grayson's 32nd (final) Annual Occidental College Concert, March 31, 2001. Improvisation on a theme from the audience.
Yearly he would improvise on a theme and style given from the audience.

Bagobo Agung Ensemble, Philippines 1960's

Hammer Dulcimer at Serial Space (excerpt)

from Serial Space- Sydney July 19.2010. NowNow series. excerpt near end of solo performance performed on Hammer Dulcimer tuned to Meta Mavila- a recurrent sequence that resembles a tuning found among the Chopi of Mozambique.
Flamenco music has always been a music that has quite informed my directions on this instrument

Why Just Intonation?

A summary~

Why Just Intonation?

1. Just Intonation is based on the harmonics relations one finds in nature and is a natural product of the sounds we hear.

2. Just Intonation represents the most consonant intervals. It likewise can create great dissonances thereby extending the range of tension between the two.

3. Just Intonation is tunable by ear due to its acoustical qualities that are unambiguous in nature. This in turn gives one a palette of limitless emotional depth and flexibility.

4. Just Intonation is a modular system. . It is infinitely expandable in terms of intervals at one disposal. Just intonation scales are also ‘open’ scales. While they can form self-contained consistent structures, they are always capable of being augmented in many different ways. This though does not require having to change or discard the pitches one already has, the array of building blocks are the same.

5. Just Intonation allows perceivable structural possibilities that cannot be realized effectively any other way. While ambiguousness has it place in all the arts , It should be by choice.

6. One can have many different intonation systems and scales yet still have common tones, intervals and even scales common between them that can act as bridges. These easily can exist side by side. In a free world of any pitch at any time one can move from one system to another freely by common tone scales or chords.

7. As Just Intonation produces scales with unequal size intervals, this gives one the possibility of more different size intervals with fewer notes.
For example there are Just Intonation pentatonics that give one more different intervals than 12-tone equal temperament. As another example one particular 7 limit 12 tone scale harmonic known as Centaur will give one 50 different intervals within the octave.

8. Just Intonation allows for the possibility of each key or area of the tuning having its own unique flavor and quality.

The Shadow Theatre Of Anaphoria

From The Follies of Dr. Placebo

Directions

The Direction has been known for some time. There is little new to add to that.

What else can we be working toward if not total and direct freedom of expression- to convey or release whatever compels us, either personal or trans-personal, or both, by any and every means possible. Our territory is depth and the deeper the better.

In order to do this we have to keep our tools in place whether these be methods, systems, and yes processes. They provide little in themselves and yet often they are indispensable. Kandinsky was wise to point out that such paths quickly can make us its slaves. Such failures is all around us, usually in myopic segregated camps.

These tools are mere means that at their core enable a true fruition, a flow of energy from one moment to another. Can we think or express anything that is not somehow directly related to the previous? A work must preserve this by neither omitting too many steps in-between causing its disruption or stagnating it by the unessential. A focus on a ‘well made plan’ or ‘well made process” too often stop a work in its tracks.

We should liberate the concept of the idea as being based solely in the word, otherwise humans would have no necessity of anything beyond it. The ‘explanation’ of works and the forces behind it often eschew the true spirit that moves toward where it seeks. When words are used it only function might be nothing more than another element of that flow. Hence its methods and processes should be no more restrictive than the work itself. Formulas and common practice just will not do.

It is not that we will not have our “constants”, an element Pound always pointed out as being part of any work, and likewise ourselves as one also would be no different. We might accept our resonance to some and not to others, an aspect of our own antennae. The goal is to have as many open as possible.

An Aside.
It is not that History(ies) is capable of being resurrected but it is immortal as an active part of the fabric in the continuum of our present. More often than not when we find ourselves at an old intersection with the same old things on the corner, we have approached it from new directions than before. This is what is easily mislabled as “influence”.

New Research Reveals a Hidden Meaning in The Footpaths of Anaphoria’s Abdiz Valley

One of the most perplexing mysteries of the footpaths found in the most rugged terrain on the island has been the many branching tributaries it seems to take without explanation. These pathways, form an entangled array rarely more than a few meters away from each other that required extensive work to build even though it follows the landscape. Scholars have studied them for years sensing a meaning that has evaded them till now.
An ancient cryptographic text found in the area being studied at the Center Of Alphabetical Sequence has revealed the paths turns out to be a score to an ancient music in 6 part harmony sung while people walked long it in groups. The text preserves what appears to have been once the oral instructions memorized by those who walked and sang upon these paths. The text also reveals the story how the music appeared in a dream to a old man who knew it related to this uninhabited area of the valley. The fragment ends there. So the mystery is not completely solved for now. What does it sound like? Prof. Mij says we won’t know till they actually go there and try it out next month with his group of singers.

