Customer Reviews

Genesis Of A Music: An Account Of A Creative Work, Its Roots, And Its Fulfillments, Second Edition (Da Capo Paperback)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I disagree that you shouldn't start with this book. Most books that even mention the subject of JI gloss over it, insult your intelligence without providing any real data to make your own decisions, because most of the people writing those books consider JI a curiosity. If you ever read more than one reference to JI, you already know most of what most sources tell you.
Partch is certainly bombastic, which gave me many a chuckle. He was very very defensive, with good reason.
He also deals with subharmonic series- minor tonalities- which makes up a full half of his system, and which is explicitly eschewed by Doty's Primer. Doty denies there is any consonance to it and refuses to discuss it, reducing every harmony into least-common-denominators to find some sort of "absolute consonance level", which results in ratios with huge numbers that tell you nothing about the purpose of the chord. For a minor triad, Partch would say "1/4;1/5;1/6" and Doty would say 10:12:15. Partch also backs his ideas up with everyone from Archytas to Ptolemy to Galilei.
Any other book about or by Partch is focused on the novelty of his instruments, his "43 notes!!!" (which sickened him, being that he often used more or less in various pieces- it is not about the number of notes) or his feelings on life and aesthetics. Partch despised concert music- which doesn't mean a thing to me. This book gives you the facts, the background to actually be able to use the innovations Partch gave to the world.
I would recommend, in addition to this, reading George A. Miller's essay "The Magical Number 7, +/- 2" and any resources you can find on Gestalt perception and the Law of Pragnanz. Without these fundamental perceptual ideas, your 10,000-note octaves will sound like chaos.

As a steel guitarist, I find the entire subject of Just Intonation (JI) fascinating. It's a beautiful sound, perfectly aligned with the laws of physics. Partch's book includes tables of all of the JI ratios, translated into cents. This is the ultimate reference book for anyone experimenting with tunings.

Partch's music may not be your cup of tea, but the logic behind it is top notch. With this book and his home-made instuments (there are pictures and descriptions), Partch kicked open the door for the modern micro-tonal movement. The musical universe will never be the same.

I was a part of Harry's world for a time in the mid 1950s, maybe even a colleague as well as a devotee of sorts. I took a 40 year sabbatical and am again working in the field of musical instrument design/manufacture/performance.

This book is like a bible to me in many ways but what most of the reviews lack is the experience of having "been there, heard/felt that" which is a requirement for really getting it.

All the theoretical/philosophical considerations are mere historical/philosophical blather compared to actually being around the music itself. The implications of "corporeal" in terms of making/experiencing music rather than talking *about* music are very profound. You can get some idea from sound recordings, videos/films, or Web sites but unless you take part in the experience, you have no idea what's happening here.

I'm sure plenty (most?) people who encountered it were isolated from experiencing it fully by their backgrounds (nature or nurture), but for those who were moved, his work was the palpable exemplification of "profound". His picture should appear in the dictionary entry for "genius".

Love.

I'd give this another star, it's a very interesting artifact after all, but I'm afraid my review might be construed, as I'm afraid many readers are approaching this book the wrong way. It is not (nor is it intended to be) a just tuning reference book; it is instead a book about one man's personal musical odyssey: hence the title. If you use it to try to learn about just tuning in particular or tuning in general without already possessing a solid background in acoustics and the history of music theory, you will come away from it with a very warped viewpoint, and when you encounter those who do have a solid background in acoustics and the history of music theory you will embarrass yourself badly.

For those wishing to explore the intricacies of Partch's musical system and intonation there is no other book. Partch, although bomabastic, lays the theoretical and practical foundation for his music. A must for musicologists and technicians. Following his tables in the appendices we constructed an alternate tuning table for a (heresy!) electronic synthesizer.

This book was recommended to me by James Tenney, that was enough for me. After reading it I discovered, to NO surprise, it is a must read. Tenney giving you musical advice is like EF Hutton giving you financial advice, YOU LISTEN to it very carefully.

I read this quite a few years ago, and my memory is a little vague, but I can give you some idea what we it is. Harry Partch was a musical maverick who invented a forty-three-(or forty-something)-note scale (forty-three notes to the octave, that is) based on the eleventh partial (partial, not harmonic: Harry is fussy about the distinction). Here he explains his scale, the instruments he invented to play it, his aesthetic of "corporeality" (not "corpulence"--don't be confused), and rants and raves a bit. Fascinating. By the bye, some equally--or even more--fascinating musical ramifications of acoustical theory are to be found in PENTATONIC SCALES FOR THE JAZZ-ROCK KEYBOARDIST by Jeff Burns.