Jacob Barton

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//What was your path to discovering alternate tunings?//
I began music very early and was fortunate enough to have MIDI software and hardware from about age 8. By high school, I was over sequencing and into writing for acoustic instruments, even planning to build some new ones. Doing a music theory project in I stumbled upon LucyTuning and Partch's //Genesis of a Music//, fascinated by the seemingly wide-open possibilities of an extended pitch continuum.

And yet, months went by as I searched to no avail for microtonal music that did what I wanted music to do (a hard enough task without the microtonal). Through that process I got a lot less picky in listening - MIDI sounds don't bother me so much, for instance. A big step in the search was realizing that people were calling this stuff "microtonal music". When I found some writings by Ivor Darreg, I found that his pan-intonational approach fit me better than Partch's more centered view. (I'm very diffuse!)

//What instruments or means have you successfully used in the making of microtonal music? Recommendations?//
Here are the things I've tried, in roughly chronological order, which I've called "Microtonal Solutions", many of which involve Western acoustic instruments:
# obtain a **reed organ** and retune the reeds. Scrape the tips to raise pitch; scrape base of reeds to lower. I retuned a low-end electric-motor organ to 3 octaves of harmonics 12-24 and called it "otonal organ". Good for JI, but hard to get exactly right. It's still not exactly right.
# synthesizer (MR-Rack) with a user tuning table. I wrote a piece where the tuning was supposed to change between sections, so I rigged **Max/MSP** to send the appropriate sysex messages triggered by a pedal. Piece was for 3 live keyboards, but in performance I accidentally hit the pedal too many times and was stuck playing two sections in the wrong tuning - yuck!
# when **Scala**'s GUI version became available for Mac I made quick friends with the live retuning feature, detwelvulating my QS8, which has robust samples. Still a favorite for auditioning new scales.
# tried to teach an ensemble (clarinet, bass, cellos, violin, kazoo) to play 72-equal using **Helmholtz-Ellis-Wilson-Monzo** notation. Disaster! The signs < and > were oft-confused, and I was really only interested in a small subset of the 72 notes -- more complexity than I needed.
# tried to learn 31-tone fingerings for bassoon, after Johnny Reinhard. Relatively successful, though timbral unevenness between some notes. Hope to do more of it in the future. I welcome any **31-tone bassoon** compositions anyone wants to throw at me.
# tried to teach an **ensemble** (violin, saws, bass, trombones, bassoon) to play **in 31**, notated normally. it really came down to the attitude of the individuals, some of which were better than others. the main problem is a lack of pedagogical materials. i hope to generate some in my lifetime.
# scratched that and went to **bottle choir**. much like handbells, the challenge all of a sudden was not in tuning at all but in lining up rhythms to make hocket melodies. highly successful and fun recommended! was toying with starting an ongoing bottle choir for awhile.
# piece in **8-equal** (sesquitones!) for **chamber ensemble** (violins, cello, flute, oboe, clarinet, udderbot, slide trumpet, trombone, horn). hastily written and rehearsed; results inconclusive. slide instruments fared better than keyed, but the limits of difficulty were breached.
# short sketch of **string quartet** in a simple 9-out-of-**quartertones** scale. not too shabbily read!
# two Bb **clarinets**, but with one tuned a **sixth-tone** (33¢) flat for a composite 24-out-of-36 scale. The clarinet is already not really in 12, and even less so when pulled out. Such a constraint on 36 would make any reasonable xenharmonicist complain, but I found a lot of nice 7-limit stuff as I wrote the piece. Recommended.
# **[[SeventeenTonePianoProject]]**. I was really really happy with this, but again, it's a compromise of what an instrument natively designed for 17 could do.
# **[[http://www.udderbot.com|udderbot]]**, a new slide bottle, played in any tuning imaginable. cheap and intuitive. like trombone, much depends on what you can hear. i'm working up a piece in 31 right now, and I hope to commission numerous microtonalists for **solo** pieces in the near future.