(Reposting from gamelan list) Wayan Lotring. This is a film made by Jacques Brunet

One of Bali's greatest composers

An example from Robert Lowell

The other day I happened to glance at a book of poetry by Robert Lowell, reading a collection of his poems entitled ‘Near the Ocean’. I was completely unfamiliar with his work except recognizing the cover from many times before. It was work the grabbed me instantly. ( I am sorry I could not find an online version) .
While I know more about his overall poetic practice now after researching him, at the time the form struck me. The majority of the lines were rhyming couplets, but exceptions appeared frequently. Sometimes these stretched the limits of rhyming while other times he made no effort to force the work into this mold.
Here was a good example of how an artist can be informed by a method or system or even an idea and not become a tool of the tools they choose. What the balance should be so we prevent being lead into some robotic existence or blind worship of an arbitrary. This seem a pathetic state for the arts to choose.
Should we pursue looking for the methods or a way to find our way without them. I prefer the latter. But if we do use them we should always being the one leading as opposed to being lead.

THE ACT OF SCALE FORMATION-Erv Wilson

THE ACT OF SCALE FORMATION ( Erv Wilson in a letter to Gary David from the 1960's)
The act of scale formation is inseparable from the other creative aspects of music formation. The human voice illustrates admirable how scale formation participates fully in the whole creative process of song. The scale is perhaps as unique to the song as are its rhythms and melodies. And like rhythm and melody, the scale neither precedes, nor follows the song, but progresses in the full flow of real time as a soft and sensuous and endlessly malleable expression of human consciousness.

Particularly in fixed-pitch instruments the role of scale tends to be diminished, if not entirely put aside. Even in a polyphonic keyboard instrument, whose ostensible goal is scale-making, the spontaneous, song-like scale is far from being achieved. In the design of a new instrument, one does well to recognize the technical limitations, and to compensate accordingly. (1) The fixed-tone needs to be bendable. (2) The fixed-pitch must have alternate inflections. One makes “knowledgeable guesses” as to what these will be, basing one’s judgment on past creative explorations. These are assigned to a Generalized Keyboard in an appropriately organized pattern. (3) One must have the facility for introducing, in performance, and in creative explorations, new pitches/inflections that may not have been anticipated when the “best-guess” tuning was assigned to the keyboard. Particularly as we “compose” we must be able to create our tunings, immediately from the console, as part of the same, if I may say, somewhat ritualized, creative act. To whatever level is optimally feasible, we should espouse creative tuning as part of the “live performance” (again, a ritual). The wall separating the “composer” from the “performer” should not be designed into the instrument.

The keyboard may be visualized as a Navajo loom upon which intricately lovely and endlessly variable scale patterns may be woven. A canvas. Arbitrary limitations to this variability must not be designed into the instrument. The keyboard is an art, and an interface, a crossroads and a bridge. The keyboard is a ship. In the tunable generalized keyboard we have the birth of a new art and the rebirth of an old art, as ancient as man. The keyboard must Breathe, poetically speaking, for it is the extension of a living process. The scale is a volatile genie that knows how utterly to transform its shape. Every effort must be made to accommodate this mercurial creature-of-the-psyche through the keyboard. The keyboard/console must animate the scale. While undoubtedly it is valid and admirable to study the scales of other peoples and other times, we are concerned primarily with the creative processes and the development and expression of our own arts. We see the keyboard in an attitude of creative anticipation, and to jealously guard against closed, limiting, non-living attitudes, and the great body of “tacit assumptions” and “forgone conclusions” (which, incidentally, we do not assume ourselves to be free from) which might hobble or render ineffectual those subtle intuitions of beauty.

Design philosophy, in a word, should be OPEN. Keep it general(ized), viable, versatile, changeable. Guard against the proverbial cul-de-sac, the one-track, the squirrel cages! My heavens!

The keyboard is a transient lens through which a cosmos of musical relations may be observed. Keep it volatile. Forgive the metaphor! Or interests are primarily “just” and in that regard the acoustic universe is seemingly endless.

