Science Fair Project Encyclopedia
Microtonal music
Microtonal music is music using microtones -- intervals of less than a semitone, or as Charles Ives put it, the "notes between the cracks" of the piano. The term is also used to refer to any music whose tuning is not based on semitones, such as western just intonation, Indonesian gamelan music and Indian classical music. An alternative term explicitly covering such possibilities is xenharmonic music.
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 arcicembalo . 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.
Some Western composers have embraced the use of microtonal scales, dividing an octave into 19, 24, 31, 43, 72 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 .
Pioneers of modern Western microtonal music include:
- 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)
- Alois Hába (Czechoslovakia, 1893-1973)
- George Enescu (Romania, 1881-1955) (in Oedipe to suggest the enharmonic genus of ancient Greek music )
- Ivan Wyschnegradsky (U.S.S.R. (Russia), 1893-1979)
- Harry Partch (1901-1974)
- Eivind Groven (1901-1977)
- Giacinto Scelsi (1915-1982)
- Lou Harrison (1917-2003)
- Sofia Gubaidulina (born 1931)
- Alvin Lucier (born 1931)
- Easley Blackwood (born 1933)
- James Tenney (born 1934)
- David First (born 1953)
- Ben Johnston (born 1926)
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 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, long before American punk was mainstream, the band was considered as a thuggish and hostile street-unit -- time has given their work an amount of musical acclaim.) A worthwhile song is "Damaged II," from 1981's Damaged LP -- a live-in-studio recording in which intentional use of quarter- and eighth-steps suggests the guitar as in danger of detonation. Another is the solo of "Rise Above," from the same album, which ends with a phrase played sharp, to similar effect.
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See also
Source
- Burns, Edward M. (1999). "Intervals, Scales, and Tuning", The Psychology of Music second edition. Deutsch, Diana, ed. San Diego: Academic Press. ISBN 0122135644.
External links
General
- Joe Monzo's Encyclopedia of Tuning
- Huygens-Fokker Foundation Centre for Microtonal Music
- John Starrett's Microtonal Music Page
- The American Festival of Microtonal Music
- The Centre for Microtonal Music
- Modes and Scales in Indian music
- Xentonic -- Xenharmonikon, Interval, etc.
- Hearing Greek Microtones by John Curtis Franklin
- Groven Piano Project
Discussion of tuning theory and microtonal music
Theory pages
Discography
- Microtonal music on CD
- Carl Lumma's Top Ten microtonal albums
- Recommended Listening in Microtonal Synthesis
Microtonal music on the web
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