Review

Author(s): John Bewley

Review by: John Bewley
Source: Notes, Second Series, Vol. 48, No. 4 (Jun., 1992), pp. 1309-1311
Published by: Music Library Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/942153
Accessed: 24-08-2015 21:13 UTC

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Book Reviews
20th-Century Microtonal Notation.
By Gardner Read. (Contributions to
the Study of Music and Dance, 18.)
New York: Greenwood Press, 1990.
[viii, 198 p. ISBN 0-313-273987.
$39.95.]
In 20th-CenturyMicrotonalNotation Gardner Read has gathered together examples
of notational systems used by contemporary composers for a great variety of microtonal tuning systems ranging from
twenty-four-tone
equal
temperament
(quarter-tones) to open-ended systems of
extended just intonation. Unfortunately,
Read's descriptions of the microtonal tuning systems that underlie the notational systems in question are so rife with errors and
misconceptions as to render them virtually
useless. Any reader who is not fully conversant with the principles governing the
construction of microtonal scales is at risk
of acquiring an extremely faulty view of the
subject from this book.
Two of Read's more glaring misinterpretations concern material that was originally
published in 111, a journal of which I am
the editor. A very unequal twenty-four
tone, thirteen-limit just scale used by Jon
Catler (see his "Over and Under: The Thirteen Limit," 1/1 3, no. 3 [1987]: 4-5) is
presented as an example of "quartertones." The actual intervals between consecutive tones of this scale range in size
from 16.6 cents to 92.2 cents, where one
cent equals I of a tempered semitone
or TM of an octave. A quarter tone is, of
course, 50 cents. My own suggestion for a
nine-tone just tuning of the major diatonic
scale (David B. Doty, "Tutorial: Part Four
[The Nine-Tone Diatonic Scale]" 1/1 3, no.
1 [1987]: 2, 14) Read describes as "another
attempt to reduce the normal twelve
pitches of the octave by three intervals" (p.

161). Had Read understood the article in

which I described this tuning, it would have

been clear to him that it was nothing of the
sort. How a proposal to expand a diatonic
scale equals a proposal to compress a chromatic scale eludes me. And since I made
no proposal as to how this scale was to be
notated, I am not sure why Read chose to
include it in his book in the first place.
These are but two of the many errors I
discovered in accounts of tuning systems

1309
with which I am familiar. Whether such
errors are a result of carelessness or ignorance on the part of the author, I am
unable to determine, but in either case they
lead me to doubt the accuracy of any information in the book that I cannot independently verify. In conclusion, readers
who already have a thorough understanding of microtonal composition may find this
book interesting for the great variety of
notational systems it gathers together in
one place, but are likely to be as annoyed

by the errors, inconsistencies,and contradictions in the text. Readers who lack such
an understanding are advised to look at the
notational examples but to regard the text
with caution, on the assumption that it is
safer to remain ignorant than to be thoroughly misinformed.
DAVID B. DOTY

Just Intonation Network, San Francisco

Brass Bibliography: Sources on the

History, Literature, Pedagogy, Performance and Acoustics of Brass
Instruments. By Mark J. Fasman.
Indiana
Bloomington:
University
Press, 1990. [xii, 452 p. ISBN 0-253-

32130-1. $39.95.]

Mark Fasman's Brass Bibliographyoffers a

new resource to researchers in the area of
brass studies. As the title of the book suggests, the unique nature of this bibliography is related to the wide range of material
that Fasman chose to include. In no other
single volume can one find citations for
articles that list the low brass personnel of
Stan Kenton's orchestra, assess the effect of
dentures or dental braces on playing brass
instruments, and provide tax advice for
tuba and euphonium players and teachers.
The book is a revised version of the dissertation completed by Fasman at Indiana
University in 1988 and is based largely
upon the series of bibliographies compiled
by Mary Rasmussen for Brass Quarterlybetween 1957-64. It contains over six thousand, unannotated citations for works in
English, French, German, and Italian, with
the majority of the entries dating from the
period 1820-1988. The material is classified into the four broad categories of reference and research materials, history and

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1310

NOTES, June

music literature, pedagogy, and acoustics.

Each of these sections is further classified
into more specific areas.
The first section of the book lists reference and research materials, and is subdivided into bibliographies, catalogues and
collections (both music and instruments),
discographies, literature lists, performer
lists (including directories), and research
techniques. Considering the fact that some
readers will likely browse through sections
of the book rather than look for a specific
topic in the index, it might have been helpful if headings had been further subdivided by instrument, especially in the sections with bibliographies, discographies,
and literature lists. The area of research
techniques is represented by only four entries. This is, no doubt, a reflection of the
fact that research in brass studies is still a
relatively new specialty and also, that most
general research techniques are as applicable to brass studies as to any other discipline.
There are fifteen separate headings
within the section on history and music literature. In evidence are expected headings
for general history, general literature, biography, and individual instruments, but
there is also the welcome addition of headings for ancient and non-Western instruments, jazz and popular styles, and orchestration. This last area could well prove
useful to composers or arrangers looking
for more detailed information about scoring techniques for brass instruments.
Readers should keep in mind the specialized scope of this book and the choices
the author made in determining the limitations on the sources to be included. For
instance, Fasman states in the preface to
the book that most feature articles are excluded as well as reviews (and here it is left
to the reader to assume that this includes
both book reviews and reviews of live or
recorded performances). The effect of
such choices is especially apparent in the
area of biographies, in which only two entries appear for such a major artist as Miles
Davis. Thus, the user should not expect this
section of the book to fill all the needs in
the area of biographical research. This
same section of the book, however, will be
very helpful to readers seeking information
on brass performers of lesser renown who
might not appear in any dictionary. The

1992

chronological scope of the cited material

also needs to be taken into consideration.
There are sources, such as Michael Praetorius's Syntagmamusicum (1619), that fall
outside the specified range of dates and
that might nonetheless be of interest to
readers researching the history of an instrument. Again, these choices and limitations are stated in the preface, and their
implications should be borne in mind at all
times.
The expansive scope of the bibliography
is demonstrated again in the section of the
book listing pedagogical materials. Fasman
not only includes headings here for individual instruments, but also covers the areas of career development, equipment selection, medical, dental, and psychological
aspects of playing a brass instrument, and
clinics, conferences, and festivals. Specialized research into physiological and psychological problems associated with performing is a relatively recent development,
and therefore, this compilation of entries
dealing specifically with brass playing is a
timely addition to the reference literature.
The final section of the book is devoted
to the acoustics and construction of brass
instruments. Headings for mutes and other
accessories as well as mouthpieces follow
the comparatively standard headings for
individual instruments and general subject
matter. Fasman's experience as a brass
player is evident in his decision to include,
and classify separately, entries related to
the more pragmatic areas of brass studies,
ranging from the selection of a mute,
mouthpiece, or instrument to information
about available career routes, or the effects
of dental braces on players' embouchures.
This aspect of the book certainly broadens
both its appeal and its utility.
The classification scheme utilizes clear
and ample headings, and these should
assist readers in finding pertinent information in the event they cannot locate a subject in the index. Fasman also lists a significant number of entries under secondary
subject headings in addition to their numbered citations within the classification for
the primary topic. Subject accessibility is
most critical in the indexing of a work such
as this, and the keyboard searching capability of many database systems has probably caused expectations in this area to
increase. Therefore, it is important to ex-

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1311

Book Reviews
amine the efficacy of this bibliography's index.
By cross-checking entries against the index one can discover omissions easily. For
example: citation number 4093, "The Mute
in Contemporary Trumpet Performance,"
has no corresponding entry in the index
under "mutes"; citation number 4969,
"How do They Age so Well? Lawrence,
Dicky and Vic," has no corresponding entries for the subjects of the article,
Lawrence Brown, Dicky Wells, and Vic
Dickenson. These two examples are surely
straightforward enough to suggest that indexing might be a matter of concern. Other
problems with the index have to do with
the appropriateness of subject headings.
For instance, citation number 1785, "The
Evolution of the Role of the Solo Trombone in the Nineteenth Century and Twentieth Century," is not represented in the
index under "trombone," and neither
"nineteenth century" or "twentieth century" serves as a heading. A more complex
example can be found in citation number
3557, "Playing and Singing Simultaneously
on Brass Instruments" (for which the author is listed in the index as both Sluchin,
B. and Sluchin, G.). A search of the index
under the main works of the title yields a
negative result, as does a search under
"special techniques." Since Fasman discusses neither his method of nor objectives
in indexing, it is impossible to discern if
omissions of this sort are due to conscious
choice or to oversight. Either way, readers
should be aware of likely problems with the
index of this book.
Overall, Brass Bibliographyfills a substantial need for those involved in brass research and sets a standard of inclusiveness
for bibliographies of instrumental studies
in general. Brass players and teachers will
appreciate the diversity of material here
included and will most likely find this book
of valuable assistance.
JOHN BEWLEY
Rutgers University,New Brunswick

Ethnic Music on Records: A Discography of Ethnic Recordings Produced in the United States, 1893 to
1942. By Richard K. Spottswood. With
a foreword by James H. Billington.

(Music in American Life.) Urbana:

University of Illinois Press, 1990. [7
vols. (4,347 p.) ISBN 0-252-01718-8
(set). $300.00.]
Numerous discographies deal with art
music and popular music during the first
decades of commercial recordings, but an
inadequate number deal with ethnic music;
and those few that do generally cover holdings of specialized archives containing primarily field recordings (a recent example
is Early Field Recordings ... at the Indiana
University Archives of Traditional Music
[Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1987]). This lacuna has now been filled.
Richard K. Spottswood's Ethnic Music on
Records covers primarily commercial recordings of immigrant groups in the
United States. As he states in his preface,
"The aim of this work is to document all
production of foreign language records
made in the United States and its possessions in its entirety from 1893 to 1942" (p.
xvii). Spottswood excludes operatic and
classical recordings, language instruction
records, humorous material employing
ethnic stereotypes, Hawaiian music, reissues of non-U.S. matrixes on U.S. labels,
instrumental recordings of "house" bands
in foreign series, and Native American recordings of private or institutional origin.
He includes, however, Irish and WestIndian recordings even though they are in
English, since they were treated as foreignlanguage items by record companies.
It is hard to imagine how Spottswood
could have been more thorough. The discography fills five hefty volumes: the first
covers West-European language recordings, the second Slavic, the third EastEuropean, the fourth Spanish, Portuguese,
Philippine, and Basque, and the fifth MidEastern, Far-Eastern, Scandinavian, English, Native American, and International
recordings. The two remaining volumes
contain record label abbreviations and indexes by artist, title, record number, and
matrix number. The discography is divided
into sections by languages and subdivided
further by specific artists who recorded in
those languages, with individual citations
arranged chronologically. The citations include primary and secondary titles, composers, participating artists, instrumenta-

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