" Iwabue " -Japanese native stone flute

Thanks to Yannick Dauby for sharing elsewhere-Mr Yokozawa kazuya playing " Iwabue " Japanese native stone flute in Silkroad Butokan 14, February,2010

Podcast: The Complete Creation Myths of Anaphoria

Banaphshu here presents for the first time available anywhere outside of Anaphoria the complete creation myths found on our island
Tales of Anaphoria/podcast

How all Anthems should be played

When Scelsi's concept of a pitch is applied to the patriotic

Flag no.17

Hall of Mirrors-Works of Ledhead-

Going here by the name Ledhead, former collaborator and voyager is some recent work called Hall of Mirrors
found on our staff notices page with the center of alphabetical sequencing.
one sample

EPITAPHS SHOULD NOT END
IN QUESTION MARKS

At 3:00 in the morning
You can face any direction
And it is still night.

Is that why Jamie said,
“Acid is a jungle gym
At 3:00 in the morning.”

All rights reserved, Ledhead 2010

The Butterfly Constellation

The people of Anaphoria are perplexed at how some places in the world see a hunter [Orion] where they have only seen a Butterfly [Marpessa].

This photo has been updated here
http://anaphoria.com/mintime.html

A family of 9 tone Scales with some 14 ones on the side.

We have to thank John Chalmers for his Tritriadic Scales. It causes us to keep focus on the material generated by the combination of tonic, dominant and subdominant and how wide those parameters can be extended. It seems to be an idea that has been in the air recently. Warren Burt used in an installation, which you can listen to a bit here 3 11-limit harmonic series fifths apart. Such a structure while embedded in a Partch diamond (harmonic hexads on 1/1, 3/2, and 9/8) seems to stand on its own with it own life. The piece I am working on now for solo vibraphone that I will be playing in Brisbane and in Helenburgh explores these relationships within 7 tone scales much in the way Indonesians will use pentatonic within their 7 tone pelog. I mention some ideas about this here in relation to the idea of tempering to accommodate these three scales.
It appears it a similar idea caught the interest of Steve Grainger who took a classic 7-limit Pentatonic and extended it likewise up and down. This he mailed to me.
I made a mistake right off and assumed it was not a “constant structure”, that is a scale that where each occurrence of a ratio is always subtended by the same number of steps. It is a quality that gives a good melodic flow that otherwise only has harmonic relationships holding it together. Having both is worthwhile to pursue.
But I moved ahead and found 2 solutions right off for 14 tone scales. It is an unusual number to have as a scale and I seem to have come up with quite a few over the years. I am not sure why. These are illustrated and one could pick out of either set of alternatives depending on what one might like.

There is an important feature here though of Grainger’s 9-tone scale that as far as I know has been overlooked. It appears that there is a whole family of pentatonic based on 3 fifths plus 2 notes in between the fourths that will all produce 9 tone constant structures. These tones have to be larger than a 9/8 but smaller than a 32/27, most of your smaller minor thirds.

This scale would have been of interest to Rod Poole and note sure if La Monte Young has toyed with the idea, since it develops in the direction of 3 and 7s. It is in that territory

The Grounds of The Future Embassy of Anaphoria Island

Pictures from Canberra on our recent trip to inspect the final grounds chosen for the future Embassy of Anaphoria Island and witness the hoisting of the flag~

Sand,Dust,Relics

C. Forster’s Musical Mathematics which I reviewed in my last post reminded me of how much subharmonic material is in the musical past from places as far removed as Greece to China. While I have been working for quite a few years with various recurrent sequences (of which the Fibonacci series is just one), this exploration has been almost exclusively in the harmonic direction.

Having brought back my Marion Prosynth from the US, I remembered what a good tool it was to try out a tuning as one can use the LFOs to trigger notes in different ways so one can place weights on keys which will bring them up and down at different times. I often will let something like this run for quite some period periodically moving as I pass by or not satisfied with what I am hearing. One of my favorite series is Wilson’s Meta-Meantone though I haven’t used it as much. The CD Beyond the Windows Perhaps among the Podcorn is the big exception. If one seeds it right one can have a triad using the ol’ 27/20 wolf with a third that beat equally giving it a more ‘consonant’ sound. Playing through a few recurrent sequences in their subharmonic version I found that indeed Meta-Meantone had much to offer.

So here is a mere sampling I call Sand, Dust, Relics. That eventually moves into the triad mentioned in its minor version.