Some of my Correspondence with Heinz Bohlen

Heinz Bohlen with his handmade Bohlen-Pierce Scale organ.

As this is the 10-year anniversary of Heinz Bohlen passing, I thought it was time to finally share some of the email correspondence we had, from 2001 onward, starting when I was almost done with grad school at NYU. Heinz Bohlen was a German microwave engineer, and first inventor of the Bohlen-Pierce Scale, a novel musical tuning that is continually gaining popularity with music composers and theorists. It feels strange to publish someone’s emails, but there is some good history here. I will add more as I have a chance to go through them. I didn’t edit anything other than the font and spacing. [I added some notes in brackets.]

Mountain View, 05/29/2001

Hello Elaine,

Congratulations! Today, I stumbled over your “Final Project” work on the Bohlen-Pierce scale, and I admit that I am impressed! This is, at least in my eyes, one of the most profound discussions of the scale that I have seen so far.

I may be permitted a few comments (in the order the issues appear in your paper):

–It is correct that the scale was originally perceived in just tuning. However, I discovered its equal-tempered version with its low defect only days later, long before John Pierce (whom I respect a lot) independently came across the scale. So there was no sharing of the kind that I propagated one thing and John Pierce some other version of it; we both made the same discoveries, just a few years apart. This is just for your information; no need to correct this in your thesis.

–There is a typo in Figure 4, which is also on the BP website (my error): the defect in step 12 is — 13 cents (not + 13 cents).

–Chord inversions: I am delighted to see that no similarity has been found. I personally never believed in them; I think even in our 12-step Western system it is a kind of cultural deception that we perceive similarities in inverted chords.

–Finality: Again I like your results. I have been toying with BP cadences (I didn’t publish them, though), and I always felt that very strong finality impressions were possible.

–Diatonic modes: The seven modes so far published are those that I have collected; I honestly do not know how many Pierce and Mathews have been investigating. Anyway, I find it delightful that you came up with two more, and valuable ones at that.

–Thanks for your compliments regarding the Lambda mode. I found it rather late, and only after a series of errors.

–Keyboard layout: You are entirely correct with your layout for the Lambda mode, which I strongly support as a suitable reference. My old organ’s keyboard has C-Gamma as a basis (one of my early errors).

–Chord progressions: Great, you seem to be the first one to have been doing something progressive on this issue (although I believe that Charles Carpenter also knew well what he was doing in this respect).

Conclusions: I agree with those who find the scale “awful” as well as with those who find the results “ethereal”. It just depends on your state of being initiated. In the beginning, music in my own scale sounded just alien to me; I had the impression as if I was wandering on a strange planet even outside our solar system. Nowadays I find myself sometimes whistling BP themes when driving my car. And exactly there I found a dumb but fitting comparison. For a few years I have been living (and driving) in England.

Today, it takes me only a moment of hesitation, and then I can drive on the left or the right hand side of the road as required, without difficulties, because of this kind of training. And I tend to believe that there is a strong similarity to our ability of listening to music: after a short while of training we are able to switch to a different kind of perception, but only, if the other system has a strong logical background. And I am convinced that BP has that.

By the way: I have ordered your CD containing “Stick Men” and “Agribusiness” and I am honestly looking forward to listening to it (I don’t have mp3 yet). And having learned that you composed “Stick Men” in 1992 already, I may have to review the BP website (which I run as a kind of caretaker) where I have said that the opera “Der Sprung” is the first BP piece to employ the human voice. And that goes without saying: the next edition of the BP website will contain URLs referring to your work.

Kind greetings,

Heinz Bohlen

06/01/2001

Dear Mr. Bohlen,

I was so happy to read your letter. I was in Montrose, CO with my family because my Grandmother Alice Hardy (almost 98) had just passed away. Your letter certainly cheered me up. I wasn’t sure how to contact you, and I had heard from Max Mathews that John Pierce had alzheimers(?) and that he slips in and out. I very much wanted the both of you to review my paper, check for accuracy, and approve the modes I came up with, etc.

Thank you for pointing out that you discovered the equal tempered version much earlier. I’m not sure how I managed to think otherwise, when it is clearly written in the history. I may have misunderstood something written in one of Max & J. Pierce’s papers that I got from Stanford. Anyhow, I’ve slipped in an extra paragraph about the history since I probably should have had a little bit more background in there anyway. I’m going to put a link to the History portion of your site next to the link for my paper for those who want to read more background. It’s such an interesting story! I also corrected the 26 cent error that you pointed out.

Chord inversions: I am delighted to see that no similarity has been found. I personally never believed in them; I think even in our 12-step Western system it is a kind of cultural deception that we perceive similarities in inverted chords.

It is good that we have all had enough sense not to spend our time dabbling with chord inversions! [I since have.]

