Microtonal music

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(Redirected from Microtone)

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 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.

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:


More recent composers composing microtonal music include:

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).

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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 an eighth-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 British rock act My Vitriol make use of microtonal tunings on their debut album Finelines, which features songs tuned a quarter step down from E in order to better emphasize vocalist Som Wardner's ethereal singing style.

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

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Source

  • Burns, Edward M. (1999). "Intervals, Scales, and Tuning", The Psychology of Music second edition. Deutsch, Diana, ed. San Diego: Academic Press. ISBN 0122135644.
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External links

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General


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Discussion of tuning theory and microtonal music

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Theory pages

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Discography

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Microtonal music on the web

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See also

es:Microtono he:מוזיקה מיקרוטונאלית ja:微分音 sv:Mikrotonal musik

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