Listening b(log): Low Entropy: Crystalline

I listened to a piece entitled Crystalline by a man whose real name is Soenke Moehl. He is better known as Low Entropy. This piece was produced on an electronic instrument. To my ears, this style might be characterized as new age or progressive.

I found this piece by accident looking for a piece of Baroque music that uses the just intonation system (as opposed to the equal intonation system that modern Western ears are used to). Just intonation differs from equal intonation because it uses a system of ratios to tune intervals based on the stability of the perfect intervals of the fourth and the fifth. True "perfect" fifths have a ratio of 300:200 Hz, or 3:2, and Crystalline is a piece that is built on this tuning system. To me, this piece is haunting. It slows time down, brings my heart rate up, unnerves me, and interests me. At this point in my blog, I have listened to the piece continuously for what feels like hours (but is, in fact, only around 20 minutes).

What does this have to do with authenticity, and why did I just explain a seemingly esoteric tuning system for a world music class? Because, in spite of the fact that we know that lots and lots of Baroque era music was built with just intonation in mind, we continue to practice and perform Baroque era music on modern instruments in equal temperament. I suppose that it is just less work to train the Western ear to hear more than one system of tuning as "normal". However, after only a few listenings of "Crystalline", I am finding myself oddly at ease with the new work my ears are having to do. It's repetitious and satisfying and new and wonderful all at the same time. And doesn't every schoolchild that walks through my door have the right and opportunity to experience this in the form of exposure to the "old" music of the Baroque, to the "new" music of "Crystalline", to the microtuned scales of India?