Genesis of a Music, by Harry Partch
I ended my last post with a mention of Harry Partch. 2oth century composer, author, instrument builder and theorist. I heard about him from a guy named Chris who I had met a couple times at La Tienda cigar shop. He (Chris) is a drummer and Tambora player. The first time I spoke with him one of the things he mentioned as important to the preservation of real soul music (corpereal) was "Untempered Tunings"of the Celts and other northern peoples. That was well over a year ago and at the time it didn't mean much to me and I continued on playing and instructing in ET (Evil Tampering) of music and the guitar in particular.
Anyways more recently I stopped by La Tienda (the reason being that I have a free specialty drink coupon) and I saw Chris there again. When I said that I have been exploring "Just Intonation" he immediately informed me of "Harry Partch" who in his opinion was one who brought more Justly intuned music and instruments into actuality than anyone else. I went (and so can you) to youtube and Wikopedia to find out more about him and of course began searching for his most significant book "Genesis of a Music".
News Flash, I can be a little Scottish at times and love a good deal. As such I do not own a Public Library card. I do, however, have a "Neos" card which I can use at several Libraries (King's Univeristy, Concordia, Taylor etc.) So one day I drop by King's to find the book. My library card is no longer valid but the sweet lady at the desk shows some kindness by extending it (FREE OF CHARGE!) I find that there is a copy of the book down at Taylor College and Cemetary...whoops I mean "seminary". So I go there on my way to Devon. So there is is sitting on the shelf! I turn to the back to see how many times it's been signed out...get this! ONCE! When you ask? Nov 23rd 1979. 4 years after the authors death. Of course my card has been updated but I just have the number. The lady there at the desk, rather annoyed with me at my lack of card with comments like "most people bring there library card with them when they come to the library" and "we are really not supposed to do this" "espesially to an outside borrower." Well after slapping me on the wrist a number of times and wagging her finger she finally gave me the "OK I'll do it this one time".
So here I am with this treasure of a book, delving into a whole new (to me) world of sonic potentiality and actuality. simple, simple, SIMPLE RATIOS.
The impact of this is far too great to sum up in a mere blog post like this and it's about a lot more than "music". In particular as a side bar, it's got me considering my personal journey from Abstraction to Actuality. and what better friend to meet with yesterday than Ben Tremblay. Of course the journey is far from over but I finally am conscious of the vast difference between the abstract and the actual. And at this juncture (work wise) I am having to deal with actuality after actuality as I support our families needs through carpentry work. There is nothing abstract about roofing a garage. Although roofing 93 year old, spiritual sage, Kathleen's garage has sure made room for some significant spiritual learning. This connection, (and several others as of late) have brought to my awareness so many things about our move to Manitoba.
More on that in my next post.
Anyways more recently I stopped by La Tienda (the reason being that I have a free specialty drink coupon) and I saw Chris there again. When I said that I have been exploring "Just Intonation" he immediately informed me of "Harry Partch" who in his opinion was one who brought more Justly intuned music and instruments into actuality than anyone else. I went (and so can you) to youtube and Wikopedia to find out more about him and of course began searching for his most significant book "Genesis of a Music".
News Flash, I can be a little Scottish at times and love a good deal. As such I do not own a Public Library card. I do, however, have a "Neos" card which I can use at several Libraries (King's Univeristy, Concordia, Taylor etc.) So one day I drop by King's to find the book. My library card is no longer valid but the sweet lady at the desk shows some kindness by extending it (FREE OF CHARGE!) I find that there is a copy of the book down at Taylor College and Cemetary...whoops I mean "seminary". So I go there on my way to Devon. So there is is sitting on the shelf! I turn to the back to see how many times it's been signed out...get this! ONCE! When you ask? Nov 23rd 1979. 4 years after the authors death. Of course my card has been updated but I just have the number. The lady there at the desk, rather annoyed with me at my lack of card with comments like "most people bring there library card with them when they come to the library" and "we are really not supposed to do this" "espesially to an outside borrower." Well after slapping me on the wrist a number of times and wagging her finger she finally gave me the "OK I'll do it this one time".
So here I am with this treasure of a book, delving into a whole new (to me) world of sonic potentiality and actuality. simple, simple, SIMPLE RATIOS.
The impact of this is far too great to sum up in a mere blog post like this and it's about a lot more than "music". In particular as a side bar, it's got me considering my personal journey from Abstraction to Actuality. and what better friend to meet with yesterday than Ben Tremblay. Of course the journey is far from over but I finally am conscious of the vast difference between the abstract and the actual. And at this juncture (work wise) I am having to deal with actuality after actuality as I support our families needs through carpentry work. There is nothing abstract about roofing a garage. Although roofing 93 year old, spiritual sage, Kathleen's garage has sure made room for some significant spiritual learning. This connection, (and several others as of late) have brought to my awareness so many things about our move to Manitoba.
More on that in my next post.
posted by Paul Seburn at Tuesday, October 02, 2007
2 Comments:
silly blogger! i had no intention of having that last paragraph so huge but it would not return to normal size
Sub-lim e-intervention. It actually looks good, emphasizes a cool point, it grabbed my attention. Good to see you here at the center of things. Keep on giving us perpective, I'm enjoying the posts. Cheers!
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