Microtonal music

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Microtonal music is music using microtones — intervals of less than an equally spaced semitone, or as Charles Ives put it, the "notes between the cracks" of the piano. A looser definition includes anything not in 12-tone equal temperament, while a stricter definition distinguishes between microtonal music and xenharmonic music.

1 Terminology
2 History
3 Microtonalism in rock music
4 See also
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Terminology

The term microtonal music can refer to a variety of different kinds of music. By one definition, it refers, to any music whose tuning is not based on the equal tempered twelve semitones, such as:

Since quarter tone and sixth- and eighth-tone music is based on the 12 equal semitones of conventional western music, likewise Claude Debussy's whole-tone (6 equal pitches per octave, or every other note of the 12 note equal tempered tuning) compositions, this definition would appear to exclude quarter-tone and sixth- and eighth-tone music from consideration as "microtonal," since it is based wholly on the 12 equal pitches of contemporary Western tuning. Ditto Debussy's alien-sounding whole-tone compositions. This leaves us in the position of having to say that music which sounds distinctly unlike anything in conventional Western music (like Debussy's Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune) is nonetheless not microtonal.

Microtonal music may alternatively refer only to music which sounds audibly different from conventional Western music. According to this definition, five-limit diatonic just intonation and meantone do not qualify as microtonal, while Indonesian music does, but not Indian classical music.

By another definition, microtonal music may refer to all music which departs in any way from the conventional 12 exactly equal pitches of current theoretical Western usage. This would exclude Debussy's whole-tone compositions, but would include essentially all of the world's non-western music. In particular, music which makes use of the entire pitch continuum, such as that created on the theremin, would de facto be considered microtonal under the third definition.

An 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 sounds that the uniquely designed microtonal musical instrument may make will use alternate divisions of a scale. For instance, microtonalists may play within octaves divided up into consistent seventeen, nineteen, twenty-one and onward increments.

The reason microtonalists do this is that each unique division of the octave dictates certain harmonies that are available. Once you have heard other divisions of the scale and their harmonic basis, it becomes obvious that the usual twelve semi-tone scale is based on the constant restlessness of the dominant seventh. The nineteen tone scale has many exotic harmonic variations available, such as those heard in middle-eastern music. The 31 tone equal scale sounds calming, "like a rainbow." (Jonathon Glasier & Ivor Darreg)

[edit] History

If we define as "microtonal" any Western tuning which fails to conform to the 12 putatively logarithmically equal pitches per octave of contemporary European/North American music, then to a first approximation all Western music throughout history qualifies as microtonal, since the European use of 12 equal pitches per octave represents a recent innovation dating from roughly the year 1750. Since Western music dates back to at least 500 B.C. courtesy of Greek music theory texts, and since none of that music used 12 equal pitches per octave, the tuning used today in Europe and North America is a newfangled novelty which accounts for only 10% of the history of Western music.

The earliest music of which a written record exists anywhere on earth appears to be the Hurrian Hymn. This music was probably microtonal, though interpretation of the Hurrian records has been disputed.

We know from Babylonian cuneiform tablets that they used what are today called "Pythagorean" tunings. (That is, cycles of perfect fifths successively stacked upon one another and wrapped around within the octave.) Babylonian seven-note Pythagorean tuning is found on the cuneiform tablet U7/40 in the British Museum, among others.

The Hellenic civilizations of ancient Greece also left fragmentary records of their music—c.f., the Dorian Hymn. Of the tuning of ancient Greek music we have a comprehensive record, courtesy of Aristoxenos' surviving text on music. The ancient Greeks divided the octave into two sets of tetrachords—that is to say, four-note scales placed one above the other. The placement of individual pitches within these two stacked tetrachords determined the seven notes of the the Greek tuning within the octave. Greeks recognized three genera of tetrachords: the enharmonic, the chromatic, and the diatonic, all employing unequal pitches to the octave. Each of these 3 genera use what we today would call "just intonation," i.e., they are defined by ratios of integers. While the chromatic and the diatonic genera sound very similar to the contemporary Western diatonic seven note tuning used today, the Greek enharmonic genus made prominent use of an approximate quartertone. Thus the Greek enharmonic genus qualifies as a distinctively microtonal tuning whichever way you define microtonality (as the use of intervals smaller than a semitone, or as a tuning which sound distinctly different from the conventional western tuning used today).

As M. Joel Mandelbaum has pointed out in his PhD thesis "Multiple Division Of the Octave and the Tonal Resources of the 19 Tone Temperament" (1960), scholarship done on the Montpellier Codex suggests that it records microtonal tunings, probably the Greek enharmonic. Thus the evidence appears to show that microtonal tunings survived and were commonly used late into the medieval period.

