The Seventh Dragon

[Susan Kline]

Rose, Avery, and list ...

Anita Sullivan lives in Corvallis, Oregon, and is my friend and colleague.
She is a piano technician, but also a writer and poet. You may sometimes
have heard her monologues on NPR's Performance Today. If you want to talk
to her about her book The Seventh Dragon, her email address is
anita@proaxis.com.

Susan
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At 09:24 AM 8/4/98 -0500, Avery wrote:
>Rose & list,
>
>   I'd never heard of this book before. I found it with a search at:
>http://www.amazon.com
>
>Avery
>
>>Does anyone know how I could get a copy of "The Seventh Dragon"? I'm just
>>curious and I really don't want to spend a lot of money (I'm a starving
>>recent grad of North Bennet).  Perhaps someone out there has a used copy
>>they'd be willing to part with for cheap?
>>
>>Thanks...
>>Rose Emery
>>Watertown, MA
>>REE15@juno.com
>
>************************************************************************
>The Seventh Dragon: The Riddle of Equal Temperament
>by Anita T. Sullivan
>Our Price: $12.95
>
>Hardcover (September 1986)
>Metamorphous Press; ISBN: 0943920221
>
>Reviews From Independent Publisher
>
>The riddle of the Seventh Dragon in japanese folklore is that he is the only
>one who is never visible. His task is listening, and as Sullivan states in
>The Seventh Dragon: The Riddle of Equal Temperament, "Perhaps he never shows
>up because his visible self is constantly consumed in the act of hearing."
>Perhaps so, but Sullivan's own intellect and questioning perspective is
>plainly visible in this wonderful book - a book which may have begun as an
>investigation into the history and science of piano tuning but which grew
>into a philosophical probing of ratio, harmony, paradox, balance, wisdom
>and beauty. As with most good pieces of writing, there are many levels of
>meaning in Sullivan's slim volume.
>
>One level reflects the precise and exacting maneuvers of the piano tuner at
>work, attempting to bring the instrument to a state of "equal temperament,"
>the tuning system we have employed in the Western world for the last 150
>years. While other tuning systems have been used, all are ultimately based
>on the relationships of beats. "These 'beats' are a way of measuring the
>degree of purity or harmony ... When all the intervals in the center are
>properly balanced, [the piano tuner] then tunes by octaves, outwards
>towards
>the bass and
>treble extremes of the keyboard. The result is not perfect symmetry, nor a
>collection of pure intervals, it is a balance - a compromise."
>
>A second level appears in the short but poetic "Tuner's Monologue" which
>introduces most of the chapters in this book. As the tuner attempts to
>achieve an equal temperament on the piano, her inner ear and eye respond to
>the struggle. "We must come to an understanding, this piano and L . . A
>test all the possibilities, and settle on the one which is in the piano's
>heart. "Sullivan manages to turn piano tuning into a mystical search for
>balance without losing a certain pragmatism which enriches yet restrains
>the piece itself. "As you tune your unison, and you hear the beats
>gradually slowing down, there comes a place where they are too slow to
>count any more.. . . You are listening in a different way than ever before.
>You have stopped counting. You have stopped hearing with just your cars.
>You have stopped.. . . And I think the piano's song is right there, in the
>falling-in place, which is the final tempering." With critical questions
>and splendid, rich metaphors, Anita Sullivan has succeeded in constructing
>a rare combination of philosophy and literature. Winner of the 1986 Western
>States Book Award for Creative Nonfiction, The Seventh Dragon challenges
>the reader to re-vision many assumptions we often take for granted, and as
>humans, we are nourished by the process.
>
>The author, Anita T. Sullivan (anita@proaxis.com), 08/07/97
>Piano tuning combines art and science. I'm a piano tuner and I wrote this
>book to try to figure out the bizarre process of "setting a temperament",
>which is where you begin when you tune a piano. It turns out that what the
>piano tuner does on the piano is a kind of miniature version of the whole
>history and philosophy of "Western" music.
>
>___________________________
>Avery Todd, RPT
>Moores School of Music                  (__)
>University of Houston                   (oo)        Mathematical Cow
>Houston, TX 77204-4893         /---------\/     (Developer of cow-culus)
>713-743-3226                  / | x=a(b)||
>713-743-3226                 *  ||------||
>atodd@uh.edu                    ~~      ~~
>http://www.music.uh.edu/ 
>
>
>
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