Re: Quartertones in cantorial music

[r l reid <ro...>]

Sam Weiss wrote:
> I have had conversations with people (some on this list) who disagree with 
> me, and tend to "formalize" these tonal effects, and perhaps they might 
> want to join this discussion.

Or, on my side of the aisle, to not formalize them.  I'm not all that 
knowledgable, in any formal manner anyway, with chazones.  I am fairly
knowledgable in so-called microtonal music, having composed extensively
in it in a past life.

I'm one of those cranks who is fairly well convinced that this rigidization
of pitch, originally inflicted by the development of the 7-white-5-black
interface, was brought to an absurd point as technology for achieving
true equal temperament came about in the early 20th century.  (Before then
it had been a goal but probably wasn't achieved).  Having done such intense
violence in destroying the slightly different intervals between adjacent
notes in a 12-to-the-octave view of the world, we gained the ability
to play jazz but lost so much else.

Like I say, I'm no degreed cantor or musicologist, but I do know what I hear -
good cantors have so-called "microtones" all over the place.  Because what
they do is they sing.  And they have these wonderful instruments without
limitations of fixed pitches - or almost fixed pitches that can be bent
a little one way or the other.

No, they can sing all 20 zillion notes in between the so-called semitone.
They can sing a pure major third (try THAT on a piano!), or any of a number
of pure minor thirds, or can use some of the other, more abiguous thirds
which are really useful.

However, we poor listeners having had our senses dulled by a lifetime
of music played on pianos and guitars and - horrors - singers who train
using a piano! - hear some of this and decide that the idiot hazzan is
out of tune, as she or he lays thier heart and soul open.  Well, at least
now we have something to talk about during the Torah reading!

It's one good reason to continue the ban on instrumental 
music on Shabbat and Yom Tov - it lets the voice go free, without being 
hemmed in by the prison of 12-to-the-8ve EQT.

Not that I feel strongly about this....

roger reid


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r l reid        ro (at) rreid(dot)net


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