Meantone tunings date from the early 1490s, as scholars such as Richard Taruskin and Patrizio Barbieri have pointed out. Such meantone tunings sound essentially identical to conventional Western tunings of 12 equal pitches per octave as long as the composer restricts his/herself to a narrow compass of musical keys close to the root note of the tuning (i.e., if the meantone tuning is tuned starting with C, the keys close to C major will sound indistinguishable from conventional Western music; distant keys, however, like Eb minor, will contain highly audible exotic musical intervals.) Some early composers, however, deliberately wandered far afield from the root note of meantone tunings, producing highly microtonal effects in their music. One prominent example is "Ut, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La" by the British virginal composer John Bull (composed sometime between the 1580s and 1610, and included in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book). Such extensive modulation in meantone tuning sounds "wolf" fifths and other exotic musical intervals not found in contemporary Western music using 12 equal pitches per octave, and probably qualifies as "microtonal" music (depending on the specific definition of microtonality).

One-third-comma meantone corresponds almost exactly to 12 pitches selected out of a gamut of 19 equal tones per octave, while 1/4-comma meantone is almost identical to 12 pitches selected out of a gamut of 31 equal tones per octave. Several French composers of the 17th century made use of this fact by designing keyboards for 19 equal pitches to the octave, which in effect permitted 1/3-comma meantone to be played in all possible keys with no "wolf" notes. 17th century scientists and musician Christiaan Huyghens promoted the use of 31 equal pitches, as this would allow 1/4-comma meantone to be played in all possible key signatures without "wolf" fifths. Huyghens also advocated the use of the just seventh, ratio 7/4, in Western music, and he described it as an unrecognized musical consonance.

Guillaume Costeley's well-known "Chromatic Chanson", "Seigneur Dieu ta pitié" of 1558 used 1/3 comma meantone and explored the full compass of 19 equal pitches in the octave, making use of audibly microtonal intervals like the 63-cent interval of 1/19 of an octave.

The Italian Renaissance composer and theorist Nicola Vicentino (1511-1576) [1] 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 beatless intervals (when played with near-harmonic-series timbres) available within chromatic compositions.

Johann Kuhnau's composition "Der Kampf zwischen David und Goliath," composed around 1700 in meantone, makes prominent and aggressive use of the exotic intervals available in meantone—specifically, the "wolf" fifth. Such a composition probably qualifies as microtonal, depending on the definition of microtonality.

Jacques Fromental Halévy composed a quarter-tone work for soli, choir and orchestra "Prométhée enchaîné" in 1849, and European composers produced an ever-increasing number of microtonal compositions as the 19th century waned and the 20th century began.

By the 1910s and 1920s, a fad emerged for quarter tones (24 equal pitches per octave), inspiring composers as Charles Ives, Julián Carrillo, Alois Hába, Ivan Wyschnegradsky, and Mildred Couper. Such was the popularity of 24 equal during the late teens and 1920s, for example, that Erwin Schulhoff gave classes in quarter-tone composition at the Prague Conservatory. Béla Bartók came late, and only sporadic, to quartertones (e.g. in his Sonata for violin solo, which uses quarter tones in an essential manner).

Alexander John Ellis, who in the 1880s produced a translation with extensive footnotes and appendices to Helmholtz's On the Sensations of Tone, proposed an elaborate set of exotic just intonation tunings. Ellis also studied the tunings of non-Western cultures and, in a report to the Royal Society, determined that they did not use either equal divisions of the octave or just intonation intervals. Ellis inspired Harry Partch immensely.

During the Exposition Universelle of 1889, Claude Debussy heard a Balinese gamelan performance and was exposed to their non-Western tunings and rhythms. Some scholars have ascribed Debussy's subsequent innovative used of the whole-tone (6 equal pitches per octave) tuning in such compositions as "Voiles" and Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune to his exposure to the Balinese gamelan at the Paris exposition.^{[citation needed]}[Gary Don's article in Music Theory Spectrum would do nicely.] Berliner's introduction of the phonograph in the 1890s allowed much non-Western music to be recorded and heard by Western composers, further spurring the use of non-12-equal tunings.

While experimenting with his violin in 1895, Julian Carrillo(1875-1965)[2] 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 (the thirteenth sound). Julian Carrillo reformed theories of music and physics of music. He invented a simple numerical musical notation that can represent scales based on any division of 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 new musical instruments, and adapted others to produce microintervals. He composed a large amount of microtonal music and recorded about 30 of his compositions.

Major microtonal composers of the 1920s and 1930s include Alois Hába (quarter tones, or 24 equal pitches per octave, and sixth tones), Julian Carillo (24 equal, 36, 48, 60, 72, and 96 equal pitches to the octave embodied in a series of specially custom-built pianos) and the early works of Harry Partch (just intonation using ratios of prime integers 3, 5, 7, and 11).

