You are emphasizing that equal temperament creates a consistent world of sepia fudge that is especially optimal for the wandering story-telling of Mahler, but it also creates a mode of listening where there is a big 'distance' between me and the music. It becomes like a figurative painting with very rough brushwork where the painting is putting me on a far distance to get the optimal grip of it and see what the picture is. If I listen too close to ET, I find it false and I can't hear what the sweeping gestures (Terry Riley: Western music is fast because it's not in tune) are representing. So Just Intonation, because it is exact, invites to a close listening and intimacy with the physical material, just as you write. Beautifully.
The bit that caught me was Pre-Socratics / Plato transition in Heidegger--the big Fall from a prior state of some kind of purity. It's as though objects demonstrated no nothingness before that point in time.
You are emphasizing that equal temperament creates a consistent world of sepia fudge that is especially optimal for the wandering story-telling of Mahler, but it also creates a mode of listening where there is a big 'distance' between me and the music. It becomes like a figurative painting with very rough brushwork where the painting is putting me on a far distance to get the optimal grip of it and see what the picture is.
ReplyDeleteIf I listen too close to ET, I find it false and I can't hear what the sweeping gestures (Terry Riley: Western music is fast because it's not in tune) are representing.
So Just Intonation, because it is exact, invites to a close listening and intimacy with the physical material, just as you write.
Beautifully.
The bit that caught me was Pre-Socratics / Plato transition in Heidegger--the big Fall from a prior state of some kind of purity. It's as though objects demonstrated no nothingness before that point in time.
ReplyDelete