Microtonality, anyone?

Now I understand how much you all hate the topic of tonality being brought up and all, but this -is- different.

Does anybody here actually enjoy the concept or any products of the concept of micro-tonality? If so, can you tell me why, and can you then point out any composers of micro-tonal music that you enjoy listening to? Also, any interesting articles or writings you've read would be nice to know about.

I ask because I am interested in micro-tonality and it's possibilities.

I love Alois Haba and... that's about it. I'm not that big into microtonal music but I DO love messing with tuning/etc. IF the thread can also be about tuning, I do recommend the original version of White man Sleeps from Kevin Volans with the harpsichords tuned to african-like scales.

And, anyway, we're all just tired of some kid coming around and "OMG TONALITY

Thanks for your input. And yes, anything having to do with something other than the 12 tone equal temperament is welcome.

Well, "in-between" tones are widely used in other cultures' musics, such as in China, Japan, Bali or Africa for example. And even before the equal temperament, a lot of the intervals used to be slightly different to what they are now.

So if you're referring to micro-tonality within the western equal-temperament system, then well, it's fun. A lot of people in the 16th and early 17th centuries experimented with microtonal keyboards and different divisions of the octave, but none of them became standardised. Haba and Carillo did a lot of stuff on microtonality back in the beginning of the century - there's this amazing book by Gardner Read on microtonal notation (which has, though, an intense introductory chapter with a lot of historic background on microtonal music).

I personally enjoy a lot of Penderecki (more like clusters, but including a lot of microtones), a lot of Xenakis, Murail and Nicola LeFanu's "Catena" for 11 solo strings - which I find absolutely brilliant (check it out on naxos music library - using the free 15-minute preview). I've used quarter-tone bending in a few of my pieces, mainly because I like taking advantage of the freedom in terms of pitch production instruments offer (which is why I don't like using the piano together with other instruments - because most pianos are tuned in an equal-temperament system and are much less versatile in that aspect than, say, the violin, the flute or the trombone).

It's possibilities? Endless. But so are the possibilities of just the 12 tones of equal temperament. Stravinsky famously said "I know that the twelve notes in each octave and the variety of rhythm offer me opportunities that all of human genius will never exhaust. " So, don't worry about how much the material you're using has to offer, but how much you can do with it :) (because that's what matters in the end.)

As a side note, I was having a conversation today with someone over old baroque tuning systems and so on, and it wouldn't be a stretch to say that the western tradition has also dealt with quarter tones and many different ways to split up those 12 tones over the octave. Hell, there was even an attempt, when enharmony wasn't standard in keyboard instruments, to have extra keys for, say, Eb and D#, or what was more typical, keys that were divided (typically Eb/D#) in two so players could opt between Eb or D#.

Also interesting how keys that got more use, such as A minor, C major, D major, etc would lead to having instruments usually tuned like C# Eb F# G# Bb (black keys only of course.) So when you wanted to play, say, a b major chord, that Eb there would sound rather "atrocious" since Eb and D# were actually different.

And, interestingly, there's Kuhnau that in one of his biblical sonatas (the one about David and Goliath) used a "wrong" chord specifically to symbolize Goliath falling. I'm not sure which chord it was, but it was like the example above. Having a B major chord but instead of having D# you had Eb and it sounded entirely differently. It's not unimaginable for composers to use these tuning differences also in other ways and to cause other effects.

Far removed from the immutable tempered A 440 concert tuning standard, eh?

PS:

Here's a WONDERFUL recording of it on youtube on a clavichord tuned exactly like I was talking about! Very cool!

and here's the score: http://imslp.org/wiki/Musicalische_Vorstellung_einiger_Biblischer_Historien_(Kuhnau%2C_Johann) Yay. OH, in case anyone was wondering, the "wrong" chord is the F minor chord that shows up with the Ab, where the tuning doesn't really follow since the piece needs a G#, not an Ab. It ONLY shows up until that point in Goliath's fall.

PS: More interesting stuff:

Ligeti for the same tuning. :>!

Thought that was worth reposting here.

Thank you very much, jujimufu, for your suggestions.

And SSC, that was worth reposting, thank you.

I'm in the process of looking these things up now.

I don’t know if this is called “microtonality” but…

I have an electronic piece called “Horizontes Op.13”, I made it with computer synthesizers, and is created in “Sonido 13”, a scale of 13 semitones, (the Opus number was pure coincidence).