Prominent microtonal composers or researchers of the 1940s and 1950s include Adriaan Daniel Fokker (31 equal tones per octave), Partch again (continuing to build his handcrafted orchestra of microtonal just intonation instruments) and Ivor Darreg (who built the first fully retunable electronic synthesizer capable of any division of the octave, just or equal or non-just non-equal).

Prominent microtonal composers of the 1960s and 1970s include John Eaton (who created his own microtonal synthesizer, the Syn Ket, to produce microtonal intervals), Ivor Darreg again (who augmented his home-built orchestra of instruments to include guitars refretted in equal temperaments 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, and 31, as well as the magalyra series of sub-contrabass steel guitar instruments), Harry Partch, Easley Blackwood (who composed and performed the well-known Twelve Microtonal Etudes for Electronic Music Media with compositions in every equal division of the octave from 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23 and 24 equal pitches per octave) and Augusto Novaro, the Mexican microtonal theorist who composed studies in 15 equal, among others. Barbara Benary also formed Gamelan Son of Lion around this period, and Lou Harrison was instrumental (all puns intended) in creating American gamelan orchestras at Mills College. In Europe, the "groupe itinéraire", also known as "The Spectralists" in Paris, created their first works with an extensive use of microtonal harmony. The main composers are Hugues Dufourt, Gérard Grisey, Tristan Murail and Michael Levinas.

Since the 1980s, with the advent of commercial inexpensive fully retunable synthesizers like the Yamaha TX81Z (1987), microtonal composers have proliferated to such an extent that a list of composers who have produced at least one microtonal composition nearly subsumes the entire list of practicing composers. The more recent advent of fully retunable softsynths like ZynAddSubFx which can produce microtonal music in real time on any modern general purpose desktop computer has merely served to expand the usage of microtones in contemporary music. It is now rare to encounter a contemporary composer who does not periodically dabble in microtonality.

Some Western composers have embraced the use of equal tempered 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 or non-just non-equal-tempered tunings such as are found in the Balinese gamelan. The vast majority of the world's indigenous music does not use the conventional Western tunings of 12 logarithmically equal pitches per octave, nor does it use just intonation or linear tunings. From the Banda Linda people of central Africa (who strongly prefer an "octave" of 1150 cents), to the Ba Benzele pygmies, to the Balinese, to various native peoples of South America, essentially all of the world's indigenous peoples use non-just non-equal-tempered tunings. Framing any discussion of musical tunings solely in terms of equal divisions of the octave or just intonation therefore represents a significant bias in favor of Europe and North America -- which account for less than 20% of the world's population and only a small fraction of the world's music. From the point of view of indigenous world music composed outside Europe and North America, all the world's music is effectively microtonal.

[edit] Microtonalism in rock music

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 — 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.

Elliott Sharp's groups Carbon, Tectonics and Terraplen make extensive use of just intonation microtonality to intensely dissonant and vibrant effect. Los Angeles guitarist Rod Poole has produced a number of rock-oriented xenharmonic CDs.

The band Crash Worship made use of Ivor Darreg's megalyra subcontrabass microtonal instrument for both xenharmonic and industrial noise purposes.

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).

Experimental luthier Yuri Landman built a custom made string instrument called the Moodswinger for Aaron Hemphill of the Liars with a special microtonal overtone-scale for resonating stringpositions.

Microtonality often appears to occur in popular rock music in contexts where it is not notated or explicitly described as microtonal, but is nonetheless quite audible. Obvious examples include the guitar introduction to the The Doors' song "The End", the extremely and unmistakably microtonal vocal line in Sinead O'Connor's songs -- most notably on "Nothing Compares 2 U," -- and in the microtonal bass lines in songs like Siouxsie and the Banshees' "Israel." A full list of audibly microtonal tracks in popular rock music would probably include an example by most of the pop groups to have released albums between 1953 and the present.

Microtonal jazz has also made a niche for itself, as for example in albums released by Lothar and the Hand People, the xenharmonic intonational inflexions of John Coltrane, and many others.