Original HTML content:

<html><head><title>JacobBarton</title></head><body><em>What was your path to discovering alternate tunings?</em><br />
I began music very early and was fortunate enough to have MIDI software and hardware from about age 8. By high school, I was over sequencing and into writing for acoustic instruments, even planning to build some new ones. Doing a music theory project in I stumbled upon LucyTuning and Partch's <em>Genesis of a Music</em>, fascinated by the seemingly wide-open possibilities of an extended pitch continuum.<br />
<br />
And yet, months went by as I searched to no avail for microtonal music that did what I wanted music to do (a hard enough task without the microtonal). Through that process I got a lot less picky in listening - MIDI sounds don't bother me so much, for instance. A big step in the search was realizing that people were calling this stuff &quot;microtonal music&quot;. When I found some writings by Ivor Darreg, I found that his pan-intonational approach fit me better than Partch's more centered view. (I'm very diffuse!)<br />
<br />
<em>What instruments or means have you successfully used in the making of microtonal music? Recommendations?</em><br />
Here are the things I've tried, in roughly chronological order, which I've called &quot;Microtonal Solutions&quot;, many of which involve Western acoustic instruments:<br />
<ol><li>obtain a <strong>reed organ</strong> and retune the reeds. Scrape the tips to raise pitch; scrape base of reeds to lower. I retuned a low-end electric-motor organ to 3 octaves of harmonics 12-24 and called it &quot;otonal organ&quot;. Good for JI, but hard to get exactly right. It's still not exactly right.</li><li>synthesizer (MR-Rack) with a user tuning table. I wrote a piece where the tuning was supposed to change between sections, so I rigged <strong>Max/MSP</strong> to send the appropriate sysex messages triggered by a pedal. Piece was for 3 live keyboards, but in performance I accidentally hit the pedal too many times and was stuck playing two sections in the wrong tuning - yuck!</li><li>when <strong>Scala</strong>'s GUI version became available for Mac I made quick friends with the live retuning feature, detwelvulating my QS8, which has robust samples. Still a favorite for auditioning new scales.</li><li>tried to teach an ensemble (clarinet, bass, cellos, violin, kazoo) to play 72-equal using <strong>Helmholtz-Ellis-Wilson-Monzo</strong> notation. Disaster! The signs &lt; and &gt; were oft-confused, and I was really only interested in a small subset of the 72 notes -- more complexity than I needed.</li><li>tried to learn 31-tone fingerings for bassoon, after Johnny Reinhard. Relatively successful, though timbral unevenness between some notes. Hope to do more of it in the future. I welcome any <strong>31-tone bassoon</strong> compositions anyone wants to throw at me.</li><li>tried to teach an <strong>ensemble</strong> (violin, saws, bass, trombones, bassoon) to play <strong>in 31</strong>, notated normally. it really came down to the attitude of the individuals, some of which were better than others. the main problem is a lack of pedagogical materials. i hope to generate some in my lifetime.</li><li>scratched that and went to <strong>bottle choir</strong>. much like handbells, the challenge all of a sudden was not in tuning at all but in lining up rhythms to make hocket melodies. highly successful and fun recommended! was toying with starting an ongoing bottle choir for awhile.</li><li>piece in <strong>8-equal</strong> (sesquitones!) for <strong>chamber ensemble</strong> (violins, cello, flute, oboe, clarinet, udderbot, slide trumpet, trombone, horn). hastily written and rehearsed; results inconclusive. slide instruments fared better than keyed, but the limits of difficulty were breached.</li><li>short sketch of <strong>string quartet</strong> in a simple 9-out-of-<strong>quartertones</strong> scale. not too shabbily read!</li><li>two Bb <strong>clarinets</strong>, but with one tuned a <strong>sixth-tone</strong> (33¢) flat for a composite 24-out-of-36 scale. The clarinet is already not really in 12, and even less so when pulled out. Such a constraint on 36 would make any reasonable xenharmonicist complain, but I found a lot of nice 7-limit stuff as I wrote the piece. Recommended.</li><li><strong><a class="wiki_link" href="/SeventeenTonePianoProject">SeventeenTonePianoProject</a></strong>. I was really really happy with this, but again, it's a compromise of what an instrument natively designed for 17 could do.</li><li><strong><a class="wiki_link_ext" href="http://www.udderbot.com" rel="nofollow">udderbot</a></strong>, a new slide bottle, played in any tuning imaginable. cheap and intuitive. like trombone, much depends on what you can hear. i'm working up a piece in 31 right now, and I hope to commission numerous microtonalists for <strong>solo</strong> pieces in the near future.</li></ol></body></html>