Leaving twelve-tone

I went to two musical events yesterday. In the first, the Inland Harmony Chorus gave a presentation on barbershop to a local high school class. In the second, I heard Doc D (Daryl Singleton) and Jacqui Wilson give a pub talk at Paradise Creek. Both events touched on the concept of tuning systems outside of twelve tone. Barbershop does this to amplify overtones. And many places outside of the US use alternate tuning systems that just don't sound right in twelve tone.

This had me reflecting on my loss of perfect pitch. While having it was very useful, it was also limiting in terms of what I'd enjoy listening to. I have to leave the room when microtonal jazz comes on. But perhaps this is a new direction in my musicality, and leaving the realm of perfect pitch could make it easier to tune in different systems.

I'm also terrified. In the presentation LuAnn said Deke Sharon has called barbershop the 'martial arts of a cappella'. That's starting to make sense to me. I thought slotting into this style would be easy, but now I'm not so sure. Being note-perfect memorized is now only step 1, where in so many groups I've been in before (including FFR) that was the end-goal for performance. I have a lot to learn about tuning different chords.

At least playing improvisational bass will give me some relief from that strict structure. As Pops Foster would say, "I just play any go-to-hell note".