In music, just intonation or pure intonation is the attempt to tune all musical intervals as whole number ratios of frequencies. An interval tuned in this way is said to be pure, and may be called a just interval; when it is sounded, no beating is heard. Just intervals consist of members of a single harmonic series of an implied fundamental. For example, in the diagram, the notes G3 and C4 may be tuned as members of the harmonic series of the lowest C, in which case their frequencies will be 3 and 4 times, respectively, the fundamental frequency and their interval ratio equal to 4:3; they may also be tuned differently.
Microtonal music or microtonality is the use in music of microtones—intervals smaller than a semitone, also called "microintervals". It may also be extended to include any music using intervals not found in the customary Western tuning of twelve equal intervals per octave. In other words, a microtone may be thought of as a note that falls between the keys of a piano tuned in equal temperament. In Revising the musical equal temperament, Haye Hinrichsen defines equal temperament as “the frequency ratios of all intervals are invariant under transposition, i.e., to be constant. The standard twelve-tone equal temperament (ET), which was originally invented in ancient China and rediscovered in Europe in the 18th century, is determined by two additional conditions. Firstly the octave is divided into twelve semitones. Secondly the octave, the most fundamental of all intervals, is postulated to be pure (beatless), as described by the frequency ratio 2:1.”
Harry Partch was an American composer, music theorist, and creator of musical instruments. He composed using scales of unequal intervals in just intonation, and was one of the first 20th-century composers in the West to work systematically with microtonal scales. He built custom-made instruments in these tunings on which to play his compositions, and described his theory and practice in his book Genesis of a Music (1947).
Benjamin Burwell Johnston Jr. was an American contemporary music composer using just intonation. He was called "one of the foremost composers of microtonal music" by Philip Bush and "one of the best non-famous composers this country has to offer" by John Rockwell.
James Tenney was an American composer and music theorist. He made significant early musical contributions to plunderphonics, sound synthesis, algorithmic composition, process music, spectral music, microtonal music, and tuning systems including extended just intonation. His theoretical writings variously concern musical form, texture, timbre, consonance and dissonance, and harmonic perception.
Xenharmonic music is that which uses a tuning system which neither conforms to nor closely approximates the common 12-tone equal temperament. The term xenharmonic was coined by Ivor Darreg, from xenia, "hospitable," and xenos "foreign." He stated it as being "intended to include just intonation and such temperaments as the 5-, 7-, and 11-tone, along with the higher-numbered really-microtonal systems as far as one wishes to go."
John Schneider is an American classical guitarist. He performs in just intonation and well-temperament, including Pythagorean tuning, including works by Lou Harrison, LaMonte Young, John Cage, and Harry Partch. He often arranges pieces for guitar and other instruments such as harp or percussion.
Otonality and utonality are terms introduced by Harry Partch to describe chords whose pitch classes are the harmonics or subharmonics of a given fixed tone (identity), respectively. For example: 1/1, 2/1, 3/1,... or 1/1, 1/2, 1/3,....
An Otonality is that set of pitches generated by the numerical factors (...identities)...over a numerical constant in the denominator. Conversely, a Utonality is the inversion of an Otonality, a set of pitches with a numerical constant in the numerator over the numerical factors...in the denominator.
Ervin Wilson was a Mexican/American music theorist.
Newband is a contemporary music ensemble devoted to the performance of microtonal music. The group was founded in 1977 by musicians Stefani Starin and Dean Drummond. As a youth, Drummond performed with maverick composer Harry Partch in a unique ensemble of microtonal instruments that Partch designed and built himself; Drummond performed in the premieres of Partch’s Daphne of the Dunes, And on the Seventh Day Petals Fell in Petaluma, and Delusion of the Fury, as well as on both Partch Columbia Masterworks recordings made during the late 1960s.
Damien Ricketson is an Australian composer of contemporary classical music. He is best known for his innovative compositional practice and in his capacity as the co-founder and co-artistic director of Ensemble Offspring. He is currently a lecturer and program leader in composition at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, of which he is also an alumnus.
An experimental musical instrument is a musical instrument that modifies or extends an existing instrument or class of instruments, or defines or creates a new class of instrument. Some are created through simple modifications, such as cracked drum cymbals or metal objects inserted between piano strings in a prepared piano. Some experimental instruments are created from household items like a homemade mute for brass instruments such as bathtub plugs. Other experimental instruments are created from electronic spare parts, or by mixing acoustic instruments with electric components.
David B. Doty is an American composer and authority on just intonation. He is the author of The Just Intonation Primer.
Pete McRae is an American rock guitarist.
Genesis of a Music is a book first published in 1949 by microtonal composer Harry Partch (1901–1974).
Dean Drummond was an American composer, arranger, conductor and musician. His music featured microtonality, electronics, and a variety of percussion. He invented a 31-tone instrument called the zoomoozophone in 1978. From 1990 to his death he was the conservator of the Harry Partch instrumentarium.
In musical tuning systems, the hexany, invented by Erv Wilson, represents one of the simplest structures found in his Combination Product Sets.
Marc Sabat is a Canadian composer based in Berlin since 1999.
Gregory Marcellus Schiemer is an Australian electronic music composer, instrument builder, and teacher. His artistic preoccupations include creative engagement with new technology, music created for non-expert performance and intercultural-interfaith dialogue.
Jon Catler is an American composer and guitarist specially known for playing microtonal guitars like 31-tone equal tempered guitar, a 62-tone just intonation guitar, and a fretless neck. He is the member of Catler Bros and Willie McBlind bands.
