DD—Well, that's one area where the technology comes in handy, in that anybody who owns two cassette players can…
LH—Well, exactly And that's, of course, what is terrifying the industry. That's why they're trying to convert us again to CD, to make us pure customers. Sure you can get another CD recorder for $80,000.00, but that's not for us. It's for the millionaires again. In fact, the cassette machine, I think, is one of the triumphs of modern industry. It allows you to go in and out, and to replicate and to disperse your own activity and to collect others', and it is universal. The tape machine that plays in the Kalahari desert is exactly the same speed as the tape machine that plays in Bali, and that plays in Sweden, and so on. Everywhere. It is a uniformly standardized effect. It doesn't have different RPMs. It's not like video which has about, what, three or four major systems around the world you can't interchange. And it costs a fortune to redo that sort of thing. I think the cassette machine is one of the great triumphs, and, of course, it's terrified the industry because they realize that they have created a thing which is reducing customer buying because that's why they're pushing CD, of course. CD is no more acoustically superior to cassettes than anything. So it doesn't wear out as much, but then cassettes don't wear out very much either, and besides you can replicate them and keep a spare around. You can't do that with CD. With CD, you become purely a customer.
DD—In the Primer, you say Just Intonation is the best intonation—
LH—Yes, right! No doubt about that.
DD—And we're fond of quoting you at it. That statement on our front cover upsets a fair number of people who think all things aesthetic are subjective.
LH—I know. Well, it's judgmental in the first place—really truly judgmental. That's supposed to be a naughty, in academia anyway. But no, I still think of it, and I’ll even go so far as to say it. I’m like Ptolemy, I even think they should be superparticular, too! And chained superparticular ratios are the ideal ones. I don't care if it upsets them. Why should it? it seems to me evident. It's so much more powerful and so much more interesting. It's surprising how it's the little things that count. Just those tiny, tiny differences, sometimes between a just and a tempered interval, in terms musical, in a context musical, makes all the difference. And some people don't understand why, but it is because it's really in tune that it has the power to move you in some way. Don't bring up how! I don't know, but it does I in short, the real intervals of music are very beautiful, there's no doubt of it, and moving through them is beautiful, it's lovely. I find myself baffled as to why that isn't known more. Don't you find that baffling?
DD—Well, there are some people I meet who seem unable to hear it when I put it right before their ears.
LH—Oh, well, maybe they're unmusical. There are unmusical people. But then all one can do is just pity them, and say sorry 'bout that. That's true. Yes, I see. Well, there are anti-kinetic people too—people who simply have no rhythm—whose muscles don't respond. I think in the realm of pitch that may be the similar thing; that those ratios don't get them somehow. It's the same as non-kinetic people aren't moved by rhythm.
DD—There are the people, though, who hear the tempered triad and the just triad side-by-side and say the just triad is too dry. The tempered triad is rich because of all the beating.
LH—It's a mess. Maybe that's what I like about the non-Deagan overtones. I like the mess up above, but I like the basic thing real, and beautiful, too. Again it comes to: I wonder if they're transcribing timbre to tuning, and a triad as such is not very interesting, no matter how you tune it, it's where you go from there or how you move from one to another or something; that's what is interesting and beautiful. I don't think an isolated unit like that—it's like saying, here's red, isn't it magnificent? You know, well, sure it is, but so what? You have to move from there to contrast or change or something, and there's where the interest and beauty lies, I think. I’ve had, by the way, just between you and me, I’ve had recently a fair number of people across the country come up to me and say that they are surprised to find my music both interesting and beautiful. And then they explain that there is music that they are apparently persuaded is interesting and that they should listen to it, and they find it interesting, but they do not find it beautiful. They often find it ugly. And then they are surprised to discover that they can find interest in my music and that it's beautiful, too. And I thought about that the last time I was questioned over at Cal recently about that, and the man was perplexed to find this in himself, and I thought about it, and I realized that, for me, the interest in a work of art is indeed its beauty. That is the interest in a work of art. Otherwise what interest is there? That is it. So they are the same. I can't see how they could be separated. The beauty in it is the interest in a work of art. Or vice-versa, but it's the same thing as far as I’m concerned.