Finality: Again I like your results. I have been toying with BP cadences (I didn’t publish them, though), and I always felt that very strong finality impressions were possible.

I will send you the audio CD that goes with my paper that includes the chord progressions and modes I used for the listening tests. “Stick Men” and “Agribusiness” are on the CD as well. In fact, I will go ahead and send other music that I’ve done in other tunings as well, just for fun. My goal is usually to make music that is as “normal” and “consonant” as it can be, in these tunings, to show that indeed the 12 tone tuning is arbitrary to a point and that perfectly nice music can be made with alternate tunings.

Diatonic modes: The seven modes so far published are those that I have collected; I honestly do not know how many Pierce and Mathews have been investigating. Anyway, I find it delightful that you came up with two more, and valuable ones at that.

Thank you! I was very happy when I realized that they fit neatly into two out of the four “blank” places I found when I attempted to put the modes in some sort of order (according to the “white keys”). Perhaps you can help me to think of better names for them, other than “Walker (Pierce II)” and “Walker (Delta II)”. Can you explain the meaning behind the names “Moll I (Delta)” and “Moll II”?

Thanks for your compliments regarding the Lambda mode. I found it rather late, and only after a series of errors.

Here I duplicated some effort, but I don’t believe it was wasted effort, since it reaffirms the mode just that much more.

I admire how you built the organ keyboard! I’ve gotten into electronics in the past year or so, and think it would be fun to build a Lambda Bohlen-Pierce keyboard. Do you have anything written about your efforts to build the organ keyboard that I could read before I ever take on such an endeavor?

I got a real chuckle out of your analogy of driving on either side of the road to feeling comfortable with different tunings. :)

I hope you enjoy Stick Men! Agribusiness, as well as most of the rest of that CD, are in the somewhat aggressive “electronic-industrial” style of the early 90’s. (Well behind Germany, where electronic industrial music was popular years earlier). I may have even written Stick Men in the tail end of 1991. Dr. Richard Boulanger might remember. Actually, he wrote a vocal Bohlen-Pierce scale song before I did. I had a computer music composition class with him during my last year (Fall 1990 I believe), and he came in one day with a wonderful Bohlen-Pierce Scale song he had written [Solemn Song, written in 1987]. He played a recording of the music and sang the words live in class. Some students were chuckling since we had never heard Dr. Boulanger sing before, and he had given us little warning. However, my hair stood on end, chills went up my spine, and I hardly have written a 12 tone piece of music since that day.

Thanks again for your letter. What a surprise! I will get an audio CD in the mail to you in the next couple of days, and I hope we can keep in touch.

Kindest regards, -Elaine

“12 tones just aren’t enough” http://www.ziaspace.com

06/01/2001

Hello Elaine!

Great to hear from you; I had tried one or two times earlier to get into contact with you because I had heard that you had been composing in BP, but I had no success. Anyway, it worked this time!

First of all, my condolences to the death of your grandmother. Some people may say that 98 is an age that one should be content with, but it depends so much on the individual. Just this morning I talked (via telephone) to my father who is 96, still doing (though slowly) his garden and his house and maintaining full possession of his wits. I take it that your grandmother was of the same kind, and thus it is a great loss.

With regard to your paper, I think it is all right and convincing the way it is, but I will read through it again and let you know whether there are any recommendations from my side.

Meanwhile your CD that I ordered has arrived; I guess I am too old and too conservative to fully understand the “electronic-industrial” style, but I like your voice, and I find “Stickmen” great, both as a composition and as a song!

After that experience I am certainly looking forward to receiving the CD that goes with your paper. And there is one other thing in that I agree fully with you: to make music as normal and consonant as it can be, in any tuning.

With regard to the two new BP modes you discovered: why don’t you just call them “Walker I” and “Walker II”? No need to relate them to any of the already existing ones. The meaning behind “Moll I” and “Moll II” (German for “Minor I” and “Minor II”) is simply that in the beginning I meant to detect a “minor” tonality in them. Later I gave up to construct analogies like that and started to call “Moll I” “Delta” instead, recognizing that BP is really different.

I fear the way I built my old BP organ is to be considered entirely outdated today. The chips at that time were not capable of what they can do today. MIDI wasn’t invented yet, so the whole thing is hardwired like an old radio, with very little flexibility. And the notes that I made are sparse and not very enlightening. Today I would buy a programmable keyboard, replace the keys in the way you indicated in your paper to adapt it to Lambda as a reference mode, and then tune the instrument to BP.

I am intrigued by what you write about Richard Boulanger. Do you think that the piece he sang to you does still exist? You made me long to hear it.

Elaine, thank you for your letter. It really warmed my heart!

With my kindest regards,

Heinz

06/16/2001

Hello Heinz!

