Microtonal music
Microtonal music is
music using
microtones â€"
intervals of less than an
equally spaced semitone, or as
Charles Ives put it, the "notes between the cracks" of the piano.
The term
Microtonal music refers to any music whose
tuning is not based on
Equal Tempered semitones, such as:
* western
just intonation* Indonesian
gamelan music*
Indian classical musicAn alternative term explicitly covering such possibilities is
xenharmonic music.
Microtonal scales that are played contiguously are
chromatically microtonal; those which are not use the various contiguous pitches as alternative versions of larger intervals (Burns, 1999).
The Italian
Renaissance composer and theorist
Nicola Vicentino (
1511-
1576)
experimented with microintervals and built for example a keyboard with 36 keys to the octave, known as the
archicembalo. However Vicentino's experiments were primarily motivated by his research (as he saw it) on the ancient Greek
genera, and by his desire to have acoustically pure intervals available within chromatic compositions.
While experimenting with his violin in 1895,
Julian Carrillo (
1875-
1965)[
1]discovered the sixteenths of tone, i.e., sixteen clearly different sounds between the pitches of G and A emitted by the fourth violin string. He named his discovery
Sonido 13(13th sound). Julian Carrillo reformed theories of music and physics of music. He invented a surprisingly easy musical notation based on numbers that can represent scales based on any musical interval within the octave, like thirds, fourths, quarters, fifths, sixths, sevenths, and so on (even if Carrillo wrote, most of the time, for quarters, eights, and sixteenths combined, the notation is able to represent any imaginable subdivision). He invented, adapted, and made new musical instruments that can produce microintervals. He composed a large amount of microtonal music and recorded about 30 of his compositions. Carrillo was nominated for the
Nobel Prize in
Physics in
1950 because of his work about the node law.
Some Western composers have embraced the use of microtonal
scales, dividing an
octave into
19,
24,
31,
53,
72,
88, and other numbers of
pitches, rather than the more common 12. The intervals between pitches can be equal, creating an
equal temperament, or unequal, such as in
just intonation or
linear temperament.
The American
hardcore punk band
Black Flag (1976-86) made interesting vernacular use of microtonal intervals, via guitarist
Greg Ginn, a
free jazz aficionado also familiar with modern classical. (During their peak in the late '70s and early '80s, long before American punk was mainstream, the band was considered, not unwarrantedly, a thuggish and hostile street unit, although time has given their work a considerable measure of musical acclaim.) A worthwhile song is "Damaged II," from 1981's
Damaged LP â€" a live-in-studio recording in which intentional (and surprisingly scale-aware) use of quarter- and eighth-steps suggests a guitar in danger of detonation. Another is "Police Story," most versions of which end in a cadence played a quarter-tone sharp, to similar effect.
Other rock artists using microtonality in their work include
Glenn Branca (who has created a number of symphonic works for ensembles of microtonally tuned electric guitars) and Jon and Brad Catler (who play microtonal electric guitar and electric bass guitar).
The American band Zia founded by composer Elaine Walker has released several partially microtonal rock albums since the early 1990s. Their works include use of the
Bohlen-Pierce scale. http://www.ziaspace.com/ZIA/sections/music.html
*
Arab tone system and
maqam*
Harry Partch's 43-tone scale*
Fokker periodicity blocks*
Bohlen-Pierce scale*
Genus (music)*
Harmony*
Just intonation*
Microtuner*
Lucy Tuning*
Quarter tone*
Raga*
ScalaWestern microtonal pioneers
Pioneers of modern Western microtonal music include:
*
Krzysztof Penderecki*
Henry Ward Poole (keyboard designs, 1825-1890)
*
Charles Ives (U.S., 1874-1954)
*
Julián Carrillo (Mexico, 1875-1965) look
here or
here (mostly Spanish but some English too)
*
Béla Bartók (Hungary, 1881-1945)
*
George Enescu (Romania, 1881-1955) (in
Oedipe to suggest the
enharmonic genus of
ancient Greek music)
*
Alois Hába (Czechoslovakia, 1893-1973)
*
Ivan Wyschnegradsky (U.S.S.R. (Russia), 1893-1979)
*
Harry Partch (1901-1974)
*
Eivind Groven (1901-1977)
*
Hans Luedtke (keyboard designs, d.1973)
*
Henk Badings (1907-1987)
*
Giacinto Scelsi (1915-1982)
*
Lou Harrison (1917-2003)
*
Tui St. George Tucker (1924-2004)
*
Ben Johnston (b. 1926)
*
Ezra Sims (b. 1928)
*
Erv Wilson (b. 1929)
*
Sofia Gubaidulina (b. 1931)
*
Alvin Lucier (b. 1931)
*
Easley Blackwood (b. 1933)
*
James Tenney (b. 1934)
*
Terry Riley (b. 1935)
*
La Monte Young (b. 1935)
*
Douglas Leedy (b. 1938)
*
Wendy Carlos (b. 1939)
Recent microtonal composers
*
Glenn Branca (b. 1948)
*
David First (b. 1953)
*
Paul Dirmeikis (b.1954)
*
Kyle Gann (b. 1955)
*
Kraig Grady (b. 1952)
*
Pascale Criton (b. 1954)
*
Johnny Reinhard (b. 1956)
*
Joe Monzo (b. 1962)
*
Harold Fortuin (b. 1964)
*
Marc Luis Jones (b. 1966)
*
Adam Silverman (b. 1973)
*
Manfred Stahnke (b. 1951)
*
Geoff Smith*
Daniel James Wolf (b. 1961)
*
James Woods*
François Paris*Burns, Edward M. (1999). "Intervals, Scales, and Tuning",
The Psychology of Music second edition. Deutsch, Diana, ed. San Diego: Academic Press. ISBN 0122135644.
General
*
Joe Monzo's Tonalsoft Encyclopedia of Microtonal Music Theory*
Huygens-Fokker Foundation Centre for Microtonal Music*
John Starrett's Microtonal Music Page*
The American Festival of Microtonal Music*
The Centre for Microtonal Music*
Graham's Microtonal Website*
Modes and Scales in Indian music*
The North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island*
Xentonic â€" Xenharmonikon, Interval, etc.*
Hearing Greek Microtones by John Curtis Franklin
*
Groven Piano ProjectMicrotonal tuning theory
*
The Tuning List*
The Tuning-math List*
Making Microtonal MusicTheory pages
*
The Wilson Archives*
Paul Erlich*
LucyTuning*
Graham Breed*
Gene Ward Smith*
Kees van ProoijenDiscography
*
Microtonal music on CD*
Carl Lumma's Top Ten microtonal albums*
Recommended Listening in Microtonal Synthesis*
Microtonal Listening ListMicrotonal music on the web
*
Kyle Gann*
Rick McGowan (b. 1958)*
LucyTuned Lullabies*
Samuel Pellman*
Jeff Harrington*
Andrew Heathwaite*
Ralph Jarzombek*
Aaron Krister Johnson*
Joseph Pehrson*
Prent Rodgers*
Carlos Sampaio*
Gene Ward Smith*
Dan Stearns*
Art of the States: microtonal/just intonation microtonal works by American composers
*
The International Society for Creative Guitar and String Music* [
2]List of Microtonal works available on CD
Microtuners and other microtonal music software
*
L'il Miss' Scale Oven (Mac)*
Max Magic Microtuner (Mac)*
Scala (Windows, Linux, Mac)*
Tobybear MicroTuner VST plugin (Windows)*
Tonescape (Windows)