[edit] See also

[edit] Western microtonal pioneers

Pioneers of modern Western microtonal music include:

Henry Ward Poole (keyboard designs, 1825-1890)
Charles Ives (U.S.A., 1874-1954, quartertones, just pythagorean tuning)
Julián Carrillo (Mexico, 1875-1965) many different Equal Temperaments, look here or here (mostly Spanish but some English too)
Béla Bartók (Hungary, 1881-1945, rare uses of quartertones)
George Enescu (Romania, 1881-1955) (in Oedipe to suggest the enharmonic genus of ancient Greek music)
Percy Grainger (Australia, 1882-1961, particularly works for his "free music machine")
Mildred Couper (U.S.A., 1887-1974, quartertones)
Alois Hába (Czechoslovakia, 1893-1973, quartertones and other ETs)
Ivan Wyschnegradsky (U.S.S.R. (Russia), 1893-1979, quartertones and other ETs)
Harry Partch (U.S.A., 1901-1974, Just Intonation)
Eivind Groven (1901-1977)
Henk Badings (The Netherlands, 1907-1987)
Giacinto Scelsi (Italy, 1915-1982, intuitive linear tone deviations)
Lou Harrison (U.S.A., 1917-2003, Just Intonation)
Ivor Darreg (U.S.A., 1917-1994)
Jean-Etienne Marie (France, 1919-1989, different ETs)
Iannis Xenakis (Greece, 1922-2001)
Tui St. George Tucker (1924-2004)
Ben Johnston (U.S.A., b. 1926, Extended Just Intonation of Partch)
Ezra Sims (U.S.A., b. 1928, 72 tone ET)
Erv Wilson (b. 1929)
Alvin Lucier (U.S.A., b. 1931)
Joel Mandelbaum (U.S.A., b. 1932)
Easley Blackwood (b. 1933)
James Tenney (U.S.A., 1934-2006, Just Intonation)
Terry Riley (U.S.A., b. 1935, Just Intonation)
La Monte Young (U.S.A., b. 1935, Just Intonation)
Douglas Leedy (b. 1938)
Wendy Carlos (U.S.A., b. 1939, non octaving scales)
Bruce Mather (Canada, b.1939, different ETs, following Wyschnegradsky)

[edit] Recent microtonal composers

Hugues Dufourt (b. 1943)
Clarence Barlow (b. 1945)
Gérard Grisey (1946-1998)
Max Méreaux (b. 1946)
Tristan Murail (b. 1947)
Claude Vivier (1948-1983)
Glenn Branca (b. 1948)
Michael Levinas (*1949)
Manfred Stahnke (b. 1951)
Kraig Grady (b. 1952)
David First (b. 1953)
Georg Friedrich Haas (b. 1953)
Wolfgang von Schweinitz (b. 1953)
James Wood (b. 1953)
Paul Dirmeikis (b.1954)
Pascale Criton (b. 1954)
Kyle Gann (b. 1955)
Pascal Dusapin (b. 1955)
Johnny Reinhard (b. 1956)
Erling Wold (b. 1958)
Georg Hajdu (b. 1960)
Daniel James Wolf (b. 1961)
François Paris (b.1961)
Joe Monzo (b. 1962)
Harold Fortuin (b. 1964)
Richard D. James (b. 1971)
Adam Silverman (b. 1973)
Yuri Landman (b. 1973)
Geoff Smith

[edit] Microtonal researchers

Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695)
Adriaan Daniël Fokker (1887-1972)
Ivan Wyschnegradsky (1893-1979)
Alois Hába (1893-1973)
Harry Partch (1901-1974)
Joel Mandelbaum (b. 1932)
James Tenney (1934-2006)
Horst-Peter Hesse
Hugues Dufourt (b. 1943)
Clarence Barlow (b. 1945)
Georg Friedrich Haas (b. 1953)
Georg Hajdu (b. 1960)
Bob Gilmore (b. 1961)

[edit] References

Burns, Edward M. 1999. "Intervals, Scales, and Tuning." In The Psychology of Music. Second edition, ed. Diana Deutsch. San Diego: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-213564-4.
Mandelbaum, M. Joel. 1960. "Multiple Division Of the Octave and the Tonal Resources of the 19 Tone Temperament." PhD thesis,^{[citation needed]}[University, City].

[edit] External links

[edit] General

[edit] Microtonal tuning theory

[edit] Theory pages

[edit] Discography

[edit] Microtonal music on the web

Kyle Gann
Rick McGowan (b. 1958)
LucyTuned Lullabies
Paul Dirmeikis (b. 1954)
Samuel Pellman
Jeff Harrington
Andrew Heathwaite
Ralph Jarzombek
Aaron Krister Johnson
Joseph Pehrson
Prent Rodgers
Carlos Sampaio
Dan Stearns
Shaahin mohajeri
Mildred Couper (b. 1887)
Art of the States: microtonal/just intonation microtonal works by American composers
The International Society for Creative Guitar and String Music
[3]List of Microtonal works available on CD
[4] Seventeen Tone Piano Project Phase One
[5] Seventeen Tone Piano Project Phase Two

[edit] Microtuners and other microtonal music software

L'il Miss' Scale Oven (Mac)

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