Great to hear from you; I had tried one or two times earlier to get into contact with you because I had heard that you had been composing in BP, >but I had no success. Anyway, it worked this time!

Yes it did, and I’m so glad! I’m inspired to write more BP music, and will, once I find a couple of days to concentrate. And I will try to work in some of the progressions I came up with for my Acoustics paper. The CD that goes with the paper should be arriving in a few days!

Well, it sounds like you have some good genes in you too! My grandmother also gardened into her 90’s, and we began to worry about her hauling sacks of soil around. She sure was good with flowers. I would really love to meet your father (and you too for that matter!).

I’m glad to hear you enjoyed “Stick Men”. I think the vocals are a bit obnoxious since I sang them in my early 90’s style. I may be inspired to re-record it someday with better string samples too. When writing it, I struggled with the middle section, trying to resolve that last chord that builds and builds, and I finally realized that I had to leap way up and down the keyboard to find a chord that felt like it resolved. I remember telling people at the time that I had been writing a song that had no possible resolution. Of course I just hadn’t tried the right combination of notes yet. :)

Thanks for explaining Moll and Delta. It should have occurred to me it was in German! So, I will call them Walker I and Walker II and am glad to fill in the small gaps that existed in the chart. There are still two to be named if they are to go in that order according to the Lambda white keys. What should we call those? I think Walker III and Walker IV would be too ridiculous. Surely we could think of something more creative. Maybe some sort of an inside joke… like “Grandma Mode” and “Grandpa Mode” in German. Maybe “oma” and “opa”. haha. Perhaps we could brainstorm and think of the perfect cryptic names.

I ordered the CD that I thought had Dr.Boulanger’s piece on it, but I just saw him in Boston while visiting my old Berklee friends, and he informed me that his piece didn’t actally get on that particular CD. It’s called Solemn Song for Evening. He says he will send a copy to me. It actually has John Chowning’s wife’s voice (her name is escaping me now) instead of Dr. Boulanger’s. I’ve only heard him sing it live -once in 1991 when he inspired me so, and once several years later and I got the same chills all over again. I have bothered him for a copy over the years but never seem to get one. He will certainly give me one now that he knows you’re interested!

I sent my paper to Max, however he hasn’t written back yet. He may be sailing (he also has great genes, doesn’t he?!). I might try calling Stanford and asking for him there.

Have a great day,

Elaine

06/24/2001

Hello Elaine,

I had been off to Chicago for a week. Returning home I found both your e-mail and the parcel you sent containing your paper and that wealth of songs and listening examples.

First of all let me thank you for all these things! I am really looking forward to listen to the CDs. As a preparation I have packed them into the CD player magazine of my car; I found that my daily way to work and back provides a great opportunity to listen undistracted and repeatedly (I have heard “Stickmen” that way certainly a dozen times). I promise to write again about a week from now and let you know about my experience with your work.

I am glad about your e-mail, too. You have a refreshing way to talk about things; keep that up! I don’t think that genes are as important as the doctors like to tell us: my father has survived his own father by more than 90 years now (I mean to remember that my father was 4 when my grandfather died from heart failure). I believe you would like him. When I talked to him on the phone this morning he went to describe the weather and the flowers in the garden in much detail; he is savoring every day.

With regard to “Stickmen” I think that you did just great; in any case I am not missing any resolutions. However, if you feel tempted to do it once again, I would certainly be more than interested in the changes that you would make.

Since you are the one who came up with a kind of order for the diatonic BP scales, I would have no objections to naming the remaining ones Walker III and IV; on the other hand, people in the future might find it difficult to remember which is which. What about one or two names related to New Mexico, as your home? (I am a desert fan myself.)

The issue with Dr. Boulanger’s piece is becoming more and more intriguing; I hope he sticks to his promise and sends it to you.

Once again, Elaine, lots of thanks! I am going to write to you soon again, and I will certainly do my best to “keep the gardens growing”.

Heinz

P.S.: Any of my e-mail addresses works equally well; they are just linked to different places.

07/2001, AOL IM’s

ElaineW: Hello Heinz! Just a quick note to say that I will be in San Jose the week of Aug 22… and again briefly at the beginning of Sept. It would be great to visit! -Elaine W.

HPBohlen: Great! The week of August 22 will be just fine, in September I might be on a trip over in old Europe. Just let me know once you have decide on your schedule. Looking forward to see you! Heinz B.

ElaineW: Sounds good. I will let you know my schedule and my cell phone # and hopefully we can get together. It would be fun to go with Max Mathews and visit John Pierce. Wouldn’t that be spectacular?

HPBohlen: I too would like to see these guys; it would certainly be some event, however I fear that John Pierce is not going to receive visitors. Nevertheless, it wouldn’t be harmful to try.

[See last two paragraphs on this page for what happened next!]