Western Harmony

[WeAreAs1 at aol.com]

In a message dated 11/29/00 6:24:13 AM, czech at Micronas.Com writes:

<< But my idea of electronic music is completely different.
The techological effort makes only sense for me if it is really
exploited, ie. if the beaten path of western harmony is left behind.
Eg. it is no problem for a vco to produce micro intervalls
or new scales other then 1.059... semitones.
This is so booooriiing. Did you notice that we play the music
concepts of 1800 something with instruments of the year 2000?
This is unique in history. Musical progress has come to a complete
stop whereas music technology has made very great steps ahead. >>

I think of our traditional harmonic and melodic tools as being sort of 
analogous to written words and letters.  That is, they are the basic building 
blocks of a language.  Just because written letters and words were invented a 
few millenium ago does not mean that we no longer have anything to say with 
them.  I think Martin's biting indictment of western tonal devices is really 
more a matter of his personal taste than a definitive description of the 
state of contemporary music.  (and I also think he may have his tongue at 
least partially planted into his cheek regarding this...)

Michael Bacich