Here are two parts from a suite of compositions exploring in depth my feelings of admiration for the noble goat-tending Hungarian Kuvasz dog, owned by Dracula and whom Hitler tried to eliminate because the dogs would fight stormtoopers to the death.

The suite is written in 13 tone equal temperament (13tET) which has been mathematically ‘proven’ by some music theorists to be one of the most dissonant and unusable tuning systems possible, suitable only for highly dissonant music of interest only to the most adventurous and tolerant. I find it to be a beautiful tuning full of rich and vibrant consonances and harmonies.

Fireflies at Night in the Court of King Nebuchadnezzer

FirefliesAtNightInTheCourtOfKingNebuchadnezzer.mp3 (4′04″, 4,016,282 bytes)
© 29 May 2001 by X. J. Scott

Ziggaurauts. Hanging Gardens. 600BC.

That’s right, we’re talking about King Nebuchadnezzer of Babylon.

Imagine a walk through this ancient city on a balmy night with a light breeze. A sudden thunderstorm passed through that evening and now there are fireflies drifting about and blinking above the gardens. People are milling about and going for their midnight stroll. It smells nice.

At the King’s Court, his big white Kuvasz dogs are asleep...

Sweet Kuvasz - a Hungarian Minuet for piano and fiddle

SweetKuvasz.mp3 (1′41″, 1,633,127 bytes)
© 15 Feb 2001 by X. J. Scott

I wrote this piece when I was looking into getting a dog for the farm. I figured that for every person there is one perfect type of dog. What I wanted was a dog that would protect my dairy goats and keep other dogs and such away and also keep the goats on the property. (Since goats can always leave if they really want to, especially if they don’t respect you. A goat has to respect you to do what you want, otherwise they will let you know quite clearly which of you is smarter.)

There were three breeds of dogs that had been bred to protect sheep and goats:

Komodor
Kuvasz
Great Pyrenees

After extensive research, I came to love the Kuvasz breed which was perfect for me. But the Kuvasz is quite rare, perhaps because it is definitely not the dog for everyone.

Ideally you need:

• A large farm. It is terribly cruel to keep Kuvasz cooped up or chained. And he is a giant breed, like the St. Bernard.
• Goats or sheep. This is what keeps them happy by giving them a purpose.
• Quiet. Kuvasz does not like noises.
• Little traffic and few visitors. A formidable enemy — Kuvasz is quiet and tranquil until someone challenges his space.
• Intelligence and humility. Kuvasz must above all else respect you as an equal. (like goats)

Kuvasz is historical. He was kept by the Sumerians, then the Babylonians. King Nebuchadnezzer kept them. So did Count Dracula, who was presented a pair by the King of Hungary, who only trusted his Kuvasz and never his advisors. Kuvasz was hated by Hitler, who ordered the killing of all Kuvasz dogs (this is the only type of animal Hitler is known to have ordered the extinction of — he recognized that these dogs were a great threat to his domination plans because they were the only breed which would fight a stormtrooper to the death.)

You can see that this breed is gentle, noble, and strong. It is also an extremely difficult breed to handle unless you are exactly the right kind of person, a person of genteel and noble blood, but willing to kill those that would threaten your family or nation.

Quiet Moonlight

QuietMoonlight.mp3 (1′36″, 1,567,872 bytes)
© 15 May 2001 by X. J. Scott
Combines 9th root of 7:3 (on struck instrument) & TwoToneCadillac (on wind instrument) Tunings

This is a short 1.5 minute piece that uses the 9th root of Subminor 10th tuning on a harp/xylophone sound doing arpeggiated harmony. This scale can be used for harmony or melody. It can help to mix it with another scale. Like Arugula. Gotta mix it with some other greens for best total flavor.

This is a neat tuning because it approximates so many low limit intervals but misses the octave as far as possible. Wheee! Also, the complex intervals are less ‘out-of-ratio’ than the simple ones (which can tolerate a wider detuning while maintaining their class distinction).

I don’t find that this scale works for solo lines played in a void, but it works well melodically when accompanied by itself, or by other scales, or by transposed copies of itself. The mood is a little South-East Asian.

An interesting novelty in this scale is that it contains 1st inversion major triads and 2nd inversion minor triads that are ringers for Western common practice tuning, even though this scale is totally alien to that system. The chords are not particularly usefully arranged, so although western-sounding harmonic progressions are possible, interesting ones are elusive. It may be amusing to fool-your-friends with this tuning at parties since few people will hear anything at all unusual about the tuning in which you are playing perfectly normal sounding major and minor chords until they try to play it themselves — then the fun begins, ho ho!

The xylophone mixes with a brass flutish sound that is tuned to one of my just nonoctave scales. Yes, you heard right! I don’t know of anyone else who has come up with just nonoctave scales but I assure you there are out there all over the darn place waiting to be discovered. This particular one I call the Two Tone Cadillac tuning.

I’d describe it as exquisite and dawdling and modern. Tell me if you come up with any other adjectives. It’s great for melody work, as you’ll see. Very expressive.