| Re: .25 tones
This is fascinating, Ed. From an aural skills and tuning-learning perspective, I think it is a valuable resource, even if only used for that purpose. There is a wealth of Eastern music that makes use of 1/4 tones, so it seems the ability to play them and hear them properly would open up many doors to new opportunities for literature.
When I was in college, our choral director used to make us divide a half step into 12 parts as part of our warm-up. First, we would go unison, then the women would come down and the men would ascend, meeting in the middle. At first I could not hear any difference. When we would get to the 2nd note, the accompanist would play the reference pitch and lo and behold, imperceptively, we arrived at a half step away from our starting point. It blew me away the first time. There were NO intonation problems in that group, even when singing a capella.
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-Glenn
"Roses have thorns; shining waters mud. Clouds and eclipses stain the moon and the sun; and history reeks of the wrongs we have done. After today, after today, consider me gone."- Sting |