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.

Related Topics:
Music - Intervals - Semitone - Charles Ives - Tuning - Just intonation - Gamelan music - Indian classical music - Xenharmonic music

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

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 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.

Related Topics:
Renaissance - Nicola Vicentino - 1511 - 1576 - Arcicembalo - Genera

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

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.

Related Topics:
Scales - Octave - Pitch - Equal temperament - Just intonation - 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)
• 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)
• Henk Badings (1907-1987)
• Giacinto Scelsi (1915-1982)
• Lou Harrison (1917-2003)
• Tui St. George Tucker (1924-2004)
• Ben Johnston (b. 1926)
• Sofia Gubaidulina (b. 1931)
• Alvin Lucier (b. 1931)
• Easley Blackwood (born 1933)
• James Tenney (b. 1934)
• Terry Riley (b. 1935)
• La Monte Young (b. 1935)
• Wendy Carlos (b. 1939)

More recent composers composing microtonal music include:

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

• Glenn Branca (b. 1948)
• David First (b. 1953)
• Kyle Gann (b. 1955)
• Kraig Grady (b. 1952)
• Johnny Reinhard (b. 1956)
• Joe Monzo (b. 1962)

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).

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 
Microtonal music: Microtonalism in rock music ►