(First I had to create every single note using these frequencies:

01 - 523.2511 Hz (So-called “Octave”)

13 - 496.0826 Hz

12 - 470.3246 Hz

11 - 445.9042 Hz

10 - 422.7517 Hz

09 - 400.8014 Hz

08 - 379.9909 Hz

07 - 360.2607 Hz

06 - 341.5551 Hz

05 - 323.8207 Hz

04 - 307.0071 Hz

03 - 291.0666 Hz

02 - 275.9537 Hz

01 - 261.6255 Hz (Middle C)

I made 4 kinds of “timbres” with 4 “Octaves” each)

I Composed this work because I wanted to know exactly what is working with "Sonido 13", what is capable to produce this scale that was originally used by Mexican Composer “Juli

...does anyone knows how could be the writing form of an 13 semitones scale ???

Try some of these: Alternative Music Notations Guided Tour | The Music Notation Project

Thanks robinjessome, I found useful your link

Microtonality is the way of the future, however we must first kill off all the furry things that require washing and scrubbing.

SSC: Alois Haba is going to take some getting used to; I liked the White Man Sleeps piece from Kevin Volans; I also found the Ligeti you posted to be very interesting.

jujimufu: Xenakis is also a composer I could get used to; I actually really liked Nicola LeFanu's "Catena" for 11 solo strings; and the more I hear Penderecki's music, the more I like it (actually, that goes for any composer - I'm just really liking Penderecki).

By the way, who are some other female composers?

You all have my thanks.

Busoni wrote this essay in 1907, titled 'Sketch of a new esthetic of music'. Among others, it broached on microtonality.

Sketch of a new esthetic of music - Google Book Search

La Monte Young - Master. His style is a mix of electrical precision and old Indian style. His work for just-tuned piano is epic. He's also a student of Moondog, who is credited with starting the modern minimalist movement by people like Glass. Here's an exerpt from the "Theater of Eternal Music"

Harry Partch - Master. He invented his own system, forwarded all of Just-intonation theory, and invented numerous wonderful instruments to play his equally wonderful works. I rank him with Monteverdi and Berlioz in terms of his musical theater. Here's him playing his

just found this: http://infohost.nmt.edu/~jstarret/Listen.html

and this: http://www.dalleh.com/djd/infusions/pro_download_panel/download.php?

and this: http://works.music.columbia.edu/~chris/micromidi/

I'm not at my own computer so I don't have many links. Will post some later.

The whole idea of "microtonality", though, is silly, because it instantly connects 12 equal temperament with a "standard" tonal organization, which is clearly limiting at best. Any string player will tell you that a d-flat is a different tone than c-sharp, and the only thing telling us otherwise is an old compromise called the tempered keyboard. So bad has it gotten that many people (especially in so called atonal or serial schools) don't even view sharps and flats as anything more than typographical options (there was a thread on here if you can find it, asking when it was appropriate to use sharps or flats. The vast majority gave no thought to the tonal implications at all).

In terms of notation, the link robin gave is good, but self experimentation is usually the best. But overall, the sagittal system is my favourite. Though I never use it in it's codified form, I was using arrows for some time and this system is a vast refinement on that idea.

P.S. join the yahoo tuning group ;)

By the way, who are some other female composers?

Missed this.

Margo Schulter, a medieval music master and microtonal figure-head, is also a female.

(:

All great info - funny this came up because I was having a related conversation with Nate.

If any of you Europeans have a chance get ye to an organ concert to hear Buxtehude krebs and 16th and early 17th century organ works on instruments using meantone - half-meantone and a variety of tunings - especially the organs in northern germany and Scandinavia (Sweden and Denmark and the areas north and nrotheast of Berlin - I believe - have a very high concentration of these organs).

For Americans it is much harder to find BUT if you live near Rochester new York Eastman School of music has some fantastic historical recreations - meantone temperment organs, a organ built in accordance to Italian baroque organs, a pedal clavichord. I hope to get out there this summer for one of their music festivals (unrelated note i especially recommend their Improvfest - a whole festival devoted to classical improv!)

Oh, to add to this - some Rennaissance vocal groups will tell you they disregard to a significant extent a rigid well tempered tuning - depending on the work and the structure singers adjust their tones by a several cents (I got this info directly from one of the members of Pomerium - an early music vocal group that i heard perform a wonderful modern work a few years ago - A Aeolian never sounded so beautiful!).

Thank you very much, cygnusdei, Nik Mikas, and composerorganist; I look forward to researching these things in more detail.