It is the duty of the Conscientious Speculative Musical Theorist (CSMT) to go where no one has gone before; to venture into the spaces between all harmonics and all equal divisions (Darien 4297)
A CHART SHOWING THE CROSS RELATIONS WITHIN WILSON'S THEORIES AND INVESTIGATIONS INTO MICROTONAL AND JUST INTONATION SYSTEMS
Wilson views the creation of scales and other intonational structures as a creative act. He does not have a system with a set of rules. He has, however, found possibilites in applying particular methods to generate scales and structures he finds pleasing and more importantly fruitful. Many of these are extremely novel yet were often sparked by his investigations into historical practices and examples found throughout the world, as well as conversations with other musicians and students. Just as important as the scales themselves is his interest in placing them on practical instruments such as generalized keyboards.
The most difficult obstacle in presenting Wilson's work is that his papers were originally short hand for verbally transmitted lessons or a quick method to collect his thoughts. Often they were designed for a small group of individuals who shared a common language. The work is not for absolute beginners but it requires, for the most part, just the simplest level of mathematics and an understanding of the short hand he uses. In general, it is here to speak for itself in order to avoid the misconception his work is often subjected to. It was in such an environment that the archives were first undertaken.
At present the Wilson Archives, is broadly arranged from the simplest to the more complex and often older to newer. Related materials have been grouped together to highlight his overall thoughts which are not always clear in the stray single sheets he would often hand out. The most important and pivotal papers are listed in bold at the top of each section. The other papers offer historical or expanded insights into these. Certain material will appeal to some more than others depending on their own creative pursuits.
The chart below might be the most accurate mapping of his work as this archivist understands it. Plans are that it will one day serve as an interactive chart that can be used as a way to navigate through the archives.
This chart is followed by a letter that captures much of Wilson's attitude and approach to scale building.
The major contributions of Erv Wilson are first the extension of Bosanquet's generalised keyboard design to include any interval besides the fifth to generate a scale. These designs have been used on both the Microzone and the Lumatone keyboards.
His concept of Moments of Symmetry serves as the basis of these mappings and shows at what points a single interval used as a generator forms certain cyclic characteristics. These in turn are subject to variations caused by using different harmonics in what he called Constant Structures.
His Combination Product Sets (the CPS) are uncentered structures that take the same material as a Diamond, but instead of it being centered on a single note, the interval sets are scattered equally among all the pitches to produce a non-tonal framework based on consonant harmonic intervals.
His scales of Mt. Meru extended just intonation beyond simple ratios with the use of recurrent sequences that result in scales where each interval tends to have an equal or parallel amount of consonance and dissonance. This allows the free use of the harmonic combinations, resulting in more or less equal consonance and dissonance. These properties resemble those found in many scales of Africa and S.E. Asia, despite being constructed differently.
His Marwa permutations show how the diatonic scale evolved into scales with augmented seconds, such as those found in North India. From this, he provided examples seeded with Greek tetrachords. Grady has further applied the Marwa permutations to all possible Moments of Symmetry and Constant Structure scales.
~Comments and Questions welcome~
