Ivor Darreg 3612 Polk Avenue San Diego CA 92104 (619) 284-7075

Saturday 5 October 1990

MICROTONES &

MEGABUCKS

On the evening of 11 September 1990, Johnny Reinhard phoned Ivor Darreg from New York City. This was to describe the planned Tenth Anniversary Microtonal Concerts and Symposia Event taking place in June 1991--9 months later.

He went into thorough detail. Long list of names of people going to perform or Lecture or attend -- more names of those who might come.

Highly Organized and Planned with many restrictions. It soon became evident that this was too uptight for me. That Event will be for much more formal people.

Conventional musical instruments mostly. Tightly scheduled. Reinhard's publications indicate a bias toward theoretical writings and 18th- and 19th-century European ensembles and concert-halls. So this was perfectly consistent with what I had read of his monographs and pamphlets and the issues of PITCH, a microtonal journal.

He spent considerable time--more than I would ever expect in a long-distance call from New York to San Diego--on the plans to have three composers' respective works for two pianos tuned a quartertone apart, performed. Also a chance that it might be possible to include a fourth composer, the late Mildred Couper of Santa Barbara, who wrote two such compositions in the 1930's and they were published in "New Music Editions" but the sheet music is now extremely hard to find.

Fifty years gone by and I never heard them.

I have been writing for nearly fifty years on new possibilities in music. Indeed I first learned about the possibility of just intonation and of non-twelve temperaments sixty years ago! I took up the cello in 1931 to be able to play pitches and intervals not in the standard twelve-tone tempered scale.

I have written many paragraphs in various places about quartertones and how to perform them and why the piano is not suitable for quartertones, and why two pianos tuned a quartertone apart is not a good way to experience quartertone melody and harmony.

All I have to do now is make more xeroxes of this, that, and the other such writing.

During the last decade, more and more synthesizers and samplers and the like have become capable of playing quartertones with one single keyboard by one single player. The use of two pianos has become more expensive as these new keyboards have gotten cheaper. Go out and compare prices yourself--you do NOT have to believe me or take my word for it.

Really complicated quartertone music could be done with the new device called a Sequencer, available in many makes and models.

Early in 1990 I had an opportunity never possible before: to improvise in 22 different scales one right after the other, and have this digitally recorded and later edited. 24-tone was one of these. I had not sent Johnny Reinhard that tape before he called me' so he had only my word that this had been done already. He is not to blame for not appreciating its tremendous importance, because he didn't have a copy yet.

The same equipment can play in more scales than anyone could use! One keyboard. Not a new kind of keyboard either. Same configuration as the 5-octave standard organ manual. (The alibi has too often been used' that new scales MUST wait for new keyboards.) No need to tune it by ear; it Is all done with computer software.

Since I did not need two performers on the two pianos, no need to write down what I was going to play.

Just go right ahead and improvise. I knew the recording could be erased in whole or part if I flubbed, but no such bad luck. It went quite well.

Brian McLaren showed up a while later with the 22 scales each assigned appropriate timbres. And any loose ends or glitches had been cleaned up by computer.

We sent out a few copies of the recording to test the attitude. Way beyond my expectations--nothing so enthusiastic before in all my life. Just lately another idea popped into my head: a new title for this affair which had been called BEYOND THE XENHARMONIC FRONTIER. Since the hearers' reactions had been so favorable, and all the scales tried out worked, I thought of a new title: ALL SYSTEMS GO!

Now back to those two pianos set off from each other. That's an onerous tuning job, even with modern electronic tuning aids. Piano timbre in modern instruments is not suitable ofor the new quartertone intervals. The pianos of Mozart's day with a thinner tone could have done better with quartertones. And harpsichords better yet.

The synthesizer today has many timbres to change to; the piano only one. But the tape mentioned above was in 22 different scales' not just quartertones! To play those 22 different tunings with pianos would require--hold your breath!--39 pianos. The calculations on another sheet. And all 22 scales would then be in one timbre. You can't retune pianos 22 ways without ruining them. Tuning-pins would be loose and the frame severely strained. So a pair of pianos, or beyond 24, a trio, in EACH SCALE. Two or THREE players. At a concert, impossible to retune pianos anyhow. Where are you going to put thirty-nine pianos and their benches and leave room to walk around them and have any room for the audience?

If I had had to write down twenty-two pieces in twenty-two different scales, I would have needed at least 16, if not 22 new notations to write the pieces in. (If the performers were familiar with Julian Carrillo's number system where each pitch class has a number, that would be one system, but the numbers would then have 22 meanings which is no fun at all, for composer or for performer.)

Now I was able to do one scale after another, twenty-two within the space of 3-1/2 hours: only having to pause while the synthesizer retuned itself and sometimes another trial timbre was chosen. Could any performers, however expert, manage to read those pieces in 22 conflicting and confusing notations without a mistake? Doesn't that answer the Unspoken Question: why haven't microtonal scales taken off before and set the world on fire?

Some scales, such as 13 or 16, are very hard to name the notes in. 22 has suffered from this notation problem--actually it sounds better than 24 in many cases. But the music teacher and the theorist want to know: What Are these 22 notes called? If I had stopped to figure out what the notes in all those scales should have been called, I would have stopped dead in my tracks: just like the centipede that was asked "Which leg comes after which?"

Even at this age, I still can't understand why some people think notation more important than the sounds it stands for!

Actually, there are too many notations for just one scale already. Quite a number of ways of writing the common twelve tones; at least a dozen quartertone notations in use, some of which use the same sign with two different values. Easley Blackwood invented a formidable arsenal of twelve different notations for his twelve preludes in 13- through 24-tone. And many extra names for some of these notes in his scales.

With electronic keyboards and computers and sequencers we can evade and avoid and sidestep all those dreadful problems of notation. Welcome to the 1990's. Let bygones be bygones. Listen to my tapes, then do likewise, now that you can.

Those Megabucks for Microtones? Well if you tried to duplicate what is on my recordings# using pianos and performers and concert-halls and rehearsals and notes and staves, and piano tuners and piano movers and assistants, it would cost nearly a million. The New Way is Cheaper! As well as better.

ESTIMATE

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Saturday 5 October 1990

HOW MANY PIANOS WOULD BE REQUIRED TO PERFORM IVOR DARREG'S TWENTY-TWO PIECES IN TWENTY-TWO DIFFERENT EQUAL TEMPERAMENTS, NINE THROUGH THIRTY-ONE TONES PER OCTAVE, OMITTING THE ORDINARY TWELVE-TONE TEMPERAMENT ?

For the 9- through 15-tone pieces inclusive, the pianos for the double number of tones could be used, and that will save 9 pianos from the grand total. E. G., the 18-tone pianos could play the 9-tone piece.

Assume used upright pianos in good condition. ----------Cost at least $50,000.00.

Figure rental on that, cartage, adjustments in addition.

At least 100 hours of tuning for the concert. More like 300 hours total tuning because of months of rehearsals and then the restoration to 12-tone afterwards.

The tuning expenses would be staggering!

TO WRITE OUT WHAT HAS ALREADY BEEN RECORDED OF THE SUITE ALL SYSTEMS GO ------

At least a year.

HOW MANY NEW NOTATIONS WOULD BE REQUIRED? At least sixteen new notations unless players would be willing to accept Julian Carrillo's numbering system. But if they did, there would be twenty-two different meanings for those numbers!

HOW MANY HOURS IN HOW MANY SESSIONS, REHEARSAL AND PRACTICE TIME?

About 1000 square feet of floor space required for 39 pianos. Remember, this is true for rehearsing and practice as well as the concert. Back-and-forth cartage.

This piano version of the suite would have no spontaneity, and no timbre variety. That is a tragic sacrifice.

Ivor Darreg

--------3612 Polk Avenue

-------------------San Diego